EAES 101: Global Environmental Change Spring 2018 Possible Short Answer Question
ID: 287034 • Letter: E
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EAES 101: Global Environmental Change Spring 2018 Possible Short Answer Question 3: (20 points total) To obtain rich data on the state of the atmosphere, the US Weather Service launches weather balloons (called radiosondes) twice a day from weather stations around the country. The closest to us is in Green Bay, Wisconsin, which is located about-200 miles north of Chicago on the west coast of Lake Michigan. The balloons rise high into the atmosphere, burst, and then plummet back to the surface. Use the data in Figure 2 to answer the following questions 35 35 Figure 2: Atmospheric profiles of temperature (left) and 30 s air pressure (right) from a 25 radiosonde launched on September 22, 2016 from 20 20 1 Green Bay, Wisconsin 10 (data source: NOAA) 15 10 -60 -40 -20 0 20 0250 500 750 1000 temperature ( C) pressure (mbar) A) Write four observations about the state of the atmosphere over Green Bay, Wisconsin. Each observation should be a sentence. (8 points) Make sure you are giving observations and NOT inferences/interpretations! B) Use your observations and your knowledge about the typical structure of the atmosphere to annotate Figure 2. Include: the names of the layers of the atmosphere that are visible on this radiosonde's journey AND the names of the boundaries separating these layers. (7 points) C) Based on the prevailing wind direction in the Northern Hemisphere mid latitudes, where should most of the radiosondes launched from Green Bay land once they have plummeted back to Earth? Write at least two sentences answering the question and giving the why (5 points)Explanation / Answer
A) Observations:
1. The radiosondes (weather balloons) rise up to a height of 35 km until which height the measurements have been made.
2. Pressure and temperature changes with height (up to 35 km) have been recorded by the radiosondes and the graphs show these changes.
3. The temperature changes (rate of temperature changes) rapidly with height as the radiosondes travels from the ground up to a height of about 14 km (you can see from the figure (temperature vs. altitude) for an altitude change from 0 to 13km, the temperature changes from +20oC to -60oC). Thereafter, from this height (~14km) to a height of 35 km the radiosondes records an increase in temperature with height, but this increase in temperature is gradual (you see the temperature increase from -60oC to about -40o C).
4. Pressure decreases rapidly from 1000 mbar at the ground to close to 0 mbar at a height of about 15km. Thereafter from 15 km to 35 km, there is a negligible pressure change. The pressure in the atmosphere is almost similar from a height of 15 km up to a height of 35 km).
B) The atmosphere has five layers: Troposphere (0-12 km); Stratosphere (12-50 km); Mesosphere (50-80 km); Thermosphere (80-700 km); Exosphere (700-10,000 km). The bulk of the earth's atmosphere is present in the Troposphere up to a height of 11 km, and thereafter the atmosphere gets thinner and thinner with increasing latitude. In this figure, the radiosondes journey upto a height of 35 km (passing from the troposphere upto a certain height (~35 km) in the stratosphere is visible). The boundary separating the troposphere with the stratosphere is called the Tropopause.
C) The "Westerlies" are the prevailing wind patterns blowing from west to east, around the mid-latitudes of the northern hemisphere. Hence, radiosondes launched from Green Bay, Wisconsin is expected to land somewhere near Lake Michigan (Green Bay is situated west of Lake Michigan) once they have plummeted back to Earth because these winds drift the balloon east. So the weather balloon travels east after bursting and plummets near Lake Michigan.
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