week 7 test questions
Almost ________ of Australia is desert.
40%
Of the 5 major groups in the Koppen classification system, which letter below indicates the classification that is based primarily on precipitation?
B
Climates where evaporation exceeds precipitation are called ________ climates.
Dry
________ discovered Jupiter's four largest moons.
Galileo
The true shape of the planetary orbits was discovered by ________.
Johannes Kepler
Tornadoes of F1 to F2 in strength account for ________.
Most Tornadoes Observed
The humid subtropical climate dominates the ________ United States.
Southeastern
The 5000 year old Stonehenge stone circle of Salisbury Plains, England, allows light shafts to come straight between two rocks on ________ in the Northern hemisphere.
Summer Solstice
In the Northern Hemisphere, tornadoes are most frequent during the ________.
a. April-June period
The first modern astronomer to propose a Sun-centered universe was ________.
a. Nicolaus Capernicus
After the center of a mature wave cyclone passes, you should expect ________.
a. barometric pressure to rise
Thunderstorms form from what type of cloud?
a. cumulonimbus
Kepler said that the ________ go(es) around the ________ on ________ orbits.
a. planets; Sun; elliptical
The updrafts in thunderstorms are initiated by thermal instabilities at the surface. What process tends to increase the vertical instability that feeds the thunderstorm development?
a. release of latent heat by condensation
Which of the following is typically not associated with the life cycle of a thunderstorm?
a. the development of stratus clouds
Midlatitude deserts and steppes form because ________.
a. they are in the interiors of continents
Which one of the following statements is not true of tornadoes?
a. usually occur along the warm front of a mid-latitude cyclone
When the center of circulation of a midlatitude cyclone just passes to your south, you expect ________.
a. winds shifting from the east or northeast to northwest during rainy (or snowy) weather
The length of daylight on the Moon is about ________.
about two weeks
Cold fronts and warm fronts in the middle latitudes are often associated with a ________.
answer is not b and c
An air mass that forms in the North Atlantic Ocean in winter over cold water and then comes ashore is a ________ mass.
b. Continental Polar air mass
Which of these men formulated the Law of Universal Gravitation?
b. Sir Isaac Newton
In which area of the United States are thunderstorms most common?
b. Southeast
If you live in the Midwestern United States or Canada and you experience several days of winter temperatures below -20 degrees C with clear weather, you are undoubtedly experiencing ________.
b. a Continental Polar air mass
When an active cold front overtakes a warm front, ________.
b. an occluded front forms
The precipitation associated with a warm front typically arrives ________ the actual frontal boundary.
b. considerably ahead of
When viewing the planets, Mars appears to move backwards, or retrograde, because ________.
b. it is rotating around the Sun slower than Earth's rotation
TV meteorologists often point at things labeled L on a map and describe them as low pressure centers. What are they?
b. midlatitude cyclones
According to the Ptolemaic (Greek) model of the universe, how many "heavenly" bodies could be observed wandering along the background of stars?
b. seven
Continental tropical air masses are most prominent in what part of North America?
b. the Southwestern United States and northern Mexico
The most luxuriant (abundant) vegetation found in any climatic realm is the ________.
b. tropical rain forest
The major difference in vegetation between the different humid tropical (A) regions is that ________.
b. wet tropical regions have rain forests, and tropical wet and dry regions have grasslands
Compared to places at lower elevations, highland climates are usually cooler and ________.
b. wetter
The wet tropics are limited to areas ________.
below 1000 meters of elevation
The ancient ________ divided each hemisphere into torrid, temperate, and frigid zones.
c. Greeks
The concept that Earth maintained a circular orbit around the Sun was suggested during the time of ________.
c. The Renaissance
Because surface winds circulate around a midlatitude cyclone, why do they move from west to east across North America?
c. The winds aloft, particularly the jet stream, move from west to east and steer the storm system.
Why were planets called "wanderers" by early astronomers?
c. They move relative to the stars.
