Download Atmospheric moisture and precipitation

Physical Geography, Chapter 4
Learning Objectives and Study Questions
1. Predict whether a given change of state for water (e.g., from vapor to liquid or solid to liquid) will
result in latent heat being absorbed or released.
2. Rank the following hydrologic reservoirs from largest to smallest: streams, glaciers and ice caps,
atmosphere, groundwater, and oceans.
3. Estimate the maximum specific humidity of a body of air if you know its temperature, and calculate
its relative humidity if you also know its actual moisture content.
4. Use the adiabatic principle to predict whether a body of air will warm or cool as it moves vertically
and briefly explain why such warming or cooling occurs.
5. Identify common types of clouds and fog, and briefly describe how they form.
6. Distinguish among precipitation due to orographic, frontal, convergent and convectional
precipitation lifting, and outline the conditions under which each of these processes occurs.
7. Describe the key effects of human activities on both the chemistry and amount of precipitation as
well as Earth’s cloud cover.
1. Water will release latent heat as it undergoes all of the following transitions except _____.
A. freezing
B. evaporation
C. condensation
D. deposition
E. actually, it releases latent heat during all of these transitions
2. The largest reservoir of fresh water on Earth is/are _____.
A. atmosphere
B. rivers and streams
C. groundwater
D. ice sheets and glaciers
E. soil moisture
3. Precipitation that falls on Earth’s land surface undergoes which of the following processes?
A. evaporation
B. infiltration
C. runoff
D. storage (e.g. glaciers)
E. all of the above processes
4. According to Figure 4.5 (p. 102) the maximum amount of water vapor that a parcel of air at 25°C can
hold is about _____ g of water per kilogram of air.
A. 15
B. 20
C. 26
D. 30
E. indeterminate, cannot tell
5. The dew point temperature of a parcel of air that contains 10 g of water per kilogram of air is about
_____°C.
A. 8
B. 10
C. 13
D. 17
E. indeterminate, cannot tell
6. The relative humidity of a body of air that is at 20°C and contains 12 g of water per kilogram of air is
_____ %.
A. 15
B. 20
C. 24
D. 60
E. 80
7. A parcel of air _____ as it rises, due to ______.
A. cools, compression
B. cools, expansion
C. warms, compression
D. warms, expansion
E. stays same temperature, stronger insolation
8. The rate at which air cools as it rises is less if condensation is occurring because of the _____.
A. subtle change in atmospheric composition
B. release of latent heat
C. loss of condensation nuclei
D. insulating effects of clouds
E. effects of increased humidity
9. Clouds and fog consist of tiny water droplets suspended in the air except for the high altitude _____
clouds, which consist of ice crystals.
A. cumulus
B. stratus
C. stratocumulus
D. altostratus
E. cirrus
10. Precipitation formed by water droplets freezing as they fall through a layer of cold air near the
ground is called _____.
A. rain
B. snow
C. freezing rain
D. hail
E. firn
11. Mount Shasta receives more rainfall than the surrounding countryside because of its high elevation.
This is an example of _____ precipitation.
A. orographic
B. convectional
C. cyclonic
D. convergent
E. seasonal
12. Unstable conditions, under which a rising parcel of air can grow into a thunderstorm, occur where
the rising air is warm, moist and has adiabatic lapse rates (both dry and wet) that are _____ that of
the surrounding still air.
A. equal to
B. extremely variable relative to
C. greater than
D. less than
E. unknown relative to
13. The contamination of precipitation by industrial gases, such as sulfur dioxide (SO2) and nitric oxide
(NO2), _____ the precipitation’s pH to create acid rain.
A. buffers
B. counteracts
C. lowers
D. raises
E. strengthens
14. The increase in atmospheric water vapor that accompanies global warming is predicted to _____.
a. enhance warming
b. increase global cloud cover
c. increase the reflection of shortwave solar radiation
d. increase the absorption of longwave terrestrial radiation
e. lead to all of the above changes