Meteorology final

An inversion

refers to a temperature increase with height and inhibits upward motion in the atmosphere.

Sea-level pressure is used instead of surface air pressure on weather maps for which of the following reasons?

To correct for the effect of altitude

Ultraviolet, visible, and infrared are all types of radiation with different

wavelengths.

Winds in the upper atmosphere are

westerly in both the northern and southern hemisphere.

Which of the following is a form of potential energy?

reservoir behind a hydroelectric dam

The visible light spectrum is bounded by these two types of radiation:

ultraviolet and near infrared.

This method of energy transfer does not involve the net movement of particles or waves in the direction of energy transfer:

conduction.

Radiation fog

occurs most often on cloudless nights.

Sea-level pressure near the center of a typical hurricane is

950 mb.

Convection

involves mixing in a fluid.

Between the earth's surface and the ionosphere,

a large voltage difference always exists.

Warming and cooling of the atmosphere varies across the globe due to

the unequal distribution of land and water.

Atmospheric pressure is routinely plotted on maps using lines of equal pressure. What do meteorologists call these lines?

Isobars

A clear, dry atmosphere might transmit what percentage of the incoming solar radiation as direct beam radiation without scattering or absorption?

80%

Radiosondes (as shown in the figure)

allow us to measure weather conditions in the upper atmosphere.

The polar front theory of midlatitude cyclones, developed around a century ago,

has stood the test of time remarkably well.

The sky is blue because

air molecules scatter blue light more readily than other colors of visible light.

The percentage of visible light reflected by an object or substance is called its

albedo.

The stepped-leader

creates the pathway for the flow of electrons.

Which of these is the most common cause of thunderstorms?

localized convective lifting

This occurs when a large mass of cold air slides underneath a large mass of warm air.

frontal lifting

The air mass between a cold front and a warm front is

Warm, moist, and unstable

This midlatitude cyclone

is in the mature stage.

The sources of air masses occur only in low and high latitudes because

middle-latitude weather is too variable.

middle-latitude weather is too variable.

heat lightning.

​You go outside on a partly cloudy day to enjoy some sunshine and to have fun playing with a sling psychrometer again from your meteorology class. You follow the directions to collect your data and you end up with a dry temperature of 34°C and a wet temperature of 24°C. Upon looking up to the sky, you see fairweather clouds with flat bottoms.

Using this information, what is the dew point, relative humidity, and lifting condensation level of where you are? Use the formula and table to help you out.

Dew Point: 20; Rel Humidity: 43%; LCL: 1750m

This is the only atmospheric variable that always decreases with distance above the ground.

pressure

The most common mechanism of cloud formation is

lowering the air temperature to the dew point by adiabatic cooling of rising air

Hurricanes

have sustained wind speeds above 120 kilometers per hour.

This figure illustrates the southward movement of a

Continental polar air mass

Frontal lifting is often likened to a conveyor belt and is referred to as

overrunning.

A ________ aloft is associated with ________ air; a ________ aloft is associated with ________ air.

Ridge/warm; trough/cold

According to the polar front theory, the stationary front

will change into cold and warm fronts.

A _____ aloft is associated with ______ air; a _____ aloft is associated with _____ air

Ridge/warm; trough/cold

Summer days are longest in which city?

Chicago, IL

The dew point

All of these

The eye of a hurricane has all of the following characteristics, except

an average passage time of less than 5 minutes.

Anticyclones are areas of

high pressure.

Lightning is

a discharge of static electricity.atmospheric electrical discharge that produces a visible flash.

According to the polar front theory, midlatitude cyclones

cover large portions of a continent and bring precipitation to wide areas

The percentage of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere (by hemisphere) varies by season because

plants grow in the warm season and not in the cold season, more residential heating is required during the cold season, and less plant decay takes place during the cold season.

This is the most important process of cloud formation.

atmospheric cooling

The __ attempts to tell us what it "feels like" in cold, windy conditions.

Wind chill index

Fronts

have substantial temperature gradients at their boundaries.

Rainshowers

typically come from cumuliform clouds.

Air masses are

large bodies of air with fairly uniform temperature and moisture characteristics.

Greenhouse gases

keep the earth at a comfortable temperature.

Hurricanes have

no fronts.

The most costly average annual weather event is

hurricanes.

