ATMOSPHERE & WEATHER
The layer of the atmosphere where all Earth's weather occurs.
What is the troposphere?
The underground layer of rock or sediment that stores groundwater and allows it to flow easily.
What is an aquifer?
This type of energy source can be replenished over months, years, or decades.
What are renewable resources?
A conclusion or interpretation based on evidence, such as "The river is polluted," as opposed to a direct sense experience.
What is an inference?
The type of heat transfer that happens through direct contact, like your hand touching a warm chair.
What is conduction?
This is the key ingredient needed for a cloud to form, besides cooling air, low pressure and water vapor.
What are particulates (or condensation nuclei)?
A type of water pollution, such as runoff from farms and homes such as fertizlizer (or insecticide) runoff?
What is nonpoint pollution?
The main fuel source used in nuclear fission reactors.
What is uranium?
The fundamental building block of matter.
What is the atom?
The type of heat transfer responsible for the Earth receiving energy from the sun through empty space.
What is radiation?
The name for a dark, tall, puffy cloud that is associated with a thunderstorm.
What are cumulonimbus clouds?
The primary place where most of Earth's freshwater is located.
What are polar ice caps and glaciers?
This process, which involves pumping water, sand, and chemicals underground, is used to extract fossil fuels from deep rocks.
What is fracking?
Changing the number of this subatomic particle will change the element itself.
What is a proton?
When a liquid or gas is heated, it rises because it is less dense than the surrounding fluid, a process called this.
What is convection?
The point at which the air must cool for water vapor to condense.
What is the dew point?
The area of land where all the precipitation and runoff collects and drains into a common body of water.
What is a watershed or drainage basin?
A major disadvantage of solar power is that it cannot create energy during this time.
What is at night (or 24 hours a day)?
The ratio of an object's mass to its volume.
What is density?
What happens to the speed of a substance's molecules when heat is added to it.
What is increase in speed?
The effect of Earth's rotation that causes global winds to not follow a straight path.
What is the Coriolis effect?
The most common cause of damage and loss of life caused by a hurricane.
What are storm surges and flooding?
The fossil fuel that produces the least amount of carbon dioxide when burned for energy.
What is natural gas?
In a graph, this variable is conventionally plotted on the x-axis.
What is the independent variable?
The property of water where water molecules are attracted to other types of substances and itself forming an invisible film on the surface.
What is surface tension?