Atmospheric Science
Ocean Science
Climate Change Science
Soil Science
Environmental Science
100
The gaseous envelope surrounding the Earth.
What is the atmosphere?
100
A rising ocean current that transports colder, nutrient-laden water to the surface.
What is upwelling?
100
The typical patterns of weather that occur in a place over a period of years.
What is climate?
100
The horizontal layers into which many soils are organized.
What are soil horizons?
100
The single most important step in the Scientific Method.
What is observation?
200
The layer of the atmosphere where weather occurs.
What is the troposphere?
200
The movement of seawater into a freshwater aquifer located near the coast.
What is saltwater intrusion?
200
The proportional reflectance of Earth's surface.
What is albedo?
200
The uppermost layer of Earth's crust, which supports terrestrial plants, animals, and microorganisms.
What is soil?
200
A loss of water vapor from the aerial surfaces of plants.
What is transpiration?
300
Horizontal movement of a fluid usually from an external force.
What is advection?
300
A periodic, large-scale warming of surface waters of the tropical eastern Pacific Ocean that affects both ocean and atmospheric circulation patterns.
What is El Nino - Southern Oscillation (ENSO)?
300
Describes the tilt of the Earth’s axis with respect to the plane of the Earth’s orbit
What is obliquity?
300
Time, topography, parent material, biology, and climate.
What are the five soil forming factors?
300
A groundwater storage area located above a layer of impermeable rock.
What is an unconfined aquifer?
400
The tendency of moving air or water to be deflected from its path to the right in the Northern Hemisphere and to the left in the Southern Hemisphere.
What is the Coriolis effect?
400
A marine ecosystem set aside to minimize human impacts and protect unique natural resources and historical sites.
What is a national marine sanctuary?
400
Solar flux, albedo, and greenhouse gases.
What are the three factors that directly affect the temperature at the Earth's surface?
400
Relative proportion of different sized inorganic mineral particles of sand, silt, and clay.
What is soil texture?
400
The conversion of nitrogen-containing organic compounds to ammonia and ammonium ions by certain bacteria in the soil; part of the nitrogen cycle.
What is ammonification?
500
Unstable atmosphere where upward and downward motions in large, turbulent eddies can occur.
What is looping?
500
The ocean's benthic environment that extends from 6000 meters to the bottom of the deepest ocean trenches.
What is the hadal benthic zone?
500
The capacity of a gas to affect the balance of energy that enters and leaves Earth's atmosphere.
What is radiative forcing?
500
Intensely weathered soils of tropical and subtropical environments.
What are Oxisols?
500
The science that studies the whole Earth as a system of many interacting parts and focuses on the changes within and between those parts.
What is Earth System Science?
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