Global Precipitation Patterns Questions and Answers

Answer: C

Both are true and the reason gives the mechanism, and it is why the Asian monsoon is far stronger than the monsoons of Africa or Australia. The plateau heats the middle troposphere directly rather than merely the surface beneath it.

Answer: D

The first two are correct. The third is the opposite of the case, since the failure of a monsoon has historically been among the most serious of climatic events. Timing matters as much as the total. A late onset can be as damaging as a small total.

Answer: A

Subsidence is descent and suppresses precipitation entirely, which is why the great deserts sit beneath the subtropical highs. The other three are the three principal ways in which air is made to rise and therefore to cool below its dew point.

Answer: B

The subtropical high is a region of subsidence and is where the great deserts lie. The other three are all regions of ascent and therefore of rainfall. Descent is what marks the desert belt. Ascent and rainfall go together everywhere.

Answer: C

Where the annual total is small, a single storm can represent a large fraction of it. This is why drought is a recurrent feature of semi-arid regions rather than a rare event. Relative variability rises as totals fall.

Answer: D

Correct answer: Both A and R are true, and R is the correct explanation of A

Both are true and the reason gives the arithmetic. Where the annual total is 100 millimetres a single storm delivering 50 doubles or halves the year; where it is 2000, that storm is a footnote. Arid regions therefore have the highest relative variability, and the mean annual figure is correspondingly the least useful description of what to expect there - which matters greatly for water supply and agriculture.

Answer: A

Eighty divided by two hundred is two fifths. A value of this size is typical of a semi-arid climate and means the mean is a poor guide to any individual year. Forty per cent is high by any standard. Semi-arid climates typically show such values.

Answer: B

The four cover most of the low and middle latitudes between them, and each follows from the seasonal position of the pressure belts. The Mediterranean type is the mirror image of the monsoon. Pressure belt migration explains all four.

Answer: C

In summer the high sits over the region and suppresses rain, and in winter it moves away and the westerlies bring depressions. The pattern occurs on the western sides of continents at that latitude. Summer is the dry season here.

Answer: D

California, central Chile, the Cape and southern Australia all show the pattern as well as the Mediterranean basin itself. The seasonal migration of the subtropical high is the common cause. Five regions share the pattern.