#3 Environmental Variation

Question 1

What are latitude and longitude lines indicate?

Answer 1

Latitude are parallels that indicate north and south position
Longitude are meridians that indicate east and west position

Question 2

What latitude and hemisphere are the north and south poles at?

Answer 2

Northern hemisphere contains the north pole at 90 degrees latitude
Southern hemisphere contains the south pole also at 90 degrees latitude
this is the max latitude you can have

Question 3

What is a tropic? What are the two tropics and are they in the northern or southern hemisphere?

Answer 3

A tropic is the maximum latitude where the sun is directly overhead.
Tropic means turning point
Tropic of Cancer is in the northern hemisphere and Tropic of Capricorn is in the southern hemisphere.

Question 4

What happens with the sun north of the Arctic circle and south of the antarctic circle?

Answer 4

The sun never sets during at least one full day a year. 66 degrees latitude

Question 5

What is the difference between the weather and climate?

Answer 5

Weather: day to day state of our atmosphere (sunny, rainy, cloudy, etc)
Climate: long term average of weather (30 years, mean annual temp, sum of annual precipitation)

Question 6

What is the solar angle of incidence? What does it mean

Answer 6

The solar angle of incidence is the angle at which sunlights hits the earth. Different parts of the planet receive different amounts of solar energy depending on this as well as their latitude.

Question 7

What is the solar angle of incidence at the equator?

Answer 7

90 degrees, the sun gets up to straight overhead

Question 8

What makes a certain area of the globe hotter? (why is the equator the hottest)

Answer 8

The distance between the sun and the earth is shorter, and the energy hits a smaller surface compared to higher latitudes (more concentrated)

Question 9

What is the solar angle of incidence at the poles?

Answer 9

Much less than 90 degrees, the energy is scattered across a larger surface area, and the distance between the sun and the earth is longer

Question 10

At what degree is the earth constantly on a tilt? How are seasons determined as the earth rotates around the sun?

Answer 10

The earth is on a constant 23 degree angle, and when the northern hemisphere is titled towards the sun we have summer and the south has winter, but when the northern hemisphere is tilted away from the sun then we have winter and the south has summer

Question 11

What is the cause of our global air circulation?

Answer 11

Uneven distribution of solar energy per unit area across latitudes act like a motor that sustains major air currents across the globe

Question 12

What is the role of Hadley cells? How do they work? What type of climate/biome do they influence?

Answer 12

Hadley cells form due to warm air rising, cooling, and forming condensation (rain) at the equator. This is why we have rainforests at the equator. The hot air from the Hadley cells are rising, and once this hot air reaches 17km high, it cools and air pressure moves the air both north and south, and once the air reaches 30 degrees latitude the air masses begin to warm up again and absorb moisture, hence the cyclic nature of the Hadley cell. This is why we have deserts at about 30 degrees latitude as it has the driest and least moist air

Question 13

What is the role of the Ferrel cell? How are they different from Hadley and Ferrel cells?

Answer 13

Ferrel cells lie at the intersection of the Hadley and Polar cells (just north and south of Hadley), and they are different as they are not maintained by warming/cooling of air, but by the strong energy of the other cells.

Question 14

What are Polar cells? How do they form and what is their role?

Answer 14

They form due to the warming and cooling of air. Air masses rise at about 60 degrees (because they are still sufficiently hot to rise), and then they cool down closer to the poles where they descend as very cold air.

Question 15

What is the effect of the Coriolis effect and winds in the north and south hemispheres?

Answer 15

The Coriolis effect tilts the atmospheric masses thus they do not move directly north to south, instead they are tilted. When in the northern hemisphere, winds always direct you to the right of your direction of travel, and to the left in the southern hemisphere

Question 16

What are the winds that come from Hadley, Ferrel and Polar cells called?

Answer 16

Hadley: trade winds (right)
Ferrel: Westerlies
Polar: Easterlies (suck up moisture and come from the east)

Question 17

What way do storms spin in the northern vs southern hemisphere?

Answer 17

Storms spin counterclockwise in the northern hemisphere and they spin clockwise in the southern hemi

Question 18

What is the name of the major wind driven water currents?

Answer 18

Gyres, they are the horizontally circulating major water currents in the oceans, they are driven by winds, coriolis effect and land masses, important exchange of water, energy, salts, and nutrients

Question 19

What is the Ekman spiral?

Answer 19

Coriolis effect and wind move water vertically as well as horizontally, the force of the wind on the water diminishes and changes direction in deeper waters due to friction and causes a vertical spiral.
The net transport of water vertically will be 90 degrees different than the surface wind direction

Question 20

What is a coastal upwelling?

Answer 20

The wind-driven off-shore movement of water, where deeper waters replace the displaced water near the shore. Deeper water has more nutrients therefore coastal upwellings drive productivity

Question 21

What type of climate do you get at the intersection between Ferral and Polar cells?

Answer 21

Temperate rainforests because air is not as moist/warm as it it by the hadley cell but still enough to rise and create precipitation