Measuring Weather
What is temperature?
How hot or cold something is
What hemisphere is Fairfax in?
Northern hemisphere.
What is precipitation?
Water that falls from clouds to the ground.
What is our local watershed?
Chesapeake Bay.
How many layers of the atmosphere do we have? Name all of them.
5
Troposphere, stratosphere, mesosphere, thermosphere, exosphere.
What are the 4 types of precipitation?
Rain, snow, sleet, hail.
In the fall, Fairfax is getting cooler. Why?
Because in the fall, the northern hemisphere is tilted away from the sun.
What step of the water cycle creates clouds?
Condensation
Define watershed.
Land that water flows across of through on its way to a stream, lake, or wetland.
What is in each layer of the atmosphere?
Troposphere - Life and weather
Stratosphere - ozone layer and jet planes
Mesosphere - meteors and radio waves
Thermosphere - auroras
Exosphere - satellites
What instrument measures temperature? What is the unit we use in science?
Thermometer; degree Celsius.
What weather does high pressure bring?
fair weather.
What is water vapor?
Water in gas form.
What is a pollution? Name 3 kinds of pollution.
Things that make land, water, or air dirty or unsafe.
oil
fertilizer
pesticide
trash
sediment
What does the ozone layer do?
Reflects harmful radiation from the Sun away from Earth and back into space.
What tool measures air pressure? What is the unit?
Barometer; millibars (mb)
What is warm front? (What happens and what weather does it bring?)
A border between air masses, when warm air is moving over cold air.
Long period of precipitation (rain/snow)
Define water cycle.
The movement of water between the Earth and the Earth's atmosphere.
Positive. Because the rocks and plants stop the trash and filters out other pollutions.
Weather only happens in the atmosphere. Why?
Because there are invisible gases in the atmosphere, but there are no gases in space.
What is humidity? How do we measure it?
The amount of water vapor in the air. We measure humidity with a hygrometer.
What is cold front? (What happens and what weather does it bring?)
A border between air masses when cooler air is replacing warm air.
Thunderstorms.
Explain the water cycle and what happens in each part.
precipitation
runoff
evaporation
condensation
What is eutrophication?
When too much nutrients is in the water and causes algae growth.
What are the invisible gases in the atmosphere? How much of each do we have?
3/4 nitrogen, 1/4 oxygen, the rest is carbon dioxide.