List the six weather elements: temperature, ____________________, _______________________, _______________________, ______________________, _______________________
The “layer” between the troposphere and the stratosphere is the _______________________. This can be considered to be the “_________” of the troposphere.
The two most abundant variable gases (on average) are __________________________________ and ___________________________________.
The aurora borealis comes from neutralization of ___________ within the thermosphere.
In ___________________________Meteorology, we deal directly with the observation and forecasting of weather.
The atmospheric pressure at any particular altitude is proportional to _____________ _________________________________________________________________________.
The absorption of _____________________ radiation by ozone in the stratosphere creates the temperature inversion in this layer of Earth’s atmosphere. [a specific type of radiation; not “solar” and not ‘electromagnetic”]
The temperature in the layer called the _____________________ decreases with increasing altitude, since there is no big heating source within it like the stratosphere below this layer. There is, however, part of the ____________________ in this layer—specifically, the D-layer region.
The temperature of a substance is proportional to the _________________________ _________________________ of the molecules making up the substance. This means that the higher the temperature, the _________________ the molecules are moving or vibrating.
The wavelength of maximum emitted intensity from a blackbody goes _________ as the blackbody’s temperature goes up. This means that the hotter a visible star is, the ________-er it will appear to the human eye.
Considering only the idealized incoming and outgoing radiation fluxes for some location, the maximum temperature would occur __________________________________ ____________________________ and the minimum would occur ____________________ ____________________________. [fairly specific periods of a day, but not a clock time—it could be keyed to some event, or the name of a 2–4-hour period of a day]
Because clouds tend to __________________ sunlight during the daytime and absorb terrestrial infrared radiation at night, the maximum-minimum temperature range during a day tends to be ______________-er on a cloudy day than a clear day.
Due to the fact that the Earth is ___________________, there is net incoming radiation in the tropics and net outgoing radiation in the polar regions. The poleward transport of heat to take care of this imbalance is done by ___________________________ of the atmosphere and the _____________________. [the second blank is what the atmosphere and the last blank do, so the last blank is not something completely unrelated to the atmospheric function]
The _____________________________ of water vs. soil is what causes the daily maximum-minimum temperature range to be ______________-er inland than at the coast.
A mechanical thermometer, like a big plastic dial patio thermometer, uses a ____________________ element to sense the temperature and move the needle around the calibrated dial. This same device can move a pen over a moving chart so that a thermograph can record the temperature vs. time.
[At temperatures well below freezing, winds tend to increase one’s loss of heat to the environment through a process called _____________________, leading to a “wind chill temperature” that goes ___________ as the wind speed goes up. [first blank is a physical process, not “wind chill”]
A _____________________ barometer is the most accurate version of this pressure-measuring instrument. We need to apply an altitude correction to its reading in order to get the sea-level pressure for the observing station; once we have a number of readings from stations around the country, we can plot the pressures on a map and connect points of equal pressure with lines called __________________.
The pressure gradient force points from ___________ to __________ pressure areas and the magnitude of the force becomes ________________-er as the spacing between adjacent pressure contour lines on a map becomes smaller.