ES 106 Study Guide for Final Exam Brown Spring 2007 The final exam will be comprehensive in the material that it covers. In addition to reading the textbook and using this study guide, be sure to study your review questions and the in-class activities. Remember, your review questions need to have complete sentences or detailed outline form. If your answers are not understandable without looking at the review questions, you will not receive full credit for them. Do the review questions in a LARGE Blue Book, purchased at the bookstore, unless you have received prior approval from me for another submission format. Check the college final exam schedule for the day and time of your final. There is a link to it in the header of my home page. If you cannot take the final as scheduled, you must make a request of the Dean of Arts and Sciences or the Vice President of Student Affairs for permission to have your final on an alternate day. It is not common that a student will be given this permission: special circumstances must exist. Let me know ahead of time, so I can advise you. Earth’s relation to Sun ¾ Axial tilt leads to seasons, solstice and equinox: know details and dates of these, and general relation of latitude to day length ¾ Know names of special circles of Earth’s surface defined by Sun relation ¾ How does Earth’s relation to Sun affect temperature? Why? Atmosphere ¾ Composition: amount of three major components ¾ Names and characteristics of thermal zones of atmosphere ¾ Location of ozone. Why is it important? What is happening to it? Why? ¾ Fate of incoming solar radiation ¾ How the troposphere is heated from below Temperature ¾ Major controls of temperature in locations on Earth’s surface ¾ How do clouds affect daytime and nighttime temperatures, and why? ¾ Worldwide distribution of temperature Water ¾ What is latent heat? What are the implications of water’s phase changes on the temperature of the environment?¾ Describe, be able to calculate, relative humidity, dew point temperature ¾ What causes rainfall? How is it formed in clouds in mid-latitude locations? Weather ¾ Be able to calculate changes in temperature with known lapse rates, and predict if the atmosphere will be stable or not ¾ What are the four major lifting mechanisms for the atmosphere? What happens as air is lifted? ¾ Identify cloud types from diagram ¾ How are hailstones formed? ¾ What is an air mass? How is it designated? What are the significant types of air masses, and how do they affect weather? ¾ Be able to distinguish the two types of fronts, and the weather associated with them. ¾ What are mid-latitude cyclones? Know their characteristics ¾ What are hurricanes? What kinds of things do hurricanes do? ¾ How are tornadoes formed? Where? Pressure ¾ What causes wind? What is the Coriolis effect? How does it affect wind? ¾ How is pressure measured? What are the two types of pressure centers? Know details of each. ¾ Be able to identify the global pressure zones and wind belts on a map. How do these affect global precipitation patterns? ¾ How is wind described? Know information about localized winds ¾ What is El Niño? How does it affect various areas around Earth? ¾ What does pressure have to do with storms? Climate • Know the major divisions of Koppen climate system and the type of information needed to classify climates. • Know the general characteristics of the climate types listed in the terms above. • Climates are influenced by latitude, due to unequal heating of Earth. Understand the role of latitude, circulation of the atmosphere and ocean, elevation and land-water relationships have on specific climates. Glaciers • Glaciers are powerful moving masses of ice formed from recrystallization of snow. They erode by plucking rocks and grinding and scraping these against their beds.• They move from their zone of accumulation to their zone of wastage. • The position of the end of a glacier is related to its snow budget and the speed of its movement. • There have been more than a dozen major ice-sheet advances in the past 3 million years. Ice ages • Causes include changes in the eccentricity of Earth’s orbit, change in axial tilt (obliquity), and precession of the direction of axial tilt. These are superimposed upon one another, leading to the likelihood of glaciation. • Polar land masses appear to be necessary for ice ages to occur. • Ice age temperatures are documented in sea sediment oxygen isotope ratios—more O-18 than at other times indicates a cooler temperature. • Oxygen ratios are preserved in the remains of marine organisms • A number of positive-feedback mechanisms have been discovered or hypothesized that enhance formation of ice sheets. Know information about these feedback mechanisms: o Albedo: ice and cloud o Carbon dioxide levels: causes and effects o Sea level: and how it influences other mechanims o Nutrient/trace element availability Climate change/global warming TERMS TO KNOW Abrasion Baymouth bar Cloud Absolute stability Beach Clouds of vertical development Abyssal plain Beach drift Cold front Adiabatic lapse rate Benthos Condensation Aerosol Bergeron Processes Conduction Air mass Biomass fuel Continental air mass Air pressure barometer Breakwater Continental shelf Albedo Carbon fixation Convection Anemometer Circle of illumination Convergence Aphotic zone Cirrus Coriolis effect Arid climate Climate Crevasse Backshore Climate system CumulusCyclone Glacial striation Low clouds Density Glacial surge Low pressure center Deranged drainage Glaze ice Marine terrace Dew-point temperature Hail Marine west coast climate Divergence Hanging valley Maritime air mass Dry adiabatic lapse rate High clouds Middle clouds Eccentricity High pressure center Mid-latitude cyclone Electromagnetic radiation Highland climate Mild mid-latitude climate Emergent coast Humid continental climate Monsoon Environmental lapse rate Humid subtropical climate Monsoon climate Equatorial low Hurricane Moraine Equinox—September and March Ice cap climate Mountain and valley breezes Estuary Ice sheet Neap tide Evaporation Ice shelf Nearshore zone Eye and eyewall Inches of mercury Nekton Feedback loop Inclination of axis Nuclear fission Fiord Infrared Obliquity Fog Instability: absolute, conditional Occluded front Foreshore
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