Summary of Tuesday August 30, 2011

Preliminaries

Discussion of Required Observation Notebooks

  • Scientific notation
  • prefixes (c, m, micro, k, M)
  • Units
    • length
    • velicity
    • mass
    • pressure (mass of air overhead)

  • Chapter 1 Introduction: The Earth and its Atmosphere

    • Terms

    • meteorology - study of the atmosphere
    • weather - state of the atmosphere at time and place
    • climate - weather over a period of time

    Scientific Method

    • observation is a fact
    • hypothesis is a guess to explain observation
    • make prediction from hypothesis
    • test to see if prediction is true
    • if test fails, hypothesis is wrong
    • if test succeeds, make another test
    • after many tests fail to disprove hypothesis, it becomes a theory
    • law - a theory that has been around a long time may become a law. It is not necessarily more valid than a theory.
    • it is impossible to prove a theory or a law - you can only disprove them

    Planetary Atmospheres

    • Venus atmosphere is mainly CO2
    • on earth, CO2 is tied up in plants, fossil fuels, the ocean, and carbonate rocks
    • Venus is hot enough to release CO2 from rocks