En anglais

Hurricanes, Tornadoes & Monsoons

Science · Weather & Climate · ages 12-13

Name ______________________ Date ____________

Which storm has a rotating updraft and produces many strong tornadoes?
- A supercell thunderstorm
- A nonrotating rain shower
- A weak snow-producing cloud
Which process releases energy carried by ocean water vapor into hurricane air?
- The ocean freezes into a layer of sea ice.
- The vapor condenses into cloud droplets.
- Dry polar air sinks toward the ocean surface.
In the common summer monsoon pattern described here, faster warming of land helps bring moist ocean air inland.
Circle one: True False
In the simplified supercell explanation, how do wind shear and the updraft have different roles?
- Shear creates rotation; the updraft tilts and stretches it.
- Shear tilts the air upright; rainfall removes all its rotation.
- Shear stops the rising air; a downdraft lifts rotation upright.
What helps curve air moving toward a hurricane's low-pressure center into a spiral circulation?
- Ocean water pushes the air sideways toward the center.
- Cold polar air blocks every straight route to the center.
- The Coriolis effect deflects the moving air.
In the common winter monsoon pattern described here, land is cooler than the nearby ocean. Which way does surface air generally flow?
- From the warmer ocean toward the cooler land
- From the land toward the ocean
- Along the coast without crossing land or water
Why is a typical coarse-resolution global climate model insufficient for directly simulating a particular tornado's rotating column?
- The small circulation is too fine for this model to resolve.
- The rotation cuts off every connection between the tornado and its surrounding atmosphere.
- The short lifetime prevents all observations and finer-scale methods from studying the tornado.
In an invented study, rain exceeds a threshold in 30 of 100 warmed-world runs and 10 of 100 runs without human-caused warming. Which conclusion fits?
- Such rain is one-third as likely with warming; divide the other count by the warmed-world count.
- Such rain cannot happen without warming; the larger warmed-world count rules out other causes.
- Such rain is three times as likely with warming in this study.

Answer key

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Hurricanes, Tornadoes & Monsoons W1-mt__wWHVvqMWb-s1

A supercell thunderstorm · A supercell has a rotating updraft. Many strong tornadoes form in supercells, but most supercells do not produce a tornado.
The vapor condenses into cloud droplets. · Evaporation transfers energy into water vapor. Condensation releases latent heat into the storm's air.
True · Land warms faster than the nearby ocean. Air rises over the warmer land, and moist sea air flows inland.
Shear creates rotation; the updraft tilts and stretches it. · Wind shear can create horizontal rotation. The rising updraft tilts and stretches rotating air. This does not guarantee a tornado.
The Coriolis effect deflects the moving air. · Earth's rotation produces the Coriolis effect, which deflects moving air and helps shape hurricane circulation.
From the land toward the ocean · In this winter pattern, surface air generally flows from cooler land toward the warmer ocean. Rainfall also depends on the air's route.
The small circulation is too fine for this model to resolve. · The specified coarse model cannot resolve the small circulation directly. Researchers can still study the larger storm environment or use finer-scale methods.
Such rain is three times as likely with warming in this study. · Both sets contain 100 runs. Their event chances are 30% and 10%, and 30 / 10 = 3. Events still occur without human-caused warming.