Physical Geography

Hurricanes

• Cyclones, Hurricanes, Typhoons
• Movement of wind - counter clockwise (Northern Hemisphere)
• Movement or Path of storm - clockwise (Northern Hemisphere)
• Coriolis Effect and Prevailing Winds
• Where do they occur - Oceans and parts of the world - not on the Equator
• When do they occur - Northern Hemisphere
• Conditions needed - water temp. (28⁰) - depth of water - low pressure - coriolis effect
• Overland they weaken
• Damage - Floods (rain and storm surges) and Wind damage
• Categories based on wind speed - H5 (250 km/hr)
• Tropical Depression - Tropical Storm - Hurricane
• Low Pressure area - moist hot air rises - cools condenses and forms clouds (latent heat) - air rises even more.

Introduction

• Life Layer – biosphere, atmosphere, hydrosphere, lithosphere – characteristics of each
• Solar radiation, Insolation, albedo – this is what powers the life layer
• Earth is like a spaceship – closed system – think of Apollo 13 and what they needed to survive

• members of the solar system – planets, moons, comets, asteroids, etc.
• Galaxy and Milky Way and the Universe – their meaning and connection
• Nebular Hypothesis - rings
• Proto-Planets – chunks
• Dualistic – another star
• Big Bang – the accepted theory
• Hubble’s Law – expanding universe
• Light Year – definition and that light from stars takes time to reach us
• Spiral galaxy

• Astronomical Units
• Bode’s law – especially the asteroid belt and Pluto
• perihelion and aphelion - elliptical orbits

• Meteors vs shooting stars
• craters, mass extinction, erosion on earth
• meteorites and asteroid impacts
• comets – head and tail
• Halley’s comet

• light year
• nebulae, super nova and black hole – what are they?
• photosphere, chromosphere, corona, solar wind
• Aurora Boralis – magnetosphere and ionosphere
• Sunlight – spectrum – Fraunhofer lines (spectroscopy)
• Telescopes - reflecting and refracting

• what are the phases of the moon
• new moon and full moon
• waxing and waning
• lunar month and sidereal month, why the two extra days?
• eclipses – be prepared to draw and label both including the shadows (penumbra and umbra)
• tides - Normal, Spring and Neap
   

• rotation and revolution
• parallelism of the earth's axis
• tilt of the earth – plane of orbit
• important lines of latitude and the sun’s position
• equinox and solstice
• intensity and duration (be able to explain with diagrams)

- Constellations
- Creation of the Earth