GEO 005 Exam 3

It expands and cools, cannot hold as much water vapor as warm air, so it causes the water vapor to condense in droplets and ice crystals, forming clouds

Cold fronts push warm moist air high into the atmosphere and give rise to severe thunderstorms

Dry air is heaver, as is cold air

A sudden electrostatic discharge between oppositely charged regions of a cloud or between a cloud and the ground

A rapid expansion of air due to rising temperatures to over 50,000 degrees that results in a shockwave

Ice crystals that travel repeatedly above and below the freezing line, enabling additional water to freeze onto them until they become too heavy for updrafts and fall to the ground

the presence of a mesocyclone // Giant cumulonimbus clouds that rotate formed when a strong wind shear leads to horizontal vortex that is then rotated into a vertical vortex

There is an updraft going into a tornado, and a downdraft dropping hail in front of a tornado

Wind blows towards a tornado feeding the updraft, then blows out from the tornado 100 feet above ground

1. Cold dry air from the north collides with warm moist air from the gulf to form cumulonimbus clouds, 2. winds from the jet stream cause the cumulonimbus clouds to experience horizontal shear (vortices parallel to the ground), 3. warm dry air from the southwest lifts and rotates the vortices into a vertical orientation, generating a spinning supercell

About 1,000

The spring, when waters from the Gulf of Mexico begin to warm, while cold air masses still descend from the north

Based on the damage it inflicts, which is then used to estimate wind speed

No- it can only measure wind speeds a few km above the ground which is good for supercells, but not tornados

Tornadoes cannot split or join, but multiple vortices are common, with each rotating about a larger tornadic center

Get inside and go to the basement. If there is no basement, go to a small ground floor interior room without windows

If there is no traffic, drive away at right angles to the direction the tornado is traveling. If stuck in traffic and no obvious shelter, get to a low spot and lie down to avoid flying debris. Do not hide under an overpass!!

Flying objects, not wind

A tropical cyclone, an organization of a large number of thunderstorms originating in the tropics into a massive single rotating storm system// it is an area of low atmospheric pressure characterized by rotating winds// Happens in the northern hemisphere in the Atlantic and eastern Pacific

Happens in the western Pacific

Happens in the Indian Ocean, southern hemisphere

warm, tropical waters

Their winds diminish

August-October when tropical waters are the warmest

Because there is no Coriolis effect, so groups of thunderstorms cannot organize themselves into a cyclone

Warm air rising causes pressure to drop, reaching a minimum at the center of the eye. Hurricanes also cause a rise in humidity, and winds. The highest winds occur in the eye wall as winds cannot penetrate into the eye. In the eye, there is dry, descending air, wind drop, and pressure drop // The highest winds occur at the eyewall eye→ lowest pressure and wind eyewell→highest winds

Wind speed

Using direct measurements using dropsondes are the main accurate means to understand the properties of a hurricane. Combined with numerical models, this can help us estimate how powerful a hurricane may get and where it might be heading

Hurricane winds can push water onshore, causing severe coastal flooding → storm surge / they mimic high tides → major cause of death from hurricane // Wind-driven and pressure driven pile up when they approach land

A storm surge

Cold, arctic air collides with and lifts warm, moist air above the Gulf

Similarities: both rely on warm water, but nor'easters require a cold front that lifts warm moist air Differences: nor'easters form in the north Atlantic, hurricanes form in the tropics; snow is only with nor'easters; nor'easters are most common in the winter, hurricanes occur in the late summer; nor'easters rarely form an eye

Cold front from the west, nor'easter from the northeast, hurricane grace from the south

Evacuate if mandatory or you live in a mobile home, high rise, or area prone to a storm surge If evacuating, leave early to avoid traffic, find hotel occupancies, and have time to change plans If staying, gather food, water, emergency supplies, and rx drugs bc a hurricane/loss of electricity may last for a while. If your house uses an electrical water pump, fill a bathtub with water Bring all outside furniture in and consider taping up windows to px shattering Put all of your valuables into clear plastic bags or watertight bin Shelter in place as with a tornado

Bhola, Bangladesh, 500,000 fatalities

Yes, if it travels into the region that has typhoons.

