GEOG 170: 2nd QUIZ STUDY GUIDE
Chapter 5: Air Pressure
1. What is air pressure and how is it measured?
2. Describe the standard atmosphere and how pressure changes with height.
3. Why is humid air lighter than dry air?
4. Compare the decrease in pressure of cold air versus warm air.
5. Why does rising air cool, while sinking air warms?
6. How does air pressure changes in the horizontal compare with air pressure changes
with the vertical?
7. What are cyclones, anticyclones? What are isobars?
Chapter 6: Humidity, Saturation, Stability
1. Describe the hydrological cycle.
2. What is transpiration, evapotranspiration, sublimation, condensation, deposition of
water?
3. What is absolute, specific and relative humidities? Vapor pressure? Dew point
temperature? How does relative humidity vary during the day?
4. How do we measure humidity and evaporation (instruments)?
5. Explain how rising air can become saturated. What are the lifting processes that can
form clouds?
6. What is stability and instability in the atmosphere and how is it measured?
7. What is a rain shadow?
Chapter 7: Clouds, Precipitation, Radar
1. Condensation: explain dew and frost, different types of fog and how they form. How
do clouds form? What types of uplift create clouds? What are condensation nuclei?
2. How are clouds classified by altitude?
3. Explain the different types of fog and how they form: radiation, advection, steam,
upslope.
4. Explain how precipitation forms in warm clouds and cold clouds.
6. Explain ice pellets (sleet), freezing rain and hail and how they form.
7. Explain the difference between a conventional radar and a dopplar radar.
Chapter 8: Wind and Weather
1. How is wind speed and direction measured?
2. What is the pressure gradient force? What is the Coriolis force and how does it vary
with latitudes? How do these 2 forces affect winds? How does friction affect winds?
3. Explain the difference between surface and upper air winds. How do winds flow
around a high pressure and low pressure center in the N. Hemisphere; S.
Hemisphere? What is a geostrophic wind?
4. Does air rise at the center of high or low pressure? Why is fair weather associated
with high pressure, stormy with low pressure?