Last Science Test!! – Flashcards
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What is the atmosphere?
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A thin layer of gasses over the earth surface. NOT a mantle
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50% of atmosphere is below what?
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5.5 km
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99% of the atmosphere is below what?
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33 km
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How big is the earth's radius?
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6370 km
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What are the two principal constituents of the earth's atmosphere and what are their percentages?
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Nitrogen (78%) and Oxygen (21%)
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What is the affect of trace gasses?
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Even in small quantities, they can affect the air we breathe.
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The atmosphere is divided in what type of regions determined by what?
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vertical regions determined by maxima and minima in the atmospheric temperature.
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What is the lowest region of the atmosphere? The next lowest region?
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Troposphere. Stratosphere.
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Where does the local pollution occur primarily?
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In the troposphere.
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What causes atmospheric pollution?
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Conversion of fossil fuel chemical energy to other forms of energy.
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What are the three methods by which pollution may be dispersed?
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1. Horizontally by winds 2. Vertically upwards by convection currents 3. Vertically downwards by rain/precipitation
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The vertical stability of the atmosphere is determined by what?
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The vertical temperature variation.
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What is the Adiabatic Lapse Rate?
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The average rate of decline of atmospheric temperature with altitude.
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What is the ALR?
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3 F/ 1000 ft.
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The lower lapse rates of increasing temperature with altitude is what?
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Increasingly stable and inhibits vertical mixing
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What is temperature inversion? Why does it occur at ground level and at higher levels?
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A layer of warm air that sits over a layer of cooler air near the ground. This happens because cool air is heavier than warm air, it often remains trapped close to the ground. Air pollution that gets trapped beneath the inversion layer can build up, causing air pollution concentrations to increase.
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What is a major producer of local pollutants?
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Highway vehicles
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Major local pollution is urban areas is caused by what?
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Carbon monoxide and oxides of nitrogen
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Forms of deadly smog can be produced from what?
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Particulates and sulfur dioxide produced by burning coal
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In sunny urban areas, the smog situation is...
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Worsened by the formation of photochemical smog.
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The sunlight causes what in smog gases?
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To react to for compounds with the generic acronym PAN
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Sulfur dioxide in the atmosphere is dissolved how?
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By water droplets to eventually fall as acid rain.
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The sulfuric acid in acid rain is harmful to what?
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Fish, plants, and buildings
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What type of fires are restricted?
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Open coal fires
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What are some anti pollution measures that are applied to cars?
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1. Computer control of fuel-air mixture ensured more complete combustion of the gasoline. 2. Sealed fueled systems 3. Elimination of the carburetor 4. Catalytic converter to decompose NO to N2 and 02 before it leaves the tailpipe.
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What is responsible for widespread pollution of particulates? Are these being removed?
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Coal fired power plants. Yes.
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In what years has there been a decrease in total pollutants? After how many years of growth?
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1970. 70 years of growth
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What is the ozone hole?
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The intensity of a long wavelength of Ultra Violet radiation reaching the earth in certain locations.
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How is the Ozone Hole connected to our energy usages?
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CFCs are the compounds used in refrigeration units, car air conditioners, and building air conditioners.
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What is global warming?
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Global warming is the increase in temperature of the surface of the earth.
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What is weather?
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Local with greater fluctuations than climate changes
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What is climate?
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Global. Long term changes in average conditions
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Pollutants can be spread around the world how?
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By global wind systems including the jetstream.
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What is a Jetstream?
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It encircles the earth and disperses atmospheric pollutants.
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The ozone is what type of molecular form?
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Oxygen. Having the formula O3
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Where does the atmospheric ozone peak?
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Stratosphere at a 25 km altitude
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The ozone layer absorbs what?
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The solar long wave UV that is not absorbed higher in the atmosphere.
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The solar radiation absorbed by ozone would increase what?
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The incidence of skin cancer if it reached the earth.
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Where have their been significant depletion of the ozone layer?
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Above the Antarctic and to a lesser extent above the Artic.
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What is the ozone depletion due to?
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The release of CFC (Freon) molecules from spray cans and refrigeration systems into the atmosphere.
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When is the effect most pronounced?
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In the local spring. The increased solar energy vaporizes the crystals releasing a burst of chlorine which removes ozone.
