Download Earth`s Water and Atmosphere Unit 4 Study Guide Ans. key

Earth’s Water and Atmosphere Unit 4 Study Guide

What is the dew point?
a. The temperature at which more condensation than evaporation occurs.

What is the difference between climate and weather?
a. Weather is the condition of Earth’s atmosphere at a certain time and place, and Climate
describes the weather conditions in an area over a long period of time.

What instrument is used to measure air pressure?
a. A barometer

What is air/atmospheric pressure?
a. The force of air molecules pushing on an area. It is affected by gravity.

What is a stationary method of collecting weather data?
a. Anything anchored or built to stay in one area at all times.

What instrument is used to measure wind speed?
a. An anemometer

What role does condensation play in weather?
a. Clouds form and then produce precipitation

What is the jet stream? How can it change temperatures in different parts of North America?
a. The jet streams are long-distance winds that travel above global winds for thousands of
kilometers. Warm and cold air masses can push the jet stream farther up or down the
continent.

What is humidity?
a. The amount of water vapor in the air. As more water evaporates, humidity of the air
increases.

How to different types of ocean currents affect coastal areas?
a. As the currents flow, they warm or cool the atmosphere above, affecting local
temperatures. Coastal areas may have lower summer temperatures than inland areas
because of cold-water currents.

What happens during El Nino conditions?
a. Starting around the end of December, the surface waters of the Pacific Ocean warm up
more than normal near the equator.

Why do weather systems move from west to east across the U.S.?
a. Because the jet stream flows from west to east, pushing weather systems with it.

What are surface currents?
a. Stream like movements of water that happen near the surface of the ocean.

What is wind?
a. Air that moves horizontally, or parallel to the ground due to the uneven heating of the
Earth.

Why do latitudes closer to the equator have warmer climates?
a. Latitudes closer to the equator receive more solar energy than latitudes away from the
equator.

What two factors determine the climate of an area?
a. Temperature and precipitation.

How do mountains affect climates?
a. They can create rain shadows when the warm, moist air rises over a mountain and
drops its precipitation on one side, leaving the other side dry and arid.

How to clouds affect the temperature of Earth’s surface?
a. They can reflect some sunlight back out to space keeping some surfaces cooler, and the
heat that clouds absorb from Earth’s surface is radiated back to the surface, which
makes Earth’s surface warmer.

What are the 3 different cloud types and what are their properties?
a. Cirrus – white and feathery, Stratus – thin, gray sheets, Cumulus – thick and fluffy.

How do clouds form?
a. Water droplets condense onto solid particles in the atmosphere.

What are the different cloud prefixes, and what do they mean?
a. Cirro/Cirrus – “curl”, Strato/Stratus – “layer”, Cumulo/Cumulus – “heap”,
Nimbo/Nimbus – “rain”

What are the 3 main climate zones, and where are they located?
a. Tropical – near the equator, Temperate – between 30 & 60 degrees latitude, and Polar latitudes greater than 66.5 degrees north or south.

How does fog form?
a. Water vapor that condenses very near Earth’s surface because moist air near Earth’s
surface or moving across cold water cools to its dew point.

What type of clouds do thunderstorms come out of?
a. Cumulonimbus

When is a tropical storm upgraded to a hurricane?
a. When the wind speed reach 119 km/h or more.

What is a storm surge?
a. A huge mass of ocean water that gets pushed onto coastal areas, causing sea levels to
rise several meters.

What is a tornado, and how do they form?
a. a destructive, rotating column of air with very high wind speeds that is often visible as a
funnel-shaped cloud. Formed when a horizontal rotating column of air is pushed
vertically by updrafts.

What is hail, and how does it form?
a. Pellets of frozen rain that fall in showers from cumulonimbus clouds. They form when
rain droplets get pushed high into the atmosphere by updrafts, freeze and then fall.
They can get larger if they keep getting pushed up into the atmosphere.

What type of energy from the sun can cause sunburn and skin cancer?
a. UV Radiation

What should you do during a flood?
a. Get to higher ground. Never try to traverse flood waters by foot or in cars.

What is thunder?
a. The sound created by the rapid expansion of air along a lightning strike.