Fronts usually provide a lifting mechanism that can lead to the formation of

clouds and precipitation.

Mid-latitude cyclones in the Northern Hemisphere typically travel primarily in this direction.

east

The dew point

can be used with air temperature to indicate the value of relative humidity

A typical cloud-to-ground lightning event consists of

several distinct steps that look to the human eye like a single lightning strike.

Sea breezes

result from the fact that water both warms and cools more slowly than land.

Hurricanes

are smaller than Mid-latitude cyclones.

This works primarily on shorter-wavelength radiation.

Rayleigh scattering

The pressure at the bottom of the atmosphere is referred to as

sea level pressure.

The sound of thunder caused by a lightning strike reaches your ears ________ the light from the lightning flash reaches your eyes.

after

Sleet

requires the presence of a warmer above-freezing inversion layer.

You would most likely expect a rain shadow on the

east side of the Cascade Mountains in the Pacific Northwest.

Albedo

is high for ice, snow and thick clouds.

How much more solar radiation is available for the Earth on the perihelion than the aphelion?

7%

In the Northern Hemisphere, cold air outbreaks, or troughs, are commonly related to the movement of

The polar jet stream

A temperature of 90°F with 70% relative humidity

feels like 106°F and is considered dangerous.

Ozone is found primarily in the ________ and is important because of ________.

stratosphere; its interaction with ultraviolet radiation

Horizontal air flow in a hurricane is

counter-clockwise at the surface, clockwise aloft.

Raindrops fall because

they become large enough that gravity can pull them out of the sky.

Radiation

can be transferred through a vacuum.

The two major jet streams that impact weather in the northern hemisphere are the

polar jet stream and the subtropical jet stream.

Lightning can strike

all of these

The atmosphere is a mixture of

gas molecules, small particulates, and moisture.

In the atmosphere, pressure decreases most rapidly in the

lower part of the atmosphere.

According to the polar front theory, cyclogenesis begins when

cold air begins to advance southward and warm air begins to advance northward.

Which of the following are often associated with the passage of a frontal system?

all of these

If you were to travel vertically upward for one mile,

the pressure would be much lower than if you traveled horizontally for one mile.

Atmospheric measurements by radar and satellites

are necessary because some parts of the atmosphere, like inside clouds and at remote oceanic locations, cannot be observed by other means.

The passage of a front often brings

abrupt changes in temperature, humidity and wind.

The radiation emitted by Earth

is primarily absorbed by the atmosphere.

Air masses are generally named according to

the characteristics of their source regions.

Examine the figure. The low-pressure northwest of the Great Lakes is 998 mb and the high pressure over northern Washington is 1034 mb.

9

Hurricanes

contain numerous thunderstorms arranged in a pinwheel formation.

According to Wien's law

the Sun's energy intensity peaks in the visible portion of the electromagnetic spectrum.

The Stefan-Boltzmann Law gives the relationship between

the intensity of radiation and the temperature of an object.

Which of the following clouds are known for precipitation

Nimbostratus and cumulonimbus

The warm front associated with a mid-latitude cyclone

typically forms stratiform clouds.

This is the first type of cloud an observer will see when a warm front is approaching

Cirrus

The boundary between two adjacent air masses is called

a front.

If air starts out with a temperature of 18°C with a dew point of 10°C, an ascent of ________ is necessary for the air to become saturated.

1000 m

Warm air rises. This is an example of energy transfer by

convection.

In order to determine how far lightning is from your observation point

count the seconds from flash-to-bang and divide by five to get miles.

During clear sky conditions, the sky is normally blue in the middle of the day, and some combination of red, yellow and orange at sunrise and sunset. This suggests that

atmospheric path length is related to sky color.

Thunder

results from the explosive expansion of air.

The largest form of precipitation is

hail.

Air pressure

is the force exerted in all directions by a column of air rising upward from the point of measurement.

If you were a pilot, what is the safest option as you fly toward a cumulonimbus cloud

Fly around the cloud

Which of the following is a correct approximation of average sea-level atmospheric pressure?

1013.2 millibars

The process by which solar energy interacts with the atmosphere is

scattering, absorption, and reflection.

Freezing rain

requires a layer of cold air near the surface.

Mid-latitude cyclones

often bring substantial changes in wind and temperature.

Hurricanes are

the most powerful of all storms.