chapter 3

Question 1

What is the absolute height of the atmosphere above earth’s surface?

Answer 1

• The absolute height of the earth’s atmosphere is 10,000 kilometres (6000 miles).

Question 2

How did Earths atmosphere develop?

Answer 2

• Our modern atmosphere, therefore, was significantly influenced by life on Earth. Processes such as photosynthesis by bacteria, terrestrial plants and other organisms that emitted oxygen while taking in carbon dioxide.

Question 3

Permanent gases: nitrogen and oxygen (each is what ? of the atmospheric volume?)

Answer 3

• Nitrogen makes up more than 78 percent of the total, and oxygen nearly 21 percent.

Question 4

How does oxygen originate in the atmosphere?

Answer 4

Oxygen is produced by vegetation and is removed by a variety of organic and inorganic processes

Question 5

Nitrogen’s source?

Answer 5

• Nitrogen is added to the air by the decay and burning of organic matter, volcanic eruptions, and the chemical breakdown of certain rocks

Question 6

Variable gases:

Answer 6

water vapor, carbon dioxide, ozone, other variable gases. Cover only a tiny portion of the atmosphere yet they have great control over the environment. In earths lower atmosphere, the typical percentage of water capor in dry air ranges from 0-4%.

Question 7

What is the concentration of carbon dioxide? What is the significance of this gas?

Answer 7

• The proportion of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has increased at a rate of more than 0.0002 percent (2 parts per million) per year and at present is about 401 parts per million
• Most atmospheric scientists conclude that the increased levels of CO2 are causing the lower atmosphere to warm enough to produce significant, although still somewhat unpredictable, global climatic changes.

Question 8

What are Particulates? (Aerosols)

Answer 8

• The solid and liquid particles found in the atmosphere are collectively called particulates or aerosols.

Question 9

Troposphere – what is most significant about this layer?

Answer 9

• The lowest layer of the atmosphere—the one in contact with Earth’s surface

Question 10

What happens to air temperature when rising through the troposphere?

Answer 10

• Within the troposphere, temperature generally decreases with increasing altitude

Question 11

Why doesn’t the atmosphere float away from Earth? Why doesn’t it collapse? What happens to atmospheric pressure with increasing altitude? Why?

Answer 11

• For simplicity’s sake, we can think of atmospheric pressure as the “weight” of the overlying air.

Question 12

What is Ozone? Where does it come from? Where is the Ozone Layer? What are CFCs?

Answer 12

• The ozone layer lies between 15 and 48 kilometers (9 and 30 miles) up. It is sometimes referred to as the stratospheric ozone layer because it is centered in the lower stratosphere

Question 13

What’s the “hole” in the Ozone Layer?

Answer 13

• the dramatic thinning of the ozone layer observed since the 1970s is due primarily (if not entirely) to the release of human-produced chemicals.

Question 14

What was the 1987 Montreal Protocol

Answer 14

• timetables for phasing out the production of the major ozone-depleting substances

Question 15

Primary pollutants are emitted directly from a source. Carbon Monoxide, Nitrogen / Sulfur compounds are significant pollutants. Why?

Answer 15

• By far the greatest contributors are associated with cities, where people and activities are concentrated, and particularly from internal combustion engines and industrial processes

Question 16

Secondary pollutants form when other pollutants react in the atmosphere. Photochemical Smog and ground-level Ozone: How do they originate?

Answer 16

• A number of gases react to ultraviolet radiation in strong sunlight, producing secondary pollutants (contaminants that form as a consequence of chemical reactions or other processes in the atmosphere)

Question 17

Consequences of anthropogenic Air Pollution? What role does energy production play?

Answer 17

• Consequences include cardiovascular disease and lung cancer

Question 18

Weather and Climate What is the definition of each?

Answer 18

• weather refers to short-term atmospheric conditions that exist for a given time in a specific area
• Climate is the aggregate of day-to-day weather conditions over a long period of time.

Question 19

What are the elements of Weather and Climate?

Answer 19

• It is the sum of temperature, humidity, cloudiness, precipitation, pressure, winds, storms, and other atmospheric variables for a short period of time.
• To describe the climate of an area requires weather information over an extended period, normally at least three decades.

Question 20

What geographic factors control Weather and Climate? Which one is most important?

Answer 20

• The most important are (1) temperaure, (2) moisture content, (3) pressure, and (4) wind
  Latitude, Altitude, Topography, Distribution of land and water General circulation of the atmosphere and General circulation of the oceans

Question 21

What is the Coriolis Effect? What causes it?

Answer 21

• As a result of the rotation of Earth, the path of any free-moving object appears to deflect to the right of the original path in the Northern Hemisphere and to the left of the original path in the Southern Hemisphere

Question 22

What are the important geographic consequences of the Coriolis Effect?

Answer 22

• The Coriolis effect also influences the upwelling of cold water that takes place where cool currents veer away from subtropical coastlines, allowing colder deep water to rise from below