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