Chapter 17 Terms Part 1
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28 terms
Terms | Definitions |
|---|---|
 Atmospheric Pressure | the pressure caused by the weight of the atmosphere |
| Carbon Monoxide | an odorless very poisonous gas that is a product of incomplete combustion of carbon |
| Clean Air Act of 1970 | The law that charged the Department of Transportation with the responsibility to reduce automobile emissions. |
| Clean Air Act of 1990 | Policy added to the Clean Air Act of 1970 to reduce air pollution. This was provided to help reduce the safety hazards of unclean and unchecked air in a population. |
| Climate | the weather in some location averaged over some long period of time |
| Cold Front | forms when cold air moves under warm air which is less dense and pushes air up (produces thunderstorms heavy rain or snow |
| Convective Circulation | less dense warm air rises and creates vertical currents- as it rises into areas of lower atmospheric pressure it expands and cools, once it cools it descends and becomes denser and replaces the rising warm air |
| Coriolis Effect | The way Earth's rotation makes winds in the Northern Hemisphere curve to the right and winds in the Southern Hemisphere curve to the left. |
| High-pressure System | lower temperatures, clear skies, very small amount of precipitation |
| Industrial Smog | smog from industrial pollution and fossil fuel combustion, ex beijing gray air smog |
| Lead | thin strip of metal used to separate lines of type in printing |
| Low-Pressure System | brings wet, warmer temperatures, high cloud cover, high winds |
| Nitrogen Dioxide | a highly poisonous brown gas (NO2) |
| Ozone Layer | a layer in the stratosphere (at approximately 20 miles) that contains a concentration of ozone sufficient to block most ultraviolet radiation from the sun |
| Particulate Matter | a small discrete mass of solid or liquid matter that remains individually dispersed in gas or liquid emissions (usually considered to be an atmospheric pollutant) |
| Photochemical Smog | the brown haze that develops in sunny cities. it is formed by the action of sunlight on pollutants such as hydrocarbons and nurtogen oxides. these chemicals react to form a brownish muzture of ozone and other pollutants. |
| Primary Pollutants | pollutants that are put directly into the air by human or natural activity. |
| Relative Humidity | the ratio of the amount of water in the air at a give temperature to the maximum amount it could hold at that temperature |
| Secondary Pollutants | pollutants that form from chemical reactions that occur when primary pollutants come in contact with other primary pollutants or with naturally occuring substances, such as water vapor. |
| Scrubbers | devices containing alkaline substances that precipitate out much of the sulfur dioxide from industrial plants. |
| Stratosphere | the atmospheric layer between the troposphere and the mesosphere |
| Sulfur Dioxide | a colorless toxic gas (SO2) that occurs in the gases from volcanoes |
| Thermal Inversion | The temperature inversion in which warm air traps cold air and pollutants near the earth. |
| Troposphere | the layer closest to Earth, where almost all weather occurs; the thinnest layer |
| Tropospheric Ozone | Secondary, formed from N oxides and volatile hydrocarbons, photochemical smog, forest decline, reduces air visibility & health problems |
| Volative Organic Compounds (VOCs) | Carbon containing chemicals used in and emitted by vehicle engines and a wide cariety of solvents and industrial processes as well as by many household chemicals and consumer items. |
| Warm Front | a front where warm air moves over cold air and brings drizzly rain and then are followed by warm and clear weather, the front of an advancing mass of warmer air |
| Weather | the meteorological conditions: temperature and wind and clouds and precipitation |
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