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CFC production has now what?
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ceased
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CFC's into the atmosphere from older systems is now what?
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illegal
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What are the substitute compounds for CFC's?
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HFC and HCFC which are very active greenhouse gases.
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A rapid international response of the ozone hole phenomenon was what?
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Sucessful in reducing the basic reasons for the problem.
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It is predicted that global warming is what due to an atmospheric greenhouse effect?
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A climate change
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Greenhouse effect depends on what?
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The fact that the wavelength of the incoming radiation energy from the sun is much shorter than that of the re-emitted radiation from the earth due to their different temperatures.
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What are the four principal gases for the atmospheric greenhouse affect?
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Carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, and CFC's
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What is the gas most responsible for the atmospheric greenhouse effect?
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Carbon Dioxide
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Carbon dioxide has been increasing since when?
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The industrial revolutions. It shows an ever greater rate of increase at the present.
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A move from fossil fuels as an energy source is needed to reduce what?
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Carbon Dioxide emissions
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What are the two sinks for carbon dioxide?
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Oceans and forests
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Measurements of the global average temperature have shown an increasing trend over the last how many years?
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100
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Global warming is predicted to be what in the next 100 years?
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Only a few degrees
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Global warming will produce what?
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Climate changes which are apparent as different weather patterns.
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What are some of the consequences of global warming?
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Changes in weather patterns, change in agricultural patterns, diminished food production, increase in Sea Level because of melting caps, melting of inland glaciers.
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What are the three International efforts to reduce Carbon Dioxide emissions?
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Earth Summit Meeting in Rio De Janerio. Kyoto Meeting The Hague Meeting
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Do countries want to reduce their fossil fuels?
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No.
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What is the controversy for sinks?
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Substituting a forest planting (a sink) for fossil fuel reduction (a source) as a global strategy.
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What is the carbon and what is it called?
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It is called Cap and Trade. Producers of CO2 pay a tax to the gov. Lower producers of CO2 could trade their CO2 savings with higher producers who exceed their cap. Raise gas prices.
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The so-called greenhouse effect is due at least partially to...
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the opacity of CO2 and H2O to ultraviolet radiation
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The increase observed in the atmospheric levels of carbon diosixde over the past 100 years are probably due to what?
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the burning of fossil fuels
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The concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere, as measured at Mauna Loa, increased from about what ppm in 1958 and what ppm in 2005?
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315-380
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The reason that skin cancer can be caused by ultraviolet radiation but not by the visible light at the earth's surface is why?
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There is much more UV than visible light at the earth's surface.
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It is feared that because of the past release of Freons the ____ in the upper atmosphere will continue to decrease, which will increase the ____
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Ozone, ultraviolet
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One consequence of the loss of ozone is:
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increased incidence of skin cancer
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Loss of ozone can be traced back to energy because the ozone is broken up by what?
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CO2 from burning fossil fuels
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The loss of ozone is attributed to an increase of what free atom in the atmosphere?
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Chlorine
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If you were exposed to an atmosphere containing 100 ppm of CO for 10 hours, what will result?
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headache and reduced mental acuity
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What best characterizes the major fuel, time of occurence, principal constituents, and principal effect of photochemical smog (LA and Logan)?
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Petroleum, midday, (O3, NO, NO2, CO), eye irritation
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Which best characterizes the major fuel, time of occurence, principal constituents, and principal effect of London-type smog?
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Coal and petroleum, early morning (particulates, CO, sulfur compounds), bronchial irritation
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The purpose of an automobile's catalytic convertor is to what?
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decompose and oxidize pollutants
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The primary source of man-made SO2 is what? And its basic harm to people, animals, vegetation, and material is through the formation of what?
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coal burning, H2SO4
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The adiabatic lapse rate is -1degreesC/100m and the existing temperature profile is -1.5degreesC/100m. Under such conditions, what is true?
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It is an unstable condition conducive to clean air and thermal inversions.
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Carbon monoxide is dangerous to human health because?
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Suffocation occurs because of its great affinity for hemoglobin in the blood
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The two emissions from coal burning power plants most important to human health and air pollution are?
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CO and SO2
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The lowest region of the atmosphere is what?
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troposphere
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The thickness of the Earth's atmosphere compared to the Earth's radius is what?
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Much smaller
