Insights Static Quiz -8, 2018

• Solution: c)

   

  The subtropical ridge, also known as the subtropical high or horse latitudes, is a significant belt of atmospheric high pressure situated around the latitudes of 30°N in the Northern Hemisphere and 30°S in the Southern Hemisphere. It is the product of the global air circulation cell known as the Hadley Cell. The subtropical ridge is characterized by mostly calm winds, which act to reduce air quality under its axis by causing fog overnight, and haze during daylight hours as a result of the stable atmosphere found near its location. The air descending from the upper troposphere flows out from its center at surface level toward the upper and lower latitudes of each hemisphere, creating both the trade winds and the westerlies. The subtropical ridge moves poleward during the summer, reaching its most northern latitude in early fall, before moving equatorward during the cold season. The El Niño southern climate oscillation (ENSO) can displace the northern hemisphere subtropical ridge, with La Niñas allowing for a more northerly axis for the ridge, while El Niños show flatter, more southerly ridges. The change of the ridge position during ENSO cycles changes the tracks of tropical cyclones that form around their equatorward and western peripheries. As the subtropical ridge varies in position and strength, it can enhance or depress monsoon regimes around their low-latitude periphery. The term “horse latitudes” refers to and is synonymous with the subtropical ridge or subtropical high. Many of the world’s deserts are caused by these climatological high-pressure areas.

Solution: b)

Tropical savanna climates have monthly mean temperatures above 18 °C (64 °F) in every month of the year and typically a pronounced dry season, with the driest month having precipitation less than 60 mm and also less than 100 – [total annual precipitation {mm}/25] of precipitation.[1]:200–1 This latter fact is in direct contrast to a tropical monsoon climate, whose driest month sees less than 60 mm of precipitation but has more than 100 – [total annual precipitation {mm}/25] of precipitation. In essence, a tropical savanna climate tends to either see less rainfall than a tropical monsoon climate or have more pronounced dry seasons.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tropical_savanna_climate

Solution: a)

The Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ), known by sailors as the doldrums, is the area encircling Earth near the Equator, where the northeast and southeast trade winds converge.

Tropical cyclogenesis depends upon low-level vorticity as one of its six requirements, and the ITCZ fills this role as it is a zone of wind change and speed, otherwise known as horizontal wind shear. As the ITCZ migrates more than 500 kilometres (300 mi) from the equator during the respective hemisphere’s summer season, increasing Coriolis force makes the formation of tropical cyclones within this zone more possible. Surges of higher pressure from high latitudes can enhance tropical disturbances along its axis.[7] In the north Atlantic and the northeastern Pacific oceans, tropical waves move along the axis of the ITCZ causing an increase in thunderstorm activity, and under weak vertical wind shear, these clusters of thunderstorms can become tropical cyclones.

Solution: c)

Dew point, the temperature at which the atmosphere is saturated with water vapour, when it is cooled without changing its pressure or vapour content. A given volume of air containing much water vapour has a higher dew point than the same volume of drier air; thus the dew point gives an indication of the humidity. In meteorology the dew point is applied, for example, in predicting the height of the base of certain types of clouds.

Solution: a)

River Kaveri tributaries:

Harangi River, Hemavati River, Lakshmana Tirtha, Kabini River, Shimsha River, Bhavani River, Sarabanga River, Noyyal River, Amaravati River

Indravati and Vamsadhara are