MARS 120 Midterm #1 Review Sheet:
Physical Properties of Water:
1) How is water distributed on earth (where is most of it)?
2) What is the basic structure of an atom (electron, neutron, proton)?
3) Why is water a dipolar molecule?
4) What is a hydrogen bond, and how does it form? How does it differ from a
covalent bond?
5) What is surface tension? Why does it occur? Give an example (think beer!).
6) What is cohesion and adhesion?
7) How does surface tension impact biology?
8) Why are the thermal properties of water important?
9) How does water change between its 3 states?
10) What is a calorie?
11) What is temperature?
12) What is heat capacity?
13) What is understanding the latent heat of water important?
14) What is latent heat of melting, vaporization, evaporation, and condensation?
15) How do heat capacities of the oceans and land differ?
16) How do evaporation and precipitation impact global heat budget?
17) How does temperature impact density (go into more depth than warm water
means less dense)?
Chemical Properties of Seawater:
1) How does water interact with salt ions?
2) What is salinity?
3) What is the range of salinity in the oceans?
4) What are the 6 major salts?
5) What is the basic idea of minor and trace dissolved ions (don’t worry about
concentrations)? Are they still important?
6) What is the principal of constant proportions? What does it mean for the oceans?
7) What are the differences between conservative and non-conservative ions?
8) What are the major sources for salts into the ocean?
9) What are the major sinks for salts in the oceans?
10) What is a residence time and how is it calculated? What does it depend on?
11) What processes with water impact salinity?
12) How does salinity vary in the surface oceans?
13) Give examples of dissolved gases.
14) What 3 things impact solubility of gases in the oceans?
15) Understand how atmospheric gases interact with oceans.
16) How are oxygen and carbon dioxide distributed in the oceans?
17) What is pH? What is the average pH of the oceans?
18) Why is the ocean considered a buffering system?
19) Why does calcium carbonate dissolve at depth in the oceans?
20) How does salinity change with depth at different latitudes? What is a halocline?
21) How does temperature change with depth at different latitudes? What is a
thermocline?
22) How does density change with depth? What is most important factor impacting
density in the oceans?
23) What are the 3 layers of the ocean? What is the pycnocline, and how does it
impact mixing?
24) How do you use a T-S Diagram?
25) What is the SOFAR Channel?
Air – Sea Interactions:
1) Why are air-sea interactions important?
2) Why is there uneven distribution of solar radiation on earth?
3) What causes earth’s seasons? How does it impact the amount of solar energy
hitting earth?
4) What is the general heat budget of the sun once it enters the atmosphere? Is it
balanced?
5) How does oceanic heat flow differ with latitude?
6) What is the air composition of the atmosphere?
7) What are some of the characteristics of the troposphere?
8) How does temperature and water vapor impact the density of air?
9) How do changes in atmospheric pressure cause air movement?
10) How does air circulate on a non-moving earth? Is this realistic?
11) How does coriolis impact air movement?
12) Explain the development of the wind belts? What are the wind belts and where do
they occur? How do the atmospheric cells work?
13) What are the boundries of these wind belts?
14) What are the pressure zones on Earth? What is the weather like at these places?
15) What changes these idealized atmospheric cells
16) What is the difference between weather and climate?
17) Explain how local convection cells impact our weather.
18) How are storms created?
19) What are the general oceanic climate zones?
20) How does sea ice develop?
21) What are the different types of sea ice?
22) What is the greenhouse effect?
23) How does the greenhouse effect work? What are the major gases?
24) What is the difference between the greenhouse effect and climate change?
25) What are potential results of global warming?
26) How does the ocean impact the carbon cycle?
27) What can we do to stop increases in greenhouse gases?