Major climate controls Flashcards
Draw the vertical structure of the earth’s atmosphere.
Thermoshpere -90 –> 1,500
Mesosphere -5 –> -90
Stratosphere -55 –> -5
Troposphere 15 –> -55
Draw the atmospheric heat budget.
Check in the textbook.
What is the environmental lapse rate (ELR)?
It is the rate at which the temperature changes with altitude.
6.5 celcius per km up.
Define altitude.
The height of the land above sea level.
Define latitude.
The angular distance a place lies north or south of the equator.
What is the ITCZ?
The intertropical convergence zone, the real equator all year round. The strip of land closest to the sun each day.
What is wind caused by?
Temperature differences which then cause pressure differences and air rushes down the pressure gradient
Draw the tricellular model.
^ - - - - - ->l l l
l Hadley l l Ferrel l l Polar l
l l l
What type of pressure causes rain?
Low because that means air is rising and therefore the water vapour gets cooler and condenses and forms clouds. These then become saturated and precipitation occurs.
The oceans are responsible for what percentage of total transfer of heat within the energy budget?
20%
What is the polar front jet stream (PFJS)?
A westerly band of wind high above the Atlantic Ocean and marks the division between the Polar and Ferrel cells
What is the subtropical jet stream (STJS)?
A generally westerly band of air and marks the boundary between the Hadley and Ferrel cells.
Why are the poles so cold?
Their winter daylight hours reach 0 hours a day which means 0 kJ of the sun’s energy is spread over the poles
Also the sun is very low in the sky when it does show and this means the same energy that is concentrated into a metre at the equator is spread over several metres.
Why does it get colder as you go up?
Low pressure as the particles are further apart and so the sun’s energy is absorbed less higher up.
