Weather Systems 1
Air masses resemble the qualities of the _______ over which they form.
area
What kind of atmospheric condition is associated with peaceful, sunny days?
High pressure zones sitting over area.
If the temperature goes up in a system where volume is constant, what will happen to pressure?
It will increase
A balloon is filled with 15.0 L of helium in the morning when the temperature is 10.00 C. By noon the temperature has risen to 35.00C. What is the new volume of the balloon?
16 L
What is the layer of the atmosphere that is habitable for life?
The troposphere
What is a front?
A place where two air masses meet. These tend to be the epicenters of storms/ disturbances.
What conditions cause hurricanes?
Low pressure/ temperature air masses moving quickly over warm ocean water
If the volume of a system increases, what will happen to the pressure?
It will decrease
A 50 L container holds 10 moles of gas at a temperature of 100 C. What is the pressure in kilopascals inside the container?
620.59 kPa
What element makes up the majority of our atmosphere?
Nitrogen
Why is there wind?
Differences in air pressure caused by variations in temperature. When there are high and low pressure zones, gas flows from areas of high pressure to low and we experience this as wind.
Why do tornadoes tend to form in 'tornado alley' in the USA?
This area is where continental polar air masses from the North and maritime tropical air masses from the South consistently tend to meet and create fronts in this country. These are really opposite air masses that can have large pressure/ temperature differentials so the odds that big high energy storms form here are high.
If the temperature of a system drops, what will happen to volume?
It will decrease
The volume of a gas decreased from 2.40 L to 830 mL and the final temperature is set at 40.0 °C. Assuming a constant pressure, calculate the initial temperature of the gas in kelvins.
905 Kelvin
Why is it so important that we have an ozone cycle that is not weakening?
The cycling between O2 and O3 in our atmosphere is driven by sunlight and is an absorption mechanism for a lot of radiation that would otherwise come down to the surface and cause a lot of problems for life here
What is the root cause of the uneven heating of Earth's atmosphere?
A) Earth is a sphere with a tilted axis, so some places get more direct sunlight than others.
B) Different materials heat up and cool at different rates, so heat is distributed differently - particularly over land vs. water.
Thunder is a sound caused by lightning strikes super heating air as they pass through. We just see the light before we hear the sound because light moves a lot faster than sound, so it reaches us first when we are far away.
Offer a real-world example of Gay-Lussac's Law in action
Anything that describes temperature and pressure having a direct relationship when volume is fixed. (ex. tire pressure in the winter, pressure cooker, aerosol can blowing up)
A gas-filled weather balloon having a volume of 3.50 L at 1.30 atm and 25.0 °C is allowed to rise 5 km above the surface of Earth, where the temperature and pressure are 12.0 °C and 1.10 atm, respectively. What would the volume of the balloon be in these conditions?
(piVi/nRTi = PfVf/ nRTf)
3.95 L
What is the Coriolis effect, and why does it happen?
The Coriolis effect is the pattern of deflection taken by objects not firmly connected to the ground as they travel long distances, including air masses. It happens because as the Earth rotates on its axis, stuff is deflected toward the right in the Northern Hemisphere and toward the left in the Southern Hemisphere due to differences in speed of rotation at the poles vs. the equator
Name 4 methods for collecting data used in weather forecasting.
Weather stations, doppler radar. weather balloons, satellites, oceanic buoys
Why is it so likely that lightning will strike a key on a kite in a thunderstorm?
Lightning is caused by the separation of negative and positive particles in storm clouds. When enough negative particles (electrons) build up, they are attracted to positive things here on Earth which causes the electricity bolts we see. Metal is a super positively charged material and is therefore a great magnet for electricity.
What is the purpose of the mathematical constant R?
R is the radical constant. It is a means for us to incorporate degrees of randomness/ unpredictability into our math because molecule kinetics is largely a statistics based science in reality due to the randomness of particle motion.
A 2.65 g sample of dry ice (solid carbon dioxide) is placed in a 2.90-L vessel and converted into CO2 gas. Calculate the pressure in kPa inside the vessel if the temperature is at 35.0 degrees C.
52.98 kPa
Should the exosphere be considered a distinct layer in our atmosphere, or not? Offer a logical justification for your answer.
Teacher's choice - looking for discussion of sparsity of gas molecules. Incredibly low density - could argue does not reasonably constitute a layer in the same manner as others, or that it does because there are indeed gas molecules still so it can't truly be called space