Atmospheric Motion
Global Circulation
Lifting Mechanisms
Water I
Water II
100
This is the direction that the Coriolis force deflects in the Northern Hemisphere
What is to the right?
100
Because of this apparent force caused by Earth's rotation, winds within the three cells curve instead of moving in a straight line north or south.
What is Coriolis Effect?
100
On a hot day, this process occurs as the sun heats the ground, causing air to become less dense and rise.
What is Convective Lifting?
100
At what temperature is the Lifting Condensation Level in the image?
2 C
100
This specific constant rate dictates that an unsaturated, rising air parcel will cool by exactly 10 °C for every 1,000 meters it climbs.
What is the Dry Adiabatic Rate?
200
The 3 forces cause atmospheric motion (wind).
Pressure Gradient Force, Coriolis, Friction
200
This smallest and northernmost circulation cell spans from 60° latitude to the top of the world.
What is the Polar Cell?
200
Rain shadows are a product of this lifting mechanism, which forces air up and over a mountain range.
What is Orographic Lifting?
200
This high-altitude, wispy cloud is composed of ice crystals and can signal a change in weather.
What are cirrus clouds?
200
This common moisture metric is a ratio, expressed as a percentage, comparing the actual amount of water vapor in the air to the maximum amount the air could hold at that temperature.
What is relative humidity?
300
During the day islands will get hotter than the ocean because water requires more energy to heat up. Where would you expect there to be high pressure, over the land or the sea?
Over the sea
300
What latitudinal line will not have any hurricanes due to the absence of the Coriolis effect in this region?
What is the equator?
300
In a midlatitude cyclone, this specific boundary features dense, cold air wedging underneath warm air, often producing a narrow band of violent thunderstorms.
What is a cold front?
300
If the air temperature is 20°C and the dew point is 20°C, what is the relative humidity?
What is 100%?
300
Operating in warm clouds, this precipitation model features large droplets colliding and merging with smaller ones as they fall toward Earth.
What is collision-coalescence?
400
Rotating in the same direction as the Earth, these low-pressure weather systems spin counterclockwise in the Northern Hemisphere and clockwise in the Southern Hemisphere.
What are cyclones
400
Found closest to the equator between 0° and 30° latitude, this largest circulation cell features warm air rising at the Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ).
What is the Hadley Cell?
400
This lifting mechanism happens when winds blow from different directions into the same low-pressure area, forcing the colliding air upward, as seen constantly at the equator's ITCZ.
What is convergence?
400
When the air temperature goes up, what generally happens to the relative humidity, assuming the amount of moisture stays the same?
What is it decreases?
400
Unlike a moving parcel's cooling rate, this variable rate describes the actual temperature differences you would measure at different heights in the ambient, still air.
What is the Environmental Lapse Rate?
500
In an unstable atmosphere, a lifted air parcel will continue to do this on its own accord.
What is rise on its own?
500
Because landmasses block continuous east-west water flow, these massive, circular ocean currents develop, flowing in an anticyclonic pattern that mirrors the wind.
What are gyres?
500
This stage of a midlatitude cyclone occurs when a fast-moving cold front completely catches up to a warm front
What is an occluded front?
500
During this process, ice crystals grow at the expense of supercooled liquid water droplets because of differences in the saturation vapor pressure over ice versus liquid water.
What is the Bergeron Process?
500
To form suspended cloud droplets, water vapor must condense onto these tiny atmospheric particles, such as floating bits of dust.
What are condensation nuclei?