Meteorology Final
- What is Smog?
- Air pollution in urban/industrial areas (originally meant smoke and god, but now it’s a generic term for air pollution)
- What is Vog?
- Natural form of smog (SO2 combines with O2, water vapor and sunlight)
- Clean Air Act of 1970
- Responsible for the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency
- Criteria Pollutants from CAA 1970
- Particulates, SO2, NOx, CO, eventually Lead, and Ozone
- Environmental Protection Agency
- Government organization whose mission is to protect human and environmental health
- What are particulates?
- A mixture of solid particles/ liquid droplets found in the air
- Types of primary pollutants
- NOx, SOx, VOC, Carbon Monoxide, Lead
- What primary pollutant can you actually see?
- Carbon Monoxide
- #1 Primary pollutant and most deadly of Primary Pollutants in the US
- Are secondary pollutants better or worse than primary pollutants
- Which secondary pollutant is the worst?
- How many deaths does ozone cause every year in the US
- How is ozone made?
- Photochemical Reaction (involves strong sunlight) when NOx gasses and VOCs are already in the air
- What time of day are ozone levels at their worst?
- Afternoon because of sunlight
- How big are coarse particles?
- greater than 2.5 micrometers in diameter
- How big are fine particles?
- Less than 2.5 microns in diameter
- What are inhalable particulates?
- Particles less than 10 microns in diameter (both fine and coarse)
- Colors of AQI
- Green, Yellow, Orange, Red, Purple, Maroon
- Numerical Values for Good AQI
- Numerical Values for Moderate AQI
- Numerical Values for “unhealthy for sensitive groups” AQI
- Numerical Values for Unhealthy AQI
- Numerical Values for very unhealthy AQI
- Numerical Values for Hazardous AQI
- Impact of high temperatures on air quality
- High temperatures promote efficient chemical reactions and enhance secondary pollutant formation
- Impact of low temperatures on air quality
- Low temperatures promote secondary pollutant formation by allowing gaseous emission to condense into particulates
- Impact of high wind speeds on air quality
- Pollution is seldom a problem due to the wide dispersion of pollutants
- Impact of low wind speeds on air quality
- Pollution is worse because it gets concentrated over any given area
- Impact of deep mixing depths on air quality
- When air is unstable, there’s greater convection and mixing depths are large (pollution gets dispersed)
- Impact of shallow mixing depths on air quality
- When are is stable, there’s little convection, and mixing depths are small (pollution gets dispersed)
- Impact of sunlight on air quality
- Strong solar radiation can cause photochemical reactions in the atmosphere to produce secondary pollutants
- How to move up and down the pH scale
- Logarithmic, 4 to 5 = 10x, 4 to 6 = 100x
- How does acid rain form?
- Burning of large quantities of fossil fuels releases millions of tons of sulfur and nitrogen oxides into the atmosphere
- What gasses are mainly involved in acid rain
- How does acid rain impact fish in lakes?
- Lowers pH of water which allows aluminum to dissolve, which is toxic to fish
- When did life with hard parts start appearing
- Cambrian Period, about 542 million years ago (Cambrian Explosion)
- Proxy Data
- Provide weather information when instruments aren’t available
- Types of Proxy Data
- Sediments, ice cores, tree rings, historical documents, pollen, corals
- Paleoclimatologist
- Scientists who analyze proxy data and reconstruct past climates
- Oxygen Isotope Analysis
- 16-O atoms have 8/8, 18-O atoms have 8/10
- MORE
- What Oxygen Isotope is more present in WATER when the earth is WARM?
- What Oxygen Isotope is more present in WATER when the earth is COLD?
- What Oxygen Isotope is more present in SEASHELLS water when the earth is WARM?
- What Oxygen Isotope is more present in SEASHELLS water when the earth is COLD?
- What Oxygen Isotope is more present in SNOW water when the earth is WARM?
- What Oxygen Isotope is more present in SNOW water when the earth is COLD?
