Name: ___________________________________________________ Date: _______________ Period: ______
Earth Science Chapter 18 Study Guide
1. What gas is the most important for understanding atmospheric processes? ____________________________
2. List the five types of precipitation: ___________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________________
3. What percentage of the atmosphere is water vapor? _________________________________
4. Name the state change:
a) solid directly to gas: _________________________ b) gas directly to solid: _______________________
c) solid to liquid: ______________________________ d) liquid to solid: ____________________________
e) liquid to gas: ______________________________ f) gas to liquid: _____________________________
5. _______________________________ is the energy stored or released during a change of state.
6. Air that has reached its water vapor capacity is said to be ________________________. If it has not, it is said
to be ____________________________.
7. Warm, saturated air has ______________ water vapor than cold, saturated air.
8. The ratio of air’s water vapor content to the maximum amount of water vapor it can have a certain
temperature is called ___________________________________________. It is an indication of how close the
air is to being _________________________.
9. The temperature to which air must be cooled to be saturated is called the ____________________________.
10. What is the dry adiabatic rate? ___________________ What is the range of the wet adiabatic rate?
____________________
11. When air expands or contracts, it experiences a(n) _______________________ temperature change.
12. Why is the wet adiabatic rate less than the dry adiabatic rate? ____________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________________________
13. When air is compressed, the temperature _______________; when air expands, the temperature
_________________________.
14. List the four processes that lift air: __________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________________________
15. When cool air acts as a barrier over which warm air rises, the process is called _______________________
_____________________________.
16. In orographic lifting, __________________________ often act as barriers.
17. Stable air tends to ___________________________________________.
18. Smoke, dust particles, and salt in the air can all act as __________________________________________
for water vapor.
19. Name the cloud type:
a) sheets or layers that often cover the entire sky: _______________________________
b) globular cloud masses with a cauliflower-like structure: ___________________________
c) low cloud that blankets the whole sky often brings rain: ______________________________
d) cloud sheet or layer in the middle height range: _________________________________
e) any type of “rain” cloud has this as a root word of its name: _________________________
f) clouds associated with thunder and lightning and hail: _________________________________
g) high level, wispy clouds: __________________________
20. What is the difference between clouds and fogs? ______________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________________________
21. What are the two processes that produce precipitation?
a) _______________________________________________
b) type(s) of precipitation produced: _________________________________
c) _______________________________________________
d) type(s) of precipitation produced: _________________________________
22. Part of the Bergeron process relies of supercooled cloud droplets freezing upon contact with
___________________________________________.
23. The Bergeron process occurs in _______________ clouds; the collision-coalescence process occurs in
______________ clouds.
24. Describe the air conditions that produce sleet: _________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________________________