Geography Midterm

The Hadley cell circulation cause all of the following along the ITCZ

-weak surface winds -strong uplift -heavy rains

Of the following areas what would tend to have the warmest air temperatures on a give day. -A rural forest -A suburban housing development -A city center

A city center

____ are the primary producers of a food web

Plants

Lifting a parcel of air cools it through a process called

adiabatic cooling

When a blast of cold air from Canada reaches Florida, it is an example of _______ energy transfer

advection

Weather conditions associated with an anticyclone include

clear skies

Atmospheric pressure _____ with elevation

decreases

Over geologic time, the fate of all species is

extinction

Cloud families are classified according to

height of the cloud base

The only effective way to get clear air to form clouds is to lower its air pressure and cool it by

lifting it

Visible clouds consist of

liquid water or ice droplets

On a temperature map, temperature gradients are _______ to isotherms

perpendicular

All of the following help keep rural areas cooler than adjacent urban areas

-Evaporation -Transpiration -Albedo

The following all provide evidence of the Earth's shape

-Illumination patterns of clouds during sunset -Disappearance of ships below the ocean horizon -Photos from space

Of these locations ____ would be likely to experience the smallest annual temperature range. -Manaus, Brazil -Aswan, Egypt -Hambug, Germany -Yakutsk, Siberia

-Manaus, Brazil

The desert biome is characterized by all of the following

-aridity -widely spaced or no plant cover -dry-adapted animal species

Of the following fronts, ___ is most likely to generate cumulonimbus clouds and severe thunderstorms -stationary -occluded -warm -cold

-cold

Water heats and cools more slowly than land surfaces due to all of the following:

-high specific heat capacity -light penetrates into water -water bodies are mixed by wind and waves

Increases in global cloud cover might results in all of the following:

-increased precipitation in some regions -increased absorption and counter-radiation of long wave energy -increased albedo and reflection of insolation

Of the following air masses, ___ would be likely to contain the most water vapor:

-mT -cP -cT -mP

Oxygen is ___% of the atmostphere

21

The surface wind system known as the trade winds is labled ___ on the illustration below

3

The earth was formed about ___ years ago

4,550,000,000

Tropical cyclones generally form from

8-15 degree N or S

____% of the global water is in the oceans

97

Of the following precipitation regimes _____ would likely experience the wettest single month -wet equatorial -moist subtropical -Asiatic monsoon -Mediterranean

Asiatic monsoon

The imaginary straight line that passes through teh center of the Eart hand the poles is known as the

Axis

Of the following plants, ____ is an example of a sclerophyll -Douglass fir -Orchid -wheat -California live oak

California Live Oak

The direction of the Earth's rotation is to the

East

T/F: A thermometer can measure latent heat

False

T/F: Summer temperatures are generally higher over oceans than over continents

False

T/F: The change of seasons during the year is due to the earth's elliptical orbit around the sun

False

T/F: The poles tend to have lower albedo than the landmasses around the equator.

False

T/F: Winds are named for the direction toward which they blow, but for the directions from which they blow

False

The noon zenith angle is zero at its northernmost point on

June 21

Of the following precipitations regimes, ____ generally has a dry summer -moist continental -equatorial -Mediterranean -Asiatic monsoon

Mediterranean

____ acts on the variation that occurs within populations of species to produce _____

Natural selection, evolution

Can any map project the entire surface of the Earth without any distortion

No

T/F: At an equinox, the circle of illumination does pass through both the North and South Poles

True

T/F: On December 21, all latitudes inside the Antarctic Circle are in daylight for 24 hours

True

Maritime locations tend to experience ____ winters and ____ summers than continental locations at the same latitude.

