ESC 110 Chapter 9 Questions
1. What is the most abundant element in the atmosphere?
a. Carbon
b. Hydrogen
c. Nitrogen
d. Oxygen
3. Humans live in which atmospheric zone?
a. The troposphere
b. The stratosphere
c. The mesosphere
d. The thermosphere
5. The greenhouse effect is
a. the earth's atmosphere blocking about 50% of the sun's rays from entering and reaching
the earth.
b. decrease in ozone due to chlorofluorocarbons, thus allowing harmful UV rays to
penetrate the atmosphere.
c. contamination of the atmosphere with radioactive compounds.
d. trapping the sun's energy within the earth's atmosphere, thereby warming the earth's
surface.
7. Hadley Cells are
a. experimental cells in which the dynamics of pollutants in the atmosphere are studied.
b. described by the terms troposphere, stratosphere, mesosphere and thermosphere.
c. zones of air movement around the earth in different directions, caused by convection
and the earth's spin.
d. none of the above
9. Tornadoes are caused by
a. Funnels of air spun by trade winds
b. Violent storms occurring on a regular time cycle
c. High winds reacting with slow moving air streams
d. Rapid mixing of cold, dry air with warm, moist air
11. The weather phenomenon that occurs when warm, wet, air from the Indian Ocean is
drawn into the Indian subcontinent and releases rainfall as it rises and cools is know as a
__________?
a. Deluge
b. Monsoon
c. Flash flood
d. Hadley cell effect
13. True or False: Over the past 100 years the earth’s average temperature has been
rising.
15. El Niño conditions result from the southern oscillation cycle which directly impacts
trade winds. In the Northwest, El Niño makes the weather:
a. Colder
b. Warmer and drier
c. More rainy, causing flooding
d. El Niño doesn’t affect weather in the Northwest
17. Which of the following has no relation to global warming due to human activities?
a. the increasing amounts of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere (0.5% increase per year)
b. the release of toxicants like tetragens, lead and cyanide into the air
c. burning of fossil fuels
d. global mean surface temperature increase of about 0.9 degrees F over the past 100
years
19. Which of the following is a green house gas?
a. Methane
b. Nitrous oxide
c. Chlorofluorocarbons
d. All of the above
21. All of the following are predicted possible results of continued global warming
EXCEPT:
a. species extinctions, especially around east-west mountain ranges
b. increase in drought conditions everywhere
c. increased spread and incident of disease
d. more heat waves
23. The U.S. has not agreed to sign the international treaty called the Kyoto Protocol.
What is the Kyoto Protocol?
a. International agreement requiring both developed and developing nations to reduce
carbon dioxide emissions by 10% in the next fifty years.
b. International protocol requiring countries like the U.S. to have "credit" (biological
carbon sequestration) in order to continue emitting the current levels of CO2.
c. Agreement among the international community to help developing countries by
limiting their carbon emissions early on, so they don't experience the same problems
industrialized countries have had as a result of fossil fuel burning.
d. International treaty by which industrialized nations pledge to cut back green house gas
emissions within the next decade.
25. The Clean Air Act has had all of the following results, EXCEPT:
a. generally improving local and regional air quality in the U.S.
b. motivated some companies that produce a lot of pollution to move their operations to
developing countries where pollution standards are lower
c. requiring SUV's to have higher fuel efficiency
d. reduction in air pollution
27. Which of the following air pollutant is matched correctly to the problems associated
with it?
a. Particulate matter - acid rain, eutrophication, growth of weedy species
b. Sulfur dioxide - acid rain, health damage, visibility reduction
c. Nitrogen oxides - neurological damage
d. Chlorofluorocarbons - inhibited respiration
29. What is the greatest source of indoor air pollution in less-developed countries?
a. Inefficient gas heaters
b. Tobacco smoke
c. Methane produced in poorly ventilated poultry plants
d. Poorly ventilated heating and cooking fires
31. Salt Lake City, located in a valley between two mountain ranges, experiences a(n)
___________ during the winter, where colder air settles in the valley trapping smog
while the mountains maintain a slightly warmer temperature and clear conditions.
a. Temperature inversion
b. Altitudinal stratification
c. Long-range transport of pollutants
d. Heat island
33. Chlorofluorocarbons deplete stratospheric ozone. Even though these compounds
were largely banned, ozone depletion continues. Why is this?
a. Chlorofluorocarbons weren’t the primary pollutant driving ozone depletion.
b. The ban on chlorofluorocarbons has been difficult to enforce and many industries even
in the U.S. still produce them.
c. A single chlorofluorocarbon molecule can destroy thousands of ozone molecules over
a long period of time due to the free radical reactions.
d. The ban couldn’t include products like aerosol spray cans that emit
chlorofluorocarbons due to WTO agreements.
35. True or False: If the ozone hole over Antarctica were over a heavily populated area,
it would pose a severe hazard to humans in the form of increased skin cancer. Microbes
and plankton, on the other hand, are not very sensitive to UV radiation and would
probably not be adversely affected by a hole in the ozone.
37. Air pollution affects not only human health, but also ecosystems. Which of the
following is NOT seen as a potential effect of air pollution emissions on ecosystems?
a. Acid deposition, making streams and soils intolerable for some species.
b. Impacts on plant pathology
c. Reduced ability of predators to hunt
d. Additive effects where multiple pollutants cause damage to plants that aren’t observed
with just one pollutant.
39. Human induced acid rain is most serious in which region of the U.S.?
a. Southwest
b. Northeast
c. Midwest
d. Northwest
41. Acid rain not only has negative impacts on ecosystems, but can also damage all of
the following EXCEPT:
a. roads
b. statues
c. historic buildings
d. all of the above
43. Which is an innovation to prevent air pollution?
a. Catalytic converters on cars
b. Sulfur removing scrubbers in industry
c. Keeping sources of pollution far enough apart so that “dilution is the solution”
d. Air filters that take particulate matter out of emissions
45. The first U.S. legislation aimed at improving overall air quality was the Clean Air
Act of 1963. This law
a. prohibited the emission of 188 airborne toxins from a large number of sources.
b. provided incentives for states to reduce air pollution, but didn’t require them to do so.
c. set California as the model for air pollution control, requiring the other states to meet
the same standards by the year 2010.
d. provided for strong enough regulations that no additional laws have been made.
47. Air quality in the U.S. has improved since 1970 in terms of many pollutants.
Emissions of _____, however has (have) NOT decreased. (Hint: the culprit is not
industry but emissions from all our cars).
a. nitrogen oxides
b. volatile organic compounds
c. sulfur dioxide
d. particulate matter
49. Lead emissions have _______ in the last 20 years.
a. increased
b. stayed about the same
c. decreased, but not as much as other pollutants like sulfur dioxide
d. been reduced to almost zero