Unit 1: Atmosphere
Pressure produced by the weight of the air molecules
What is the air pressure/atmospheric pressure?
The increase in the average temperature of the earth due to increased carbon dioxide levels
What is global warming?
Clouds that are likely to bring rain
What are nimbus clouds?
The place where two air masses meet
What is a front/weather front?
Daily forecast of possible hazardous weather locations
What is a weather outlook?
The circular motion of air due to the rotation of the earth
What is the Coriolis effect?
The overall pattern of weather conditions in a particular area
What is climate?
The type of rocks that do not allow water to flow through it
What is impermeable?
Winds that blow consistently in one direction
What are trade winds?
Satellites which orbit in space and collect weather information
What are weather satellites?
The space within the exosphere that consists of protons and electrons from space, trapped by the earth's magnetic field
Trapping of heat in the earth's atmosphere
What is the greenhouse effect?
Where the zone of aeration and zone of saturation meet
What is the water table?
A spiraling cloud that does not touch the ground
What is a funnel cloud?
Tiny particles suspended in the atmosphere
Aera in the thermosphere where gas molecules are broken into ions by the sun's radiation
What is the ionosphere?
Soil that never thaws below the surface, even in summer
Particles to which water droplets stick when condensing
What are condensation nuclei?
Cumulonimbus clouds forming a thunderstorm
What is a thunderhead?
What is a barometer?
The rate at which temperature decreases as you go up in altitude
What is lapse rate?
Arabic for "season"; describes the wind that brings the rain from the Bay of Bengal
What is the monsoon?
The top layer of rock through which water flows but does not stay
What is the zone of aeration?
Energy wave created by rapid expansion and contraction of air inside a cloud, resulting in thunder
What is a compression wave?
Orbiting the earth in the same direction and same speed that the earth moves
What is geosynchronous orbit?