Warmer winters and cooler summers

Of the following, which is not a form of precipitation

advectional

The proportion of incident shortwave energy that is reflected by a surface is known as the ______ of the surface

albedo

Traveling wave cyclones form

along the polar front

The coastal-continental location of a place has a strong influence on

annual temperature range

Electromagnetic energy is a wavelike form of energy radiated by

any substance possessing heat

Net primary production of an ecosystem is measured in terms of the amount of _____ created per square meter annualy

biomass

Within terrestrial ecosystems, the largest recognizable subdivision is the

biome

Photosynthesis creates

carbohydrates

The movement of carbon atoms through various ecosystems is called the

carbon cycle

The annual cycle of prevailing weather conditions at a given place based on long-term conditions is known as

climate

In ecological succession, an ecosystem proceeds through serial stages to reach a

climax

A continental polar air mass would tend to bring _____ conditions when it arrived in an area

cold, dry

The subtropical high pressure belts are zones of

descending air and clear conditions

The ozone layer in the upper atmosphere is essential for life on the planet because, the full intensity of the sun's ultraviolet rays would

destroy bacteria and damage animal tissue.

When lifted air cools to its equilibrium vapor pressure, its ______ temperature is reached

dew-point

The capacity for an individual to move from a location of origin to a new site is called

dispersal

In the central US, the tall-grass prairie lies to the ___ of the short-grass prairie.

east

Species restricted to a single region or location are called

endemic

A temperature regime that experiences consistent high temperature with little seasonality is the

equatorial

The adiabatic principle states that when gas _____, its temperature _____

expands, decreases

Low latitude rain forest, mid latitude deciduous forest and needle leaf forest are formations within the

forest biome

The savanna biome is intermediary between the grassland biome and the ___ biome

forest biome

Temperature inversions can cause problems for agriculture because they may contribute to

frost

Slop steepness, orientation to the sun and topographic relief are examples of __ conditions that influence plant and animal distributions -geomorphic -edaphic -climatic -disturbance

geomorphic

The electromagnetic waves the sun gives off have higher energy than those the earth gives off, and therefore

have a shorter wavelength

Pressure gradients drive winds to flow from ___ pressure to ____ perssure

high to low

A line on a map that connects points of equal pressure is called an

isobar

The band of rapidly flowing air found aloft above the polar front is a

jet stream

A map marked with the ____ has the _____

largest fraction, largest scale

In the North Atlantic, the peak of hurricane season occurs during

late summer to early autumn

Heat that is absorbed and stored in a gas or liquid during the processes of evaporation, melting, or sublimation is

latent heat

When air warms, it becomes

less dense

Where vegetation changed due to elevation differences, bio geographers have set a series of ___ zones, such as Upper Sonoran

life

Air is a _____ of gases

mixture

The wind system driven by the pressure patterns shown below is called a

monsoon

Temperature increases with elevation in the stratosphere because of the

ozone layer

Line connecting points of the same latitude are also called

parallels

Earth's axis tils at 23.5 degrees from the

plane of the ecliptic

Rossby waves form along the

polar front

A tongue of cold air from the mid-latitudes that penetrates into very low latitudes is known as a

polar outbreak

When water vapor is colder the amount of water that can remain a gas is

reduced

The term ___ compares the actual amount of moisture in the air with the amount that would be there if water vapor pressure was at equilibrium

relative humidity

The opposite process to photosynthesis is

respiration

In the northern hemisphere, the Coriolis effect causes winds and currents to veer to the

right

A clear sky appears blue in the daytime because of

scattering of light by gases

The oak and woodland on the California coast is a

sclerophyll forest

A local wind system that flows from ocean to land during the late afternoon is called a

sea breeze

The actual quantity of water vapor in a parcel of air is its

specific humidity

The stratopause is located between the

stratosphere and mesosphere

The precipitation pattern of the dry tropical climate is

summer wet

The major criteria used to identify air masses are

temperature and moisture

When the earth is in the position to be illuminated as shown in this figure:

the day length is 12 hours everywhere on earth

The Boreal Forest climate is found in

the northern part of North American and Eurasia

The fastest wind speeds are found in

tornadoes

The layer of the atmosphere in which most weather phenomena, including clouds and storms, occur is known as the

troposphere

T/F: Oceans do heat and cool more slowly and to a lesser extent than do land masses

true

T/F: The general circulation of the oceans is a major mechanism for the transfer of energy from the tropics to the polar regions

true

Plants that grow, bloom and set seed very quickly are characteristic of the ____ biome

tundra

Continental tropical (cT) air masses would be

warm and dry