Midlatitude anticyclones are typically centered on ________.
c. a maritime polar air mass
When a TV weather forecaster gives a forecast for "widely scattered afternoon thunderstorms," these storms are probably associated with ________.
c. an unstable air mass, probably maritime tropical air with thunderstorms driven by thermals in an unstable air mass
Which of the following is a part of the earth system that could be significantly impacted by climate and climate change?
c. deposition of sedimentary rocks
In a climatological sense, dryness is a function of both annual rainfall and ________.
c. evaporation
Where is the most severe weather typically located in a midlatitude cyclone?
c. just south of the center of circulation
Midwestern farmers used to say "mare's tail and mackerel scales bring the storm down on you head"; Mare's tails are cirrus clouds and mackerel scales are cirrostratus. When this sequence is followed by altostratus the old farmers were talking about an approaching ________ front.
c. warm
According to the Ptolemaic (Greek) system, the planets have ________ orbits.
circular
On a weather map, ________ fronts are shown by a line with triangular points on one side.
cold
Climate-feedback mechanisms ________.
complicate climate models
Lightning is most prominent in ________.
cumulonimbus clouds
The southeastern United States lies in the heart of the "horse latitudes" where normally we would expect desert conditions. Why isn't this area a desert?
d. Continental tropical air masses derived from Mexico disturb the pattern when these air masses are drawn northward by cyclonic storms.
Why has Doppler radar been very valuable in preventing loss of life by tornadoes?
d. It can detect development of thunderstorm rotation and mesocyclone formation associated with tornadoes.
The concept that Earth was a sphere was established around the time of ________.
d. The Ancient Greeks
A statement you will sometimes hear people say is that a day is not 24 hours but is really 23 hr. 56 min. and 4 sec. What does this refer to?
d. This is sidereal time, not solar time; a solar day is 24 hours.
You are in mid-latitudes in winter. You experience heavy snow followed by a dramatic drop in temperature as a cold front passes, but for almost 24 hours the weather is clear. Then, high clouds appear in the west, thicken to stratus clouds and you receive a light new snowfall (aka snow flurries) but the temperature remains cold. You have just seen the passage of ________.
d. an occluded front
Low latitude dry regions tend to ________.
d. be cloud free
The Tropic of Cancer and the Tropic of Capricorn were identified by the ancient Greeks as the ________.
d. boundaries between the moderate and hot areas on earth
A wind shift from south or southwest to northwest is commonly associated with the passage of a ________ front.
d. cold
One of the discoveries which led to the modern view of the solar system was that the orbits of the planets are ________.
d. elipses
In the past approximately 100 years, global temperatures have ________.
d. increased by nearly 1 degrees C
The apparent westward "drift" of the planets compared to the background stars is called ________.
d. retrograde motion
What is the modern explanation for "guest stars" that appear in the night sky and then disappear?
d. stars that go nova or supernova and appear as bright objects during the event and then go away
In the Gulf Coast region of the United States cold fronts intense spring floods are often associated with a phenomenon known locally as "training" where thunderstorms form along a line and follow the same line for hours. This is a classic example of severe weather along a ________.
d. stationary front
The low latitude dry regions coincide with ________.
d. the subtropical high pressure belts
A sidereal day is defined as ________.
d. the time for one complete revolution of the earth relative to the celestial reference
Relative to the celestial background, the Moon moves ________.
d. west to east
The apparent path of the Sun upon the celestial sphere is called the ________.
e. ecliptic
Coastal Alaska and Norway are in the ________ group of climates.
e. humid middle-latitude, mild winters
A Category 5 hurricane in the open water can obtain top wind speed comparable to ________.
f4 tornado
Koppen relied on ________ as a primary indicator of climate.
natural vegetation
Tornadoes most often move towards what direction?
northeast
"Rain long foretold, long last; short notice, soon past." The first five words of this weather proverb ________.
refer to a warm front
Which of the following should have the steepest pressure gradient?
tornado
On a weather map, ________ fronts are shown by a line with semicircles extending from one side.
warm
Usually ________ fronts produce several hours to days of moderate-to-gentle precipitation over a large region.
warm
The eye of the hurricane is
warmer than the rest of the storm
The ________ sides of mountains are often wet.
windward