Homework 1

 

This assignment is due on Friday, September 2, at the beginning of the lecture.

 

  1. What is the "lithosphere"?
  2. What process gave rise to most of the gases in the earth's atmosphere? What key component of the atmosphere was created by a different process (hint: it has to do with life on earth!)?
  3. What does it mean for an atmospheric gas to be a "constant constituent" of the atmosphere? (Be quite clear here.)
  4. List the four most important "constant constituents"of the earth's atmosphere in order, from MOST abundant to LEAST abundant?
  5. In class we learned about the "sources and sinks" of the "variable constituents" of the atmosphere. Do the "constant constituents" have sources and sinks? If so, name some sources and sinks of, say, oxygen. If not, tell me why constant constituents cannot have sources and sinks.
  6. What are aerosols? Give a few examples.
  7. Why is ozone important? In which layer of the atmosphere do we find the "ozone layer"? (Troposphere, stratosphere, mesosphere, thermosphere, ionosphere, etc?) In which layer of the atmosphere is ozone a pollutant?