1st October 2020, Static Quiz on Indian Geography

Solution: A
Justification: The pre-dominant vegetation of this Siberian “sub-Arctic” type of climate is evergreen coniferous forest. It stretches in a great, continuous belt across North America, Europe and Asia. The greatest single band of coniferous forest is the Taiga in Siberia. There are small patches of coniferous forests in European countries like Germany due to the high altitude.

Solution: A
Justification: This is so because the Southern Hemisphere has significantly more ocean and much less land; water heats up and cools down more slowly than land. The movement of sea and land breeze helps to moderate the climate. On the other hand, where in Northern hemisphere there is more land, temperatures
reach both extremes, for e.g. in Central Asia or Siberia.
Statement 2: Photoperiodism is related to plants reaction to light, it isn’t relevant here.

Solution: D
Justification: Statement 1: Glaciers are made up of fallen snow that, over many years, compresses into large, thickened ice masses. Glaciers form when snow remains in one location long enough to transform into ice. Statement 2: Presently, glaciers occupy about 10 percent of the world’s total land area, with most located in Polar Regions like Antarctica, Greenland, and the Canadian Arctic. On Earth, 99% of glacial ice is contained within vast ice sheets in the Polar Regions, but glaciers may be found in mountain ranges on every continent including Oceania’s high-latitude oceanic islands such as New Zealand and Papua New Guinea.
Statement 3: Many glaciers from temperate, alpine and seasonal polar climates store water as ice during the colder seasons and release it later in the form of meltwater as warmer summer temperatures cause the glacier to melt, creating a water source that is especially important for plants, animals and human uses when other sources may be scant. Within the past 750,000 years, scientists know that there have been eight Ice Age cycles, separated by warmer periods called interglacial periods. Currently, the Earth is nearing the end of an interglacial, meaning that another Ice Age is due in a few thousand years. This is part of the normal climate variation cycle. Scientists still have many questions to answer about climate change. Although glaciers change very slowly
over long periods, they may provide important global climate change signals.

Solution: D
Justification: Global sea level trends and relative sea-level trends are different measurements. Just as the surface of the Earth is not flat, the surface of the ocean is also not flat — in other words, the sea surface is not changing at the same rate at all points around the globe. Sea level rise at specific locations may be more or less than the global average due to many local factors: subsidence, ocean currents, variations in land height, and whether the land is still rebounding from the compressive weight of Ice Age glaciers. Sea level is primarily measured using tide stations and satellite laser altimeters.

Solution: A
Justification: Oceans absorb more than 80% of the solar radiation and water which has highest specific heat is the remarkable capacity of storing the heat. The uppermost 10% of the oceans has more heat than the entire atmosphere of earth. With respect to temperature, there are three layers in the oceans from surface to the bottom in the tropics as follows:
 The first layer represents the top-layer of warm, oceanic water and is 500m thick with temperature
ranging between 20° and 25°C.
 This layer is present within the tropics throughout the year but it develops in mid· latitudes only during
summer.
 The third layer is very cold and extends upto the deep ocean floor. The polar areas have only one layer of cold water from surface (sea level) to the deep ocean floor.

Solution: A
Justification: These are downslope winds flowing from high elevations of mountains, plateaus, and hills down their slopes to the valleys or planes below. A katabatic wind originates from radiational cooling of air atop a plateau, a mountain, glacier, or even a hill. Since the density of air is inversely proportional to temperature, the air will flow downwards, warming approximately adiabatically as it descends. The temperature of the air depends on the temperature in the source region and the amount of descent.

Solution: C
Justification: In selecting the mode of transport, distance, in terms of time or cost, is the determining factor. Isochrone lines are drawn on a map to joins places equal in terms of the time taken to reach them. Based on these lines, an appropriate transportation mode is chosen.

Solution: B
Justification: Statement 1 and 2: It is a belt around the Earth extending approximately five degrees north and south of the equator. Here, the prevailing trade winds of the northern hemisphere blow to the southwest and collide with the southern hemisphere’s driving northeast trade winds.
Statement 3: Due to intense solar heating near the equator, the warm, moist air is forced up into the atmosphere like a hot air balloon. As the air rises, it cools, causing persistent bands of showers and storms around the Earth’s midsection. The rising air mass finally subsides in what is known as the horse latitudes, where the air moves downward toward Earth’s surface. Because the air circulates in an upward direction, there is often little surface wind in the ITCZ. That is why sailors well know that the area can becalm sailing ships for weeks. And that’s why they call it the doldrums.

Solution: C
Justification: Statement 1: Coriolis force acting on the fluid water deflecting it like it deflects the wind. This causes rivers to ‘meander’.
Statement 2: It deflects the wind to the right direction in the northern hemisphere and to the left in the southern hemisphere.
Statement 3: Jet streams typically cover long distances and can be thousands of miles long. They can be discontinuous and often meander across the atmosphere. The meanders in the jet stream flow slower than the rest of the air and are called Rossby Waves. They move slower because they are caused by the Coriolis Effect and turn west in respect to the flow of air they are embedded in.
Statement 4: It is a circular depression in the surface of a planet, moon, or other solid bodies in the Solar System. Hence incorrect.

Solution: B