The rate of temperature increases more than 1C in the past 50 years- 10x faster than anytime in the past 800,000 years

Milankovitch Cycles(changes in earth's orbital pattern):

It has remained the same or decreased

Greenhouse gases allow visible light to pass, but trap some of the re-admitted infrared light (heat)- short wave passes, but long wave radiation is trapped

The Earth would average only 0F and become completely covered in ice

Only about .05%

Human greenhouse gas emissions far outpace those from natural sources, with most coming from the burning of fossil fuels. Coal powered plants are the largest contributors of CO2. A single coal-fired power plant can use 10,000 tons of coal per day- the amount carried by a 100-car train

They are any small particle suspended in the atmosphere that block sunlight- thus causing cooling. Mt. Tambora in 1815 caused global cooling of 0.5C for a year

Ice reflects 90% of sunlight and converts only 10% to heat, whereas ocean water is the opposite

Temperatures and CO2 concentrations are always closely correlated

Human facts are responsible for the current rise in temperatures

The ongoing rise in global average temperatures

The changes in climate, frequency and severity of storms brought about by global warming

Unusually warm weather in the arctic pushes unusually cold weather to the south

Higher temperatures mean more water evaporates, leading to more storms and flooding; glaciers are disappearing world wide

97%

The urge to believe only things that confirm what you already believe to be true

1. How should we balance environmental and economic concerns?

2. How much will the Earth heat up?

3. What are the best strategies to fight global warming?

humans // 85% are caused by humans, rest by lightning

1. vegetation (some fuels burn more easily) 2. topography (fires burn faster uphill) 3. weather (hotter and dryer means faster burn)

A grass or brush fire that burns low to the ground // burn more easily and spread rapidly

Flames are carried along tree canopies - driven by strong winds and steep slopes

Preignition (heat of fuels causes them to lose moisture causing them to be more combustible), combustion (hotter temp causes fuelt to release gases that lead to a chemical to release more heat) , extinction.

The GreaT Fire of 1910 // burned 3 mil acres

the original: aggressively fight all fires current: mitigation and management (permit fires to burn in wilderness areas, only fight fires that endanger people or important structures)

grassland - prevent trees and shrubs from taking over forest - fires allow certain seeds to germinate

~Fire weather watch: Potentially dangerous fire weather conditions are possible over the next 12 to 72 hours. ~Fire weather warning: Wildfires are occurring in the general area or will occur in the next 24 hours.

burning embers are the most common means of spreading a fire in subdivision // good wildfire safety practices: home - remove shrubs, avoid outside burning, fire resistant shingled roof, scattered trees within 30ft of structure etc. // camping: - no cabin surrounded by trees, not a lot of logs, not a lot of shrubs

fireline - remove brush and scrape down to the soil along a wide line so that a surface fire cannot passbackburn - removes fuel from the path of a fire (always set in conjunction with a pre-existing fireline)

to mark where they are dropped

more specific targeting, can refill in small bodies of water, some carry water cannons like fire trucks

To get to and fight remote wildfires before they become too destructive

Designed to do: reflect heat, trap breathable air, serve as final effort to survive wildfire not designed to do: protect against direct, sustained contact with flames

-a sudden downdraft changed the direction of the fire -the crew did not have GPS to relay their exact coordinates -the air tanker flying above did not know their location -nobody knows why they descended out of the black

small rocks (less than a few meters across) traveling through space

small rocks produced when meteoroids burn up in the earth's atmosphere and light up the sky

small pieces of space rock that survive passage through the atmosphere to be picked up in the surface

large space rock; up to 100km

an object made of gas, ice, and dust that orbits around the sun

-layer of loose dust and small particles left over from many impacts -reason why asteroids have smooth surfaces

In the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter

no, it's really huge and not crowded; there is a 500,000 km avg distance between asteroids

total mass of the asteroid belt adds up to just 4% of the mass of the Moon

they are a mixture of ice and rock

as a comet approaches the sun, solar radiation causes the ices to vaporize and stream out of the nucleus, carrying dust and gas with them, this then becomes the tails of the comets

it is pushed away from the sun by solar wind