CHAPTER 1 Concept Review
The Human Sphere: Wyoming’s Air Pollution Problem
1. Why does rural western Wyoming have poor air quality?
1.1 Composition of the Atmosphere
2. What are the two major permanent gases in the atmosphere, and what are some of the variable gases?
3. What are sources and sinks for gases? Give examples.
4. What are aerosols? Give examples of them.
1.2 The Weight of Air: Atmospheric Pressure
5. What is air pressure, and how much is there at sea level in kilograms per square centimeter? In PSI?
6. Why is air pressure greater near Earth’s surface than higher up?
1.3 The Layered Atmosphere
7. List the four layers of the atmosphere that are based on changes in temperature with altitude.
8. What are the major characteristics of the troposphere? How do its temperature and pressure change with altitude?
9. What is the tropopause? What is its altitude at midlatitudes? What is its altitude at the equator and at the poles?
10. How high is the stratosphere? How does temperature change with altitude in the stratosphere?
11. Compare airflow in the stratosphere with that in the troposphere. How are they different?
12. What are auroras? Where do they occur on the planet and in what portions of the atmosphere? What causes them?
1.4 Air Pollution
13. What energy source do most anthropogenic atmospheric pollutants come from?
14. Give examples of primary pollutants, their sources, and their effects on human health.
15. What are secondary pollutants? Which one is used as an example in this chapter?
16. How is the ozone molecule both beneficial and harmful to people? Explain.
17. Why is particulate matter hazardous to human health?
18. What three physical factors make air pollution worse?
19. Why is it expensive for industry to pollute less?
20. What is the U.S. Clean Air Act? When was it enacted? Has it been successful? How?
1.5 Geographic Perspectives: Refrigerators and Life on Earth
21. What are CFCs and what are they used for?
22. How long do CFCs last in the troposphere? What happens when they reach the stratosphere?
23. What is the ozonosphere, how is it important, and how do CFCs affect it?
24. What are the projected trends in stratospheric chlorine concentrations for the next century?
25. What are nacreous clouds and how are they related to ozonosphere thinning over Antarctica? Why has there been less ozonosphere loss over the Arctic?
26. What are the connections between CFC production and human and ecological health?