Instructions: For each question, click on the radio button beside your answer. When you have completed the entire quiz, click the “Submit my answers” button at the bottom of the page to receive your results.

Question 1:

What is the most important control on climate?
a) Prevailing wind
b) Latitude
c) Ocean currents
d) Altitude

Question 2:

Which part of the Earth-atmosphere system includes all the water of the planet?
a) Lithosphere
b) Biosphere
c) Hydrosphere
d) Cryosphere

Question 3:

Which of the following statements about a scientific law is NOT true?
a) It can be used to make predictions.
b) It can be expressed in mathematical equations.
c) It provides an explanation of how nature works.
d) It can be expressed in words.

Question 4:

Which of the following is NOT considered a step in the scientific method?
a) Making an observation
b) Developing a theory
c) Formulating a hypothesis
d) Conducting an experiment

Question 5:

What is power?
a) The rate at which energy is transferred, or work is done
b) The capacity to do work
c) An action capable of accelerating an object
d) The transfer of energy by mechanical means

Question 6:

A newton is the unit associated with which derived dimension?
a) Force
b) Work
c) Power
d) Pressure

Question 7:

Which location is the coldest?
a) Tropopause
b) Stratopause
c) Mesopause
d) The peak of Mount Everest

Question 8:

Which of the following lists the layers of the atmosphere in order from lowest to highest?
a) Mesosphere, thermosphere, troposphere, stratosphere
b) Troposphere, stratosphere, mesosphere, thermosphere
c) Thermosphere, mesosphere, stratosphere, troposphere
d) Troposphere, mesosphere, stratosphere, thermosphere

Question 9:

Where would you find an inversion?
a) Between the Earth’s surface and the tropopause
b) Between 20 km above the Earth’s surface and the stratopause
c) Between the stratopause and the mesopause
d) At the mesopause

Question 10:

Why is there warming in the middle portion of the stratosphere?
a) There is little moisture resulting in a lack of evaporative cooling.
b) Solar radiation is reflected by volcanic ash.
c) Air molecules there absorb heat radiated from Earth’s surface.
d) Ozone absorbs ultraviolet radiation from the sun.

Question 11:

Atmospheric science is divided into two subdisciplines: meteorology and climatology.
a) True
b) False

Question 12:

The ice-albedo feedback effect is an example of negative feedback.
a) True
b) False

Question 13:

A scientific theory provides a description of how nature works.
a) True
b) False

Question 14:

Air pressure always decreases with height.
a) True
b) False

Question 15:

The height of the tropopause varies by latitude.
a) True
b) False

Higher Education

Weather and Climate: Chapter 1