- Average Earth temperature WITH greenhouse effect
- Average Earth temperature WITHOUT greenhouse effect
- Greenhouse gasses
- Gas that contributes to the greenhouse effect by absorbing radiation
- Types of greenhouse gasses
- Carbon Dioxide, Methane, Nitrogen Dioxide, Chlorofluorocarbons, water vapor
- How is methanols released into the atmosphere?
- Permafrost thaws in polar regions
- What greenhouse gas is more powerful than carbon dioxide?
- Why is Venus’s temperature 900 degrees Fahrenheit?
- Runaway greenhouse effect
- How do CO2 levels today compare to Earth’s historical values?
- Much higher today than in the last few million years but much lower today than during the dinosaur era
- What are aerosols?
- Tiny liquid/solid particles that come from natural disasters/burning fossil fuels and vegetation
- Effects of Aerosols on Climate
- Most aerosols create global cooling
- Which aerosol contributes to global warming
- Why does black soot contribute to global warming
- It has a lower albedo so it absorbs more radiation from the sun
- Where does CO2 in the atmosphere come from
- Burning of fossil fuels and deforestation
- How is CO2 removed from the atmosphere
- Plants/trees, dissolved in oceans and sea critters
- What happens when CO2 dissolves in oceans
- Causes water to become more acidic
- Why are acidic oceans a bad thing?
- if you have a shell the acid dissolves the shells
- What does global warming mean?
- Earth as a whole is warming up
- What are the positive feedback effects at work in the artic that increase global warming?
- Delays onset of ice age, longer growing season, able to grow crops in places that used to be too cold
- Natural Causes of climate change
- Plate tectonics, volcanic activity, Variations in earth orbit, solar variability
- How long do plate tectonics take to cause climate change
- How do volcanic explosions cause climate change?
- Cause quick but very temporary climate change because of drastic release of CO2
- Obliquity
- Changes in the angle of the earth’s axis
- Eccentricity
- Shap of the earth’s orbit changes
- Precession
- The wobbling of the earth’s axis
- Relationship between earth’s tilt and the seasons
- Bigger tilt = more extreme seasons, No tilt = no seasons
- Permian Extinction
- The biggest mass extinction event in earth’s history occurred 251 million years ago at the end of the Permian Period. 90% of life disappeared from earth known as the Great Dying. Thought to be caused by rapid climate as a result of massive volcanic eruptions in Siberia.
- Cretaceous-Paleogene Extinction
- The second largest extinction that wiped out the dinosaurs was caused by climate change due to an asteroid impact. Blotted out the sun for a couple of years leading to rapid cooling, and widespread acid rain, followed by rapid warming.
- Thermal Expansion of Water
- Causing MOST of today’s sea level rise. When the water warms up, it expands and occupies a larger volume. The melting of land also causes sea levels to rise. The melting of sea ice and icebergs DO NOT contribute to the sea level rise because they are already in the water. If all land ice melted sea levels would rise by over 200 feet
- Younger Dryas Extinction
- Wiped out 70% of large mammals
- How often do ice ages happen?
- When was the last MAJOR ice age?
- When was the last little ice age?
