Climate Change
The overall weather in an area over a long period of time
What is climate?
The attraction between molecules of the same substance.
What is cohesion?
The movement of energy from one place to another
What is energy transfer?
Day-to-day conditions of the atmosphere, including temperature, precipitation, and other factors
What is weather?
Global patterns created from the movement of the oceans due to density differences.
What are deep ocean currents?
Coal, oil, natural gas, and other fuels that are ancient remains of plants and animals that release greenhouse gases when burned
What are fossil fuels?
A measure of how difficult it is to stretch or break the surface of a liquid
What is surface tension?
The ability to hold heat or insulate
What is heat retention?
When a warm air mass and a cold air mass meet and no movement occurs, causing continuous amounts of precipitation
What is a stationary front?
Global patterns of ocean movement due to wind.
Gases such as carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, water vapor, and ozone in the atmosphere which are involved in the greenhouse effect.
What are greenhouse gases?
The tendency of water to rise in a thin tube
What is Capillary Action?
Where change in a system is continuous and amplified
What is a positive feedback loop?
A large-scale atmospheric circulation pattern in the tropics where warm, moist air rises, travels poleward at high altitudes, cools, sinks in the subtropics, and returns to the equator along the surface
What are hadley cells?
Periodic warming of surface ocean waters leading to wetter conditions.
What is El Niño?
When the radiation from the sun is equal to the radiation from the earth.
What is energy balance?
The negative charge near the oxygen atom and positive charges near each hydrogen atom causing water to have specific properties.
What is polarity?
The positive feedback loop in which an increase in the Earth's temperature causes ice to melt so more radiation is absorbed by the Earth's surface leading to further increases in temperature.
What is the albedo effect?
The phenomenon that causes moving air and water to turn left in the southern hemisphere and turn right in the northern hemisphere due to Earth's hemisphere.
What is the Coriolis effect?
The movement of air from sea to land during the day when cooler air from above the water moves over the land, forcing the heated, less dense air above the land to rise
What are sea breezes?
The positive feedback loop in which an increase in the Earth's temperature causes ice to melt so more radiation is absorbed by the Earth's surface leading to further increases in temperature.
What is the albedo effect?
The energy required to raise the temperature of one gram of a substance by one degree Celsius
What is specific heat?
A mechanical weathering process that occurs when water freezes in the cracks of rocks and expands, causing the rock to break apart
What is ice wedging?
Layer of the stratosphere with a high concentration of ozone; absorbs most of the Sun's harmful ultraviolet radiation
What is the ozone layer?
Periodic warming of surface ocean waters leading to wetter conditions.
What is El Niño?