Weather Quiz Review
1. Weather
1. Created by the movement of air and water
2. The sun, and uneven solar heating, drives
this movement
3. Occurs in the troposphere, the lowest level of
the atmosphere
4. The atmospheric conditions at a particular
location on a particular day
5. Determines Climate
2. Climate
• the weather conditions prevailing in an area in
general or over a long period:
• "our cold, wet climate“
• Weather over an extended period.
3. Conduction
1. Transfers heat by direct contact
4. Convection
• Heat is transferred by the moving of
particles/molecules from one place to another
5. Radiation
• Transfer of thermal energy by the release of a
photon from the Electromagnetic Spectrum
6. Albedo
• Albedo is a Latin word which means
whiteness. Albedo is the ratio of light reflected
by an object compared to the total amount of
light it recieves.
7. Ozone Layer
• a layer in the earth's stratosphere at an
altitude of about 6.2 miles (10 km) containing
a high concentration of ozone, which absorbs
most of the ultraviolet radiation reaching the
earth from the sun.
8. Meteorologist
• Meteorologists are scientists who study the
weather, including clouds.
9. Front
• A front is a boundary or transition zone
formed when two air masses that have
different temperatures and densities meet
each other.
1. Climate vs. Weather
WEATHER is the short term conditions of the atmosphere at a
specific time and place in terms of temperature, pressure,
precipitation, wind speed, cloud cover (etc…)
CLIMATE is a long term average of temperature, pressure,
precipitation, wind speed, (etc.) for a particular region on Earth.
• Weather refers to short term conditions in a specific area.
Climate refers to the long term conditions in an area.
• 20 degrees Celsius, Sunny. – Weather
2.
List the 5 layers of the atmosphere
in order.
Order of Layer
Name of Layer
5
Exosphere
4
Thermosphere
3
Mesosphere
2
Stratosphere
1
Troposphere
Earth
3. The Earth’s Radiation Budget is how much of
the sun’s energy is absorbed by the earth versus
how much of it is reflected back out to space.
Approximately 71% is absorbed in total (23 + 48)
4.Albedo
• A white object reflects light more/absorbs less
• A black object reflects less light/absorbs more
5/6 What are Clouds?
• Clouds are made of water.
• They are either made up of small
liquid water drops or tiny ice
crystals.
• The two items required for clouds
to form are water vapour and
condensation nuclei
1. Items of the Climate system.
Name of
Sphere
Atmosphere Hydrosphere Lithosphere
Cryosphere Biosphere
What is it?
Air
Water
Land
Ice
Living
things
Keeps Earth Water holds Different
Its high
Produce
How does it warm with heat & keeps
surfaces
reflectivity heat. Take
affect
the
temperature affect how
affects
in and
Climate
Greenhouse
relatively
sunlight is temperature. give off
(and thus
Effect. Is
constant.
absorbed
Amount of water so
weather)?
where
Evaporates/
and this
ice/water is
part of
weather
Condenses in
affects
tied to water the water
occurs
water cycle temperature
cycle
cycle
2. Three Mechanisms
Conduction
• Transfers heat by direct
contact
• Matter touching matter
• Can occur between any state
of matter: solid, liquid or gas
• Metals are good conductors of
heat
• Bad conductors include wood,
rubber, glass
• Example: Heat transfers
directly from the element of a
stove to a metal pot
Convection
• Heat is transferred by the
moving of particles/molecules
from one place to another
• Hotter particles move further
apart and rise
• Cooler particles move closer
together and fall
• Transfer is therefore vertical
(up & down)
• Only occurs in liquids and
gases (fluids)
• Example: Currents are created
• Radiation
• Transfer of thermal energy by the release of a
photon from the Electromagnetic Spectrum
• Heat is transferred through space
• Electromagnetic (EM) waves from the sun can
collide with matter of all types
• The EM waves are converted to heat when
they collide with matter
• Darker and denser objects absorb EM waves
faster
3. The albedo of clouds
• Clouds affect the albedo of the Earth
• Clouds reflect more sunlight back to space than blue sky
• The albedo of a cloud depends on many factors including:
– height of the cloud
– overall size of the cloud
– number of water droplets inside the cloud
• The color of a cloud, from bright white to dark grey, depends
on the number, size and color of water droplets in the cloud.
Albedo of Clouds Cont’d
• Big droplets have a large surface area and reflect more
light than small droplets.
• Large numbers of water droplets leads to bright white
clouds.
• If you are under a big cumulonimbus cloud, it's dark out
because the sunlight can't pass easily through the clouds.
• From space, however, the same cloud would look bright
white because it actually has a high albedo.
• In contrast, a cirrus cloud is nearly transparent to sunlight
but looks grey from space because it has a low albedo.
Percent Albedo of Clouds
4. Clouds
5. There are several ways that a
parcel air can be forced to rise:
• 1. Surface Heating – the sun warms
the air and then the warm air rises
because it is less dense.
Also called
Convective or
Convection
Lifting
• 2. Mountains – air is forced upwards as it
runs into the higher terrain.
Also called Orographic Lifting
• 3. Fronts - When an air mass of one
temperature meets another, the
warmer air mass will rise over the
cooler air mass. (Frontal Lifting)
• 4. Air Pressure - When an air mass
moves into a lower pressure area, the
air will force the air that was there
before, upwards. (Convergence Lifting)