Atmosphere and Climatology Gk Questions

Correct Answer:-C ( gravitational pull )
Description:-  The atmosphere is made up of gasses. Gasses are physical substances, and all physical substance has weight. The atmosphere is 25 miles thick, and that 25 miles thick layer of gasses presses down on earth with a weight of 15 lbs. per square inch because of the gravitational pull. That’s how atmosphere exerts pressure on the earth.

Correct Answer:-D ( Tornado )
Description:-  A tornado is a violently rotating column of air that is in contact with both the surface of the earth and a cumulonimbus cloud or, in rare cases, the base of a cumulus cloud. They are often referred to as twisters or cyclones, although the word cyclone is used in meteorology, in a wider sense, to name any closed low pressure circulation. Tornadoes come in many shapes and sizes, but they are typically in the form of a visible condensation funnel, whose narrow end touches the earth and is often encircled by a cloud of debris and dust. Most tornadoes have wind speeds less than 110 miles per hour (177 km/h), are about 250 feet (76 m) across, and travel a few miles (several kilometers) before dissipating. The most extreme tornadoes can attain wind speeds of more than 300 miles per hour (483 km/h), stretch more than two miles (3.2 km) across, and stay on the ground for dozens of miles (more than 100 km)..

Correct Answer:-D ( anemometer )
Description:-  An anemometer is a device for measuring wind speed, and is a common weather station instrument. The term is derived from the Greek word anemos, meaning wind, and is used to describe any airspeed measurement instrument used in meteorology or aerodynamics. The first known description of an anemometer was given by Leon Battista Alberti around 1450.

Correct Answer:-B ( Convection )
Description:-  The air moving across the surface towards the extra heated region is known as the trade winds. The region where the northern convective airflow meets the southern and the air starts heading up instead of across the surface is known as the doldrums by sailors. The upwelling warm moist air expands, cools and drops heavy rain, but since it’s moving up instead of across it won’t fill sails.

Correct Answer:-C ( Chloro-floro-carbon )
Description:-  Chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) and other halogenated ozone depleting substances (ODS) are mainly responsible for man-made chemical ozone depletion. It is calculated that a CFC molecule takes an average of about five to seven years to go from the ground level up to the upper atmosphere, and it can stay there for about a century, destroying up to one hundred thousand ozone molecules during that time.

Correct Answer:-C ( Westerlies )
Description:-  The Roaring Forties is the name given to strong westerly winds found in the Southern Hemisphere, generally between the latitudes of 40 and 50 degrees. The Westerlies play an important role in carrying the warm, equatorial waters and winds to the western coasts of continents, especially in the southern hemisphere because of its vast oceanic expanse.

Correct Answer:-D ( Isotherm )
Description:-  An isotherm is a line that connects points on a map that have the same temperature. Therefore, all points through which an isotherm passes have the same or equal temperatures at the time indicated. Generally, isotherms representing 5 °C or 10 °F temperature differences are used, but any interval may be chosen.

Correct Answer:-B ( Troposphere )
Description:-  Weather is the state of the atmosphere, to the degree that it is hot or cold, wet or dry, calm or stormy, clear or cloudy. Most weather phenomena occur in the troposphere, just below the stratosphere. Weather refers, generally, to day-to-day temperature and precipitation activity, whereas climate is the term for the average atmospheric conditions over longer periods of time.

Correct Answer:-C ( Blizzards )
Description:-  A blizzard is a severe snowstorm characterized by strong winds and low temperatures. The difference between a blizzard and a snowstorm is the strength of the wind. To be a blizzard, a snow storm must have sustained winds or frequent gusts that are greater than or equal to 56 km/h (35 mph) with blowing or drifting snow which reduces visibility to 400 meters or a quarter mile or less and must last for a prolonged period of time — typically three hours or more.

Correct Answer:-A ( Vaporization )
Description:-  Condensation is the change of physical state of matter from gaseous phase into liquid phase and is the reverse of vaporization. When the relative humidity reaches 100 per cent, the air is completely saturated. The air temperature is said to be as dew-point.

