SUN, TILT & LATITUDE
These latitudes, between the tropics and polar regions, are also called temperate zones.
What are the middle latitudes?
A large body of moving air with a similar temperature is called this.
What is an air mass?
These moving streams of ocean water transport heat and influence nearby weather.
What are ocean currents?
Warm temperatures and abundant rainfall throughout the year describe this major climate group.
What is tropical rainy?
The chapter's agriculture example places Nigeria in this latitude region, where yams thrive in its soil and climate conditions.
What are the tropics?
When sunlight strikes Earth more directly, its energy is more concentrated and temperatures tend to be this.
What is warmer?
Warm air generally moves in this vertical direction, while cold air moves in the opposite direction.
What is upward (warm air rises; cold air sinks)?
This cold current helps explain the dry climate along the west coast of South America.
What is the Peru Current?
This climate group is defined by too little precipitation to support much vegetation.
What is dry?
In the chapter's examples, this country raises beef cattle, while China, Saudi Arabia, and Russia import beef.
What is Brazil?
The middle latitudes extend from about 23½ degrees to this latitude in each hemisphere.
What is 66½ degrees?
This effect, caused by Earth's rotation, deflects moving winds.
What is the Coriolis effect?
This type of precipitation occurs when moist air is forced up a mountain, cools, and releases moisture.
What is orographic precipitation?
As elevation increases in a highland region, temperature generally does this.
What is decreases?
A farmer checks temperature and rainfall patterns before choosing a crop. Explain why these matter.
What is crops need suitable climate conditions, including enough moisture and appropriate temperatures, to grow?
Explain why Earth's seasons are opposite in the Northern and Southern Hemispheres.
What is Earth's tilted axis causes one hemisphere to receive more direct sunlight while the other receives less direct sunlight as Earth revolves around the sun?
These prevailing winds helped carry European ships eastward from the New World back toward Europe.
What are the prevailing westerlies?
A mountain's windward side is wet, but its leeward side is dry. Name the dry region created by this pattern.
What is a rain shadow?
Name two kinds of evidence climatologists use to investigate past climates.
What are tree rings and ice core samples?
Explain how meteorology and climatology differ in their main focus.
What is meteorology studies the atmosphere and current weather, while climatology studies long-term weather patterns and climate?
Explain why the tropics receive more consistent heating through the year than the polar regions.
What is sunlight strikes the tropics more directly throughout the year, while it reaches polar regions at lower angles and polar daylight varies greatly by season?
Two neighboring air masses have a much greater temperature difference than before. According to the chapter, what happens to the strength of the winds between them?
What is the winds become stronger?
Explain how a cold ocean current can contribute to an arid coastal climate.
What is it cools the air above it, and the colder air carries little moisture to produce rainfall when it reaches land?
Two places share a latitude, yet one has wetter weather and the other is drier. Identify two other geographic factors from the chapter that could explain the difference.
What are mountains, proximity to large bodies of water, or ocean currents (accept any two)?
According to the chapter's Christian stewardship discussion, how can understanding weather, climate, and agriculture help people care for creation and their neighbors?
What is it helps people use resources wisely, avoid waste and harmful practices, and grow food to provide for people?