Earth Science Atmosphere Vocab
Terms
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- Wind
- The horizontal movement of air from an area of high pressure to an area of lower pressure.
- Cirrus
- Wispy, feathery clouds made mostly of ice crystals that form at high levels above about 6 km.
- Coriolis effect
- The way Eath's rotation makes windds in the Northern Hemisphere curve to the right and winds in the Southern Hemisphere curve to the left.
- Cumulus
- Clouds that form less than 2 km above the ground and look like fluffy, rounded piles of cotton.
- Front
- The area where air masses meet and do not mix.
- Humidity
- A measure of the amount of water vapor in the air.
- Isobars
- Lines on a map joining places that have the same air pressure.
- Isotherms
- Lines on a map joining places that have the same temperature.
- Jet streams
- Bands of high-speed winds about 10 dm above the Earth's surface.
- Mesosphere
- The middle layer of Earth's atmosphere, the layer in which most meteoroids burn up.
- Occluded
- Cut off, as the warm air mass at an occluded front is cut off from the ground by cooler air beneath it
- Pressure
- The amount of force pushing on a surface or area.
- Relative Humidity
- The percentage of water vapor in the air compared to the maximum amount the air can hold at that temperature.
- Stratus
- Clouds that form in flat layers
- Troposphere
- The lowest layer of Earth's atmosphere, where weather occurs.