Ch 4 Flashcards
First 10 miles closest to Earth
Troposphere
Above troposphere (10-31 mi)
Stratosphere
3 primary reasons to unequal heating
Angle at which sun’s rays strike earth, variation in amount of surface area, and some areas reflect more light than others
Reflectivity of a surface
Albedo
Max amount of water possible in air
Saturation point
Caused by change in pressure when air rises or sinks
Adiabatic heating/cooling
Happens when water vapor condenses, becomes liquid, and heat is released
Latent heat release
Global air movement patterns initiated by unequal heating
Convection currents
Circulation of convection currents
Hadley cells
Area of Earth that receives most intense sunlight
Intertropical convergence zone (ITCZ)
Deflection of an object’s path that occurs Bc of earth’s rotation
Coriolis effect
Large-scale water patterns circulating clock-wise in northern hemisphere, counter-clockwise in Southern Hemisphere (surface currents)
Gyres
Upward movement of deep waters
Upwelling
Driven by water that is usually salty
Thermohaline Circulation
Happens when warm ocean currents heat up continents
Heat Transport
Happens every 3-7 yrs; is a change in normal wind patterns, results in suppression of upwellings
El Niño Southern Oscillation
Effect involving air and winds with the mountains
Rain shadow
Areas possessing similar temp/precipitation patterns, and therefore have similar plant and animal life
Biomes
Show temp/precip patterns in biomes
Climate diagrams
Subsoil permanently frozen; found in tundra
Permafrost
Fast moving sections of rivers, put more dissolved oxygen into the water
Rapids
Lakes zones
Littoral, limnetic, profundal, and benthic (shallow to bottom)
Floating algae, starts aquatic food chain
Phytoplankton
Happens when algae die
Coral bleaching
