Chatper 24 Review

Question # 1

What happens to air as the lower layers are warmed?

The air rises

Question # 2

What’s an air mass?

A large body of air throughout which temperature and moisture content are similar

Question # 3

Name the four types of air masses and give their symbols.

Continental polar (cP) Continental tropical (cT) Maritime polar (mP) Maritime tropical (mT)

Question # 4

If a tornado were to touch down, what’s the path it would take?

Not predictable

Question # 5

What’s an anticyclone?

A weather event in which the air sinks and flows outward from a center of high pressure, and that brings dry weather.

Question # 6

Why would a scientist want to study upper atmospheric conditions?

In order to track global weather patterns

Question # 7

What do the H’s and L’s represent?

Air pressure centers

Question # 8

What’s a midlatitude cyclone?

When a bend forms in a cold front, it begins the process of creating an area of low pressure with rotating wind that moves toward the rising air of the central low-pressure region

Question # 9

What happens with the information that weather centers collect?

They exchange them with other centers

Question # 10

How is the information conveyed on a weather map?

Colors and symbols

Question # 11

What are the characteristics of a warm front?

Produce precipitation over a large area and are sometimes violent

Question # 12

What’s a radiosonde?

An instrument package that is carried high into the atmosphere by a helium-filled balloon to measure relative humidity, air pressure, and air temperature

Question # 13

What’s a front that forms when a cold air mass overtakes a warm air mass and lifts the warm air mass off the ground and over another air mass?

A cold front

Question # 14 Fill in the chart below

Air Mass Originates Type of Air

cP

cT

mP

mT

Polar regions in Canada

Cold & Dry

U.S. Southwest Warm & Dry

Polar Pacific & Polar Atlantic

Tropical Pacific & Tropical Atlantic

Cold & Moist

Warm & Moist

Question # 15

What’s a hurricane?

A severe storm that develops over tropical oceans, whose strong winds spiral in toward the low-pressure storm center

Question # 16

A destructive, rotating, funnel-shaped column of air with high wind speeds is known as what?

A tornado

Question # 17

What’s a brief, heavy storm with rain, wind, lightning, and thunder called?

A thunderstorm

Question # 18

What’s a front that forms when a cold air mass overtakes a warm air mass and lifts the warm air mass off the ground and over another air mass?

Occluded front

Question # 19

What’s a stationary front?

A front of air masses that moves either very slowly or not at all.

Question # 20

What causes the different air pressures on Earth?

The unequal heating of the Earth’s surface.