- General Circulation Models
- Highly sophisticated computer programs that simulate climate
- How do GCMs provide evidence for human-caused climate change
- GCMs aren’t accurate unless you account for human pollution
- Consequences of global warming
- Sea level rise, the ocean becomes more acidic, more severe droughts and heat waves, more intense tropical cyclones, more extreme precipitation events
- Greek Climate Classification
- Based on latitude (artic circle, temperate zone, torrid zone)
- Koppen Classificationn Scheme
- Based on mean monthly and annual temperatures and precipitation
- Main Characteristics of A climates (Humid Tropical)
- All months have a mean temp greater than 18 degrees Celsius or 64 degrees Fahrenheit
- Main Characteristics of B climates
- Dry, evaporation is greater than precipitation
- Main Characteristics of C climates (Humid Midlatitude)
- Mild winters, mean temp of coldest month is greater than -3 degrees Celsius or 27 degrees Fahrenheit, mean temp of warmest month is greater than 18 degrees Celsius or 64 degrees Fahrenheit
- Main Characteristics of D climates (Humid Midlatitudes)
- Severe winters, mean temp of coldest month is less than -3 degrees celsius or 37 degrees Fahrenheit, mean temp of warmest month is greater than 10 degrees celsius or 50 degrees fahrenheit
- Main Characteristics of E climates (Polar)
- Summerless, mean temp of the warmest month is less than 10 degrees celsius or 50 degrees fahrenheit
- What does the little “a” mean in Koppen Classification
- What does the little “b” mean in Koppen Classification
- How can you get plant life in polar climate ET
- Soils can thaw in summer to about 3 feet deep
- Why are there no plants in an EF climate
- landscape never thaws out
- What causes all the rain in the tropics
- Why do some parts of the tropics have a pronounced dry season when no rain falls for several months
- Migration of the ITCZ back and forth across the equator following direct rays of the sun
- Difference between tropical rain forest and jungle
- Rain forest has thick canopy of trees which limits plant growth, jungle has thick understory growth of plants
- Difference between climate and weather
- Climate is 30 year average of weather. Weather is what’s happening right now
- What makes a “dry” climate dry?
- Climate factors, geographical position, pressure belts, ocean currents
- How can a location with very little precipitation still not be considered dry according to Koppen
- Percipitation is greater than evaporation
- Climate Controls
- Latitude, geographical position, mountain barriers, pressure belts such as the low pressure belt of the ITCZ and the subtropical high pressure belt, Cold and warm ocean currents
- 3 reasons why the Atacama Desert is the direst desert on Earth
- Cold ocean currents, andes mountains, subtropical heights
- What is desertification
- Transformation to more desert-like conditions as a result of human activities
- Two main parameters that define climate
- Average temperature and average precipitation
- Largest continuous forest on earth
- Most diverse plant life on Earth
- Refraction
- Change of direction of light as it passes form one transparent medium to another
- Diffuse Reflection
- If light bounces off very rough surfaces, image you see is collection of distorted images
- Internal Reflection
- Light travels through transparent medium then reflected back into the same medium creating mirror images
- Dispersion
- Separation of colors by refraction
- Law of relection
- Light ray bounces off the surface at the same angle it hits the surface
- How does a primary rainbow form
- Each droplet refracts one color to the eye, other colors from this one droplet are above observer and cant be seen, need millions of drops at different levels of atmosphere
- How does a secondary rainbow form?
- caused by two internal reflections of a light ray from the sun
- ORder of colors for primary rainbow
- Order of colors for the secondary ranbow
- What do rainbows look like from the point of view in an airplane
- What color is bent the most when passing through water or glass
- What color is bent the least when passing through water or glass
- Impact of sun on rainbow formation
- When sun is high on horizon, rainbow is low to the ground. When the sun is low on the horizon, rainbow is high to the ground
- Impact of refraction on sunrise/sunset
- Makes sun look higher in the sky than it actually is
- Where is the sun really when tou see a sunrise or sunset
- Higher in the sky then normal
- Speed of light
- not always constant unless traveling through vacuum in space
- Consequences of light SLOWING DOWN when passes through glass/water/air of higher density
- You get rainbows and mirages
- Characteristics of Superior mirages
- Happens when warm air is over cold air, image appears ABOVE true location of the opbject that’s source of the image
- Characteristics of Inferior mirages
- Light bends toward higher density air, inverted image appears BELOW true object (light at top of object is bent more than light at the bottom)
- Characteristics of looming mirages
- Images appears ABOVE true location of object that’s source of the image
- Characteristics of Towering mirages
- Superior mirage when the object changes erratically with height
- What are wet areas and “lakes” in the desert
- Inferior images in the sky
- What kind of temperature profile is required for superior mirages
- What kind of temperature profile is required for inferior mirages
- Rapid drop in temperature with height (opposite of inversion)