Please submit your work to me by the beginning of class.
These questions are for you to combine different ideas and apply them to situations not directly addressed in class or in the textbook. Think about the situation, and about the science that applies to it. See me for help if you are stuck.
Do one, and only one, of the following:
Write the script for a dialogue of you (an intelligent, articulate college student) explaining to your third-grade nephew why heat rises.
Your answer should be both scientifically correct and understandable to a third-grader.
You know that heat rises. You should even know from class why heat rises. Explain to me in your own words, then, why air temperature tends to decrease as you ascend a mountain.
We covered this in class too, but I don’t want just a short answer. Explain what air temperature is, and what happens to the air on a molecular level so that its temperature drops when its altitude increases.
Almost all of the energy driving the weather comes from the sun. Why is it, then, that the lower atmosphere (troposphere), where weather occurs, is mostly heated from the bottom?
The answer to this question may not be in your textbook. However, you have been given enough information in class and in your past experience to figure it out. What I'll be looking for as I grade your answer is that you make sense of what you already know to find an answer that is consistent with all of what you know.
Take your choice of these tasks. Do not submit answers to more than one of them. Just choose one, and submit it. Your answer should thoroughly address all points of the question. An adequate answer will be several paragraphs long.
Warning: Do not turn in paper that has ragged edges! If you write your work in a spiral-bound notebook, trim the edge before submitting it. Papers with ragged edges will be returned unmarked.
Copyright © 2006, Richard Barrans
Revised: 20 August 2011. Maintained by Richard Barrans.
URL: http://www.barransclass.com/astr1070/hwk/hwk_01_atmosphys.html