Environmental Lapse Rate

Submit electronically via Canvas (.doc, .docx, or .pdf file format).

 

Please answer all questions in complete sentences.

Each question is worth 1 point (15 points total for this activity).

1. How is the environmental lapse rate obtained?

2. Why does rising saturated air cool at a lower rate than rising unsaturated air? Give the values of the moist and dry adiabatic lapse rates.

3. What is the meaning of a conditionally unstable atmosphere? What is the constraint on the environmental lapse rate for the atmosphere to be conditionally unstable?

4. Why does a temperature inversion make the atmosphere very stable?

5. Explain why large spaces of clear skies usually exist between developing cumulus clouds.

6. Why do most cumulonimbus clouds have flat tops?

7. Explain why much lower rainfall totals are found on the leeward side of a mountain compared to the windward side.

8. Occasionally, a rain shadow is formed on the western side of a mountain range (in North America). What circumstances allow this to happen?

9. What is the main difference between a cloud droplet and a raindrop?

10. Why do cloud droplets rarely reach the ground as rain?

11. Describe how the collision/coalescence process produces rain. What are four factors that determine how large droplets will grow (in warm clouds)?

12. How does the ice-crystal (Bergeron) process produce precipitation? What is the major premise behind this process?

13. What is meant by the terms accretion and aggregation? What types of precipitation are produced from each of these processes?

14. Can it ever be too cold to snow? Why or why not?

15. How does hail form? What is the relationship between updraft speed (in a cumulonimbus cloud) and hail size?