Correct Answer:-A ( Troposphere )
Description:-  The lowest layer of the atmosphere, 6 miles (10 km) high in some areas and as much as 12 miles (20 km) high in others, within which there is a steady drop in temperature with increasing altitude and within which nearly all cloud formations occur and weather conditions manifest themselves.

Correct Answer:-C ( Typhoon )
Description:-  Tropical Cyclones (also known as Typhoons (in the western Pacific), Hurricanes (Atlantic), or Tropical Revolving Storms) occur all year round over the northern South China Sea. However, the “Typhoon Season” is taken to be from the Autumn transition (Oct) to the first half of the Northeast monsoon (Nov- Dec), when they occur most frequently in the South China Sea.

Correct Answer:-A ( Equatorial region )
Description:-  Convection rain commonly occurs in warmed or heated areas such as equatorial/tropical regions, where there is almost daily occurrence and even distribution of rain, and temperate areas in summer. It is also common in the inter-tropical convergence zone (ITCZ). It happens when the ground surface is locally overheated and the adjacent air, heated by conduction, expands and rises.

Correct Answer:-B ( Convection )
Description:-  During the day, the sun warming the land also warms the air. Since land heats up quicker than water does, the air over land gets warmer than the air over the water. Consequently, the warmer air, being less dense moves up. To fill its place the cooler air over the water moves in to fill its place creating what is known as a Sea Breeze. Reversely, at night the land cools down faster than the water does, and creates a Land Breeze.

Correct Answer:-C ( subtropical high pressure )
Description:-  Wind flows outward down the pressure gradient away from the subtropical highs. As it does so, it encounters the Coriolis Effect caused by the rotation of the Earth. This force causes the winds in the Northern Hemisphere to move from the east towards the west below the subtropical high, and from the west towards the east above the subtropical high. The opposite is true in the Southern Hemisphere. Above the subtropical high winds move from east to west, and below the subtropical high winds move from west to the east.

Correct Answer:-B ( hot and humid climate )
Description:-  The temperature of the equatorial regions is hot throughout the year, with a very low temperature range usually of less than 3 degrees celsius. Tropical rainforest climate is a type of tropical climate in which there is little or no dry season – all months have mean precipitation values of at least 60 mm. Tropical rainforest climates have no pronounced summer or winter; it is typically hot and wet throughout the year and rainfall is both heavy and frequent. One day in an equatorial climate can be very similar to the next, while the change in temperature between day and night may be larger than the average change in temperature between “summer” and “winter”.

Correct Answer:-B ( It decreases )
Description:-  In most circumstances atmospheric pressure is closely approximated by the hydrostatic pressure caused by the mass of air above the measurement point. Low-pressure areas have less atmospheric mass above their location, whereas high-pressure areas have more atmospheric mass above their location. Likewise, as elevation increases, there is less overlying atmospheric mass, so that pressure decreases with increasing elevation.

Correct Answer:-A ( dry summer and wet winter )
Description:-  The climate is characterized by warm to hot, dry summers and mild to cool, wet winters. Mediterranean climate zones are associated with the five large subtropical high pressure cells of the oceans: the Azores High, South Atlantic High, North Pacific High, South Pacific High, and Indian Ocean High. These high pressure cells shift towards the poles in the summer and towards the equator in the winter, playing a major role in the formation of the world’s tropical deserts and the Mediterranean Basin’s climate.

Correct Answer:-A ( Chinook )
Description:-  Westerlies are rather stormy and variable though the main direction remains from west to east. But as their general direction is from the west, they are called the “Westerlies”. They are also known as “Anti-Trade Winds”, because their movement is in the opposite direction from that of the trade wind.

Correct Answer:-B ( Insolation )
Description:-  Insolation is the solar radiation that reaches the earth’s surface. It is measured by the amount of solar energy received per square centimetre per minute. Insolation affects temperature. The more the insolation, the higher the temperature. In any given day, the strongest insolation is received at noon. The insolation into a surface is largest when the surface directly faces the Sun. As the angle increases between the direction at a right angle to the surface and the direction of the rays of sunlight, the insolation is reduced in proportion to the cosine of the angle.

