Final Exam Flashcards
- Marked climatic changes within recorded history have been caused by a very small change of only a couple of degrees Celsius in average temperature during a period known as “The Little Ice Age”, which ranged from about
1,400 A.D. to 1,800 A.D.
- The amount of incoming solar radiation absorbed by clouds is
4-5%
- The amount of incoming solar radiation that is reflected by clouds is
4-6%
- The amount of incoming solar radiation reflected by Earth’s surface is
5%
- Much of the outgoing terrestrial infrared radiation is absorbed by
water vapor
- The reradiated amount back to the surface following the absorption of the outgoing terrestrial infrared radiation is nearly
50 per cent
- Without the absorption of the outgoing terrestrial infrared radiation by the atmospheric “green house” gases, the average surface temperature would be approximately
-18 degrees C
- The albedo of Earth, which is the fraction of the incoming solar radiation that goes back into space, including the amounts backscattered by air, reflected by clouds, and reflected by surface, is approximately
0.30
The principal pollutant of “London”-type fog is
sulfur dioxide
- Aerosols generally include particles that range in size from a cluster of molecules to
about 20 micrometers in radiu
- Aerosols with the following composition serve as very effective cloud condensation nuclei
halite
- A radical atom or a radical molecule is a chemical species that
has unpaired electrons
- The maximum concentration of ozone in the atmosphere is at an altitude of
about 24 to 28 km
- Other than destruction by photolysis, ozone in the stratosphere is also destroyed at a significant rate by the reaction with
nitric oxide
- Which one of the following is considered to be probably the most important atmospheric “scavenger” for removal of a large number of atmospheric pollutants, such as carbon monoxide (CO), methane (CH4)
OH• (or hydroxyl radical),
- The primary production of hydroxyl radical (OH•) in the troposphere is by
the ultraviolet dissociation of hydrogen peroxide (H2O2)
- Ozone hole over the Antarctic is due to production of
excess chlorine atoms that destroy ozone
The pH of rainwater due to the current level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is about
5.6
- The acid rain refers to rain water with pH
5 or less
- The atmospheric rain water acidity is reduced by reaction with
calcite aerosol particles
A continental shelf
consists of layers of primarily land derived sediments amounting to few thousands feet thick
Reefs
grow in shallow, warm, and clear oceans
The crust of the sea floor is essentially composed of
basalt
A continental slope begins on the average at a depth of about
200 meters
The flattest feature on earth is
abyssal plain
The total length of the mid-ocean ridge is about
70,000 km
The width of the mid-ocean ridge is more than
100 km
A rift valley on the mid-oceanic ridge is
(D) all of these
(A) produced by tension, (B) 1-2 km deep, (C) as wide as the Grand Canyon in Arizona
The rift valley is generally absent in
the Pacific Ocean
Oceans came into existence about
200 million years ago
Average depth of the modern ocean is about
3-3.5 km
If all existing glaciers and ice caps melt, the global sea level will rise by about
80 meters
Two major chemical components of ocean waters are
sodium and chloride
The pH of surface ocean water is between
7.5 and 8.5
The pH of ocean water is buffered primarily by
carbonate-bicarbonate reactions or changes
Average salinity of modern ocean waters is about
35 parts per thousand
In general, the temperature of the modern ocean within the interval from about 1 km to the bottom decreases
from about 5 to 3 degrees C
Oceans have oxygen minima at about 1 km below the surface. The oxygen minima are due to
loss of oxygen by oxidative decomposition of organic matter
The carbon dioxide content in the atmosphere will increase by
increase in the salinity of the ocean
Black smokers consist primarily of
metal-rich sulfide deposits
The collective ocean body has about
100 times more carbon dioxide than the atmosphere
