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Confirming Pages
14
Atmosphere and Hydrosphere
CHAPTER OUTLINE AND GOALS
Your chief goal in reading each section
should be to understand the important
findings and ideas indicated (•) below.
The Atmosphere
14.1
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14.2
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14.3
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Regions of the Atmosphere
Four Layers
What the chief ingredients of dry air
near ground level are and their order
of abundance.
The distinguishing features of
the troposphere, stratosphere,
mesosphere, and thermosphere.
Where the ozone layer in the
atmosphere is located and why
it is important.
Atmospheric Moisture
Another Vital Cycle
What is meant by saturated air and by
the relative humidity of a volume of air.
Clouds
Some Are Water Droplets, Others Are
Ice Crystals
The three principal ways in which
clouds form.
What causes rain and snow to fall
from a cloud.
Weather
14.4 Atmospheric Energy
A Giant Greenhouse in the Sky
• The meaning of insolation and the
nature of the greenhouse effect.
• Why temperatures vary around the
earth.
14.5 The Seasons
They Are Due to the Tilt of the Earth’s
Axis
• How the seasons of the air originate.
14.6 Winds
Currents of Air Driven by Temperature
Differences
• What is meant by a convection current.
Hurricane Fefa east of Taiwan in 1991.
• How the coriolis effect influences wind
directions in the northern and southern
hemispheres.
14.7 General Circulation of the
Atmosphere
Alternate Belts of Wind and Calm
• The main wind systems of the world
and the belts of relative calm that
separate them.
• The properties of the jet stream.
• What El Niño and La Niña are and what
their influence is.
14.8 Middle-Latitude Weather Systems
Why Our Weather Is So Fickle
• How cyclones and anticyclones come
into being.
• The differences between cold and
warm fronts and between the weather
each brings.
• The life histories of tropical cyclones
and where they usually occur.
Climate
14.9
14.10 Middle- and High-Latitude Climates
Variety Is the Rule
• The reasons the United States has a
number of different climates.
• Why relatively little snow falls in the
polar regions.
14.11 Climate Change
An Icy Past, a Warm Future
• How variations in the earth’s motions
initiate ice ages.
The Hydrosphere
14.12 Ocean Basins
Water, Water Everywhere
• The structure of an ocean basin.
• What tsunamis are and how they can
originate.
14.13 Ocean Currents
Five Great Whirlpools
• How the oceans affect climate by
acting as heat reservoirs and by transporting heat by means of wind-driven
currents.
Tropical Climates
Hot and Wet or Hot and Dry
• How the characteristic weather
patterns of the tropics arise.
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