Correct Answer:-D ( freezing )
Description:-  In a hailstorm, small ice particles that form above the freezing level (which occurs in all thunderstorms) collect either rain water or cloud water on them, forming a water shell that freezes. The tilted updraft and downdraft structure of the storm is important in order for hailstones to grow because they can be ‘recycled’ several times, until they either become too large for the updraft to carry them, or they get caught in a downdraft, and they finally reach the ground.

Correct Answer:-C ( Antarctic region )
Description:-  Blizzards are characterized by low temperatures (usually below 20 degrees Fahrenheit) and accompanied by winds that are at least 35 mph or greater. Blizzards also have sufficient falling and/or blowing snow that reduces visibility to 1/4 mile or less at least three hours and is main feature of Antarctic region.

Correct Answer:-C ( less than the present )
Description:-  If there is no carbon dioxide in the earth’s atmosphere, the temperature of earth’s surface would be less than the present because carbon emission in the atmosphere is one of the major causes of global warming.

Correct Answer:-C ( Africa )
Description:-  The meaning of the word ‘tundra’ is ‘a region in continents of Asia, Europe and North America, where the growth of trees is prevented due to low temperatures and permanently frozen subsoil’. These kinds of geographic areas are found near the North Pole and the South Pole. In physical geography, tundra is a biome where the tree growth is hindered by low temperatures and short growing seasons. There are three types of tundra: Arctic tundra, alpine tundra, and Antarctic tundra. In tundra, the vegetation is composed of dwarf shrubs, sedges and grasses, mosses, and lichens. Scattered trees grow in some tundra.

Correct Answer:-D ( Chinook )
Description:-  “Chinook”, originally meant a warming wind from the ocean into the interior regions of the Pacific Northwest (the Chinook people lived near the ocean, along the lower Columbia River). A strong Chinook can make snow one foot deep almost vanish in one day. The snow partly melts and partly evaporates in the dry wind. Chinook winds have been observed to raise winter temperature, often from below -20°C (-4°F) to as high as 10-20°C (50-68°F) for a few hours or days, then temperatures plummet to their base level.

Correct Answer:-D ( Tropical airmasses )
Description:-  Maritime tropical (mT) air masses affecting North America most often originate over the warm water of the Gulf of Mexico, the Caribbean Sea, or the adjacent western Atlantic Ocean. As expected, mT air masses are warm to hot, and they are humid. During winter, when cP air dominates the central and eastern United States, mT air only occasionally enters this part of the country. However, during the summer, mT air masses from the Gulf, Caribbean, and adjacent Atlantic are more common and cover a much wider area of the continent.

Correct Answer:-D ( Solar eclipse )
Description:-  As seen from the Earth, a solar eclipse occurs when the Moon passes between the Sun and Earth, and the Moon fully or partially blocks the Sun. This can happen only at new moon, when the Sun and the Moon are in conjunction as seen from Earth. In a total eclipse, the disk of the Sun is fully obscured by the Moon. In partial and annular eclipses only part of the Sun is obscured. The moon blocks out the bulk of the sun allowing us to see the chromosphere and corona.

Correct Answer:-B ( relief of the area )
Description:-  The water table may vary due to seasonal changes in precipitation, evapo-transpiration, topography and structural geology. In undeveloped regions with permeable soils that receive sufficient amounts of precipitation, the water table typically slopes toward rivers that act to drain the groundwater away and release the pressure in the aquifer for the relief of the area.

Correct Answer:-A ( troposphere )
Description:-  The troposphere is the lowest portion of Earth’s atmosphere. It contains approximately 80%’ of the atmosphere’s mass and 99%’ of its water vapor and aerosols. The average depth of the troposphere is approximately 17 km in the middle latitudes. It is deeper in the tropics, up to 20 km, and shallower near the Polar Regions, at 7 km in summer, and indistinct in winter. Most of the phenomena we associate with day-to-day weather occur in the troposphere..

Correct Answer:-B ( troposphere )
Description:-  The troposphere is the lowest layer of the Earth’s atmosphere. The air is very well mixed and the temperature decreases with altitude.