Geo test 2

The longest of all visible light waves are _____

Red

The reddish tint of the Sun in the late afternoon results from ________.

Scattering

Most of the radiation hitting the earth from the sun falls within the ______ part of the spectrum

Short wave

The site of the worlds record low average annual precipitation is on the continent of ______

South America

In the BS climatic type, the "S" stands for ________

Steppe

The "horse latitudes" are zones of minimal winds which are associated with the ______ system

Subtropical high pressure

The BWh climate is "caused" by the _______

Subtropical highs

Relative humidity is "relative" to

Temperature

_______ processes cause cooling by decompression

Adiabatic

A small island on the Equator would most likely be classified ________

Af

Tropical monsoon climate bears a letter of classification of _______

Am

At which locations are solar energy most concentrated?

At places where the angle of incidence is 90

The presence of the cold Humboldt current and the Andes Mountains help to create the costal ______ desert

Atacama

The midlatitude steppe fits into the Köppen classification as _______

BSk

The climatic type for the desert area is _______

BW

The area most closely associated with D climates is ________

Canada

If the regions of the United States, which has the highest incidence of tornadoes?

Central States

Among cloud types, those that occur at the highest altitudes are the ________

cirrus

The text makes frequent use of _________, which are charts showing average monthly temperatures and precipitation amounts

climographs

On a weather map, a symbol consisting of triangles arranged along one side of a line indicates a _______ front

cold

In the atmosphere, liquid water collects around minute particles called _______

condensation nuclei

Clouds of vertical development include the type called ________

cumulonimbus

Which type of cloud is associated with thunderstorms?

cumulonimbus

A counterclockwise atmospheric circulation in the northern hemisphere is known as an _______

cyclone

The pressure of a gas is proportional to its temperature and ______

density

White frost is simply a cold weather form of ________

dew

The region in which the intertropical convergence can be found is ________

equator

The transfer of moisture from land to air is termed ________

evapotranspiration

For many centuries before the present one, scholars believed that the world had ________ climatic zones

5

On the average, ________ fronts move the fastest of all fronts

Cold

A Cfa climate exists on the southeastern coast of the United States. Which climate type exists on the southwestern coast of the United States?

Csa

Of the main Köppen climate zones, ________ is the only one that does not occur in the Southern Hemisphere

D

T/F The tropics are characterized by a wide variation between temperatures of seasons

False

T/F Visible light makes up most parts of the electromagnetic spectrum

False

The three climate zones of the classical Greeks were "torrid," "temperate," and "___________"

Frigid

Evaporation is ______

Is a cooling process

Although several factors are involved, the main factor controlling the distribution of annual average temps for earth as a whole is

Latitude

Wind speed from the North Pole is from _______ to _______

NE to SW

Which of the following can be said to be the "death" of midlatitude cyclone?

Occlusion

The only major country still using the Fahrenheit scale for temperature determination is _____

The USA

_______ is the critical temperature at which saturation is reached

The dew point

The rising and subsequent cooling of air at the rate of 10 C per 1,000 meters is called _______

The dry adiabatic lapse rate

The movement (track along the ground) of middle latitude cyclones is determined by ______

The jet stream

Hurricane destruction to land coastlines is made worse when this feature - not prominent in all hurricanes - is present

The storm surge

A "dynamic low" is produced by _______

The strong rise of air

Overall the Southern Hemisphere has a milder winter than the northern hemisphere bc

There is more water in the Southern Hemisphere

A ________ is a linear zone of lower pressure between two areas or high pressure

Trough

T/F Conduction comes about through molecular collision

True

T/F Sea level is currently rising bc of global warming

True

T/F The general circulation of the oceans is a major mechanism for the transfer of energy from the Tropics to the Poles.

True

Presently, the most widely used classification system was derived by ________

Wladimir Köppen

The Kelvin scale is based on

absolute zero

Sinking air that diverges when it reaches Earth's surface is closely associated with ________

anticyclones

Gas molecules in the lower atmosphere _______

are readily compressed and heated

Trade winds are found _______

at 10° north and south of the Equator

Of the list below, the coldest air is bound to be associated with a _______ air mass

cP

The desert would be the obvious zone of origin of a _________ air mass

cT

The lowercase letter symbolizing "moist with no dry season" in the Köppen classification system is _______

f

The damage done in New Orleans by Hurricane Katrina was mainly a result of ________

flooding from the failure of levees

Which of the following happens LAST before a tornado drops to the ground?

formation of a mesocyclone

The energy emitted from the sun is a product of

fusion

Above the influence of friction, most winds follow a ________ course

geostrophic

As a middle latitude cyclone goes through its life cycle, the warm sector _______

gets smaller

Over the ENTIRE past 70 million years there has been ________

global cooling

Advection is a ______ wind movement

horizontal

Global dimming is caused by ________

human release of aerosols

Oxygen isotope analysis is used when studying _______ and climate change

ice cores

The Bergeron process is also known as the ______ process

ice crystal formation

The capacity of air to hold water _______

increases as temperature increases

Solar energy is also known as

insolation

The process of evaporation of water to gas releases stored energy called

latent heat

The altitude at which rising air reaches the dew point temperature is the ________

lifting condensation level

The main reason for the occurrence of subtropical deserts around the world is _______

locations of anticyclones

Earth's reradiation to space consists mainly of ________

long rays

At earths surface, warm temperatures are associated with ______

low pressure

When air is heated it expands and ______

lowers its pressure

The current rise in global sea level can be attributed to ________

melting glaciers

The basic unit of pressure mapped on weather maps is ______

millibars

Liquid converts to gas when ______

molecules break loose from the liquid

Which of the following is closely associated with acid rain?

motor vehicle exhaust

Which front is shown on weather maps as a line with alternating semicircles and triangles on the same side of the line?

occluded front

Flowing air responding to the difference between higher and lower pressure is responding to the ________

pressure gradient

Which of the following is the force that initially causes the wind to blow?

pressure gradient

Albedo is the percentage of energy ________ from an object compared to the original amount of energy that struck the object.

reflected

If air's capacity for holding water vapor is diminished, then the relative humidity will ________

rise

Air containing all of the water vapor it can hold is ________

saturated

Deserts are arid; steppes are ________

semiarid

Air that resists vertical movement is said to be ________

stable

When neither air mass displaces the adjacent one, their boundary is called a(n) ________ front

stationary

The Köppen system of climate classification is based on _______

temperature and precipitation

If there were no continents and the earth did not rotate, the surface wind patterns would be simple: Surface winds would blow from ______

the North in the Northern Hemisphere

Rising air, warmed by the release of latent heat, cools at a rate called ________

the saturated adiabatic lapse rate

The reason wind exists is ________

the unequal heating of the Earth system

The _______ is the boundary between near-surface and cold, deep ocean waters

thermocline

Most of the wettest areas around the world are located in the _____

tropics

In most classification schemes, which principal indicator is used to delineate five zones and their subtypes?

vegetation types

Which type of front causes many hours of steady rain BEFORE that front passes a location?

warm

El Niño is most closely associated with ______

weakening of a cold current