Review Questions
1. What is air pollution? Why is it a problem?
2. What makes Earth's atmosphere different from those surrounding other bodies in our solar system? Why is this significant?
3. In one word for each, state the underlying basis for the two theories of the atmosphere's origin.
4. From where do old-earth scientists think the oxygen in our atmosphere first came?
5. Create a bar or pie graph that compares the percentage by volume of the gases in the atmosphere.
*6. Why are lighter gases higher up in the atmosphere?
7. Use Figure 18-7 to find what temperature layers lie in the heterosphere.
8. What is a lapse rate?
9. What happens to atmospheric temperature above the tropopause in the stratosphere?
10. Defend the following statement: "When we study the earth's atmosphere, we are led to praise God for His care for His creatures:'
11. What is the largest carbon reservoir in the carbon cycle?
12. Where does organic or fixed nitrogen come from?
13. Using Figure 18-10, identify which temperature layers over-lap the ozone layer and the ionosphere.
*14. Do any of the special layers of the atmosphere completely block, absorb, or reflect visual light wavelengths? How do we know?
15. Why is the earth's atmosphere not completely transparent to incoming solar radiant energy?
16. In general, how does the solar constant change from the top of the atmosphere to the surface? 17. Make three columns titled Radiation, Conduction, and Convection. Write two everyday examples in each column that are different from those mentioned in the text.
18. How does carbon dioxide contribute to the "greenhouse effect"?
19. What features in the atmosphere does God use to protect His creatures on Earth from extremes of heat and cold?
* "think about it" questions
True or False
20. Christians should be concerned that the world is getting overpopulated with people.
21. Christians should be interested in technology that reduces air pollution.
22. The old-earth model for the origin of the atmosphere is closely related to the nebular hypothesis.
23. All of the atmospheric temperature layers with the low-est temperatures have winds and a uniform mixture of gases.
24. The thermosphere is where most of the weather we experience occurs.
25. The continual mixing of warm and cold air occurs only in the troposphere.
26. The exosphere is mostly hydrogen.
27. The carbon and nitrogen cycles are basically the same but involve different elements.
28. The amount of solar energy reaching the earth's surface on any given day is the same at the Equator as at the Arc-tic Circle.
29. Planets other than the earth have a magnetosphere.
30. The sun's energy reaches the earth mainly through conduction.
31. Carbon dioxide is an air pollutant because it is a green-house gas.