Composition and Layers
These two gases make up 99% of the atmosphere.
What are nitrogen (78%) and oxygen (21%)?
This region in the stratosphere absorbs harmful UV radiation.
What is the ozonosphere?
All radiation received at Earth’s surface is called this.
What is insolation?
Name one greenhouse gas that absorbs longwave radiation.
What is CO₂, CH₄, or H₂O vapor?
This human-made compound once used in refrigerants destroys ozone molecules.
What are CFCs (chlorofluorocarbons)?
This layer contains virtually all weather and decreases in temperature with height.
What is the troposphere?
This region spans the mesosphere and thermosphere and absorbs cosmic rays, gamma rays, and X-rays.
What is the ionosphere?
About 7% of incoming solar energy is redirected back to space by this process.
What is scattering?
Without greenhouse gases, Earth’s average temperature would be this.
What is –18°C (0°F)?
This natural event in 1991 injected particles into the stratosphere and cooled Earth temporarily.
What was the eruption of Mt. Pinatubo?
Above 80 km, gases are sorted by weight in this region that makes up less than 0.001% of the atmosphere.
What is the heterosphere?
This international agreement helped reduce CFCs and aided ozone recovery.
What is the Montreal Protocol?
This property measures the percentage of insolation a surface reflects.
What is albedo?
the three primary mechanisms of heat transfer are conduction, convection, and this.
What is advection (horizontal transfer)?
Automobiles are responsible for about what percentage of anthropogenic air pollution?
What is 50–60%?
in the stratosphere, temperature increases with height because of this gas.
What is ozone (O₃)?
This natural process splits oxygen molecules (O₂) to form ozone.
What is photodissociation?
About how much of incoming solar energy is reflected by clouds alone?
What is 21%?
Earth’s actual average temperature with greenhouse gases is about this.
What is 15°C (59°F)?
This transported dust event in June 2020 was called “A Dust Plume to Remember.”
What is Saharan dust?
This layer, starting around 480 km, coincides with the heterosphere and reaches very high temperatures but little heat.
What is the thermosphere?
One chlorine atom from a CFC can destroy approximately how many ozone molecules?
What is 100,000?
Refraction of solar radiation adds about this many minutes of sunlight at sunrise and sunset combined.
What is ~8 minutes (4 at sunrise, 4 at sunset)?
This scientist, along with Eunice Foote, is credited with discovering the greenhouse effect.
Who is John Tyndall?
This condition traps pollution in valleys by causing temperature to increase with height instead of decrease.
What is a temperature inversion?