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