1) Weather is a description of a set of atmospheric variables at a given location at a given time. Some of the variables include temperature, wind speed and direction, relative humidity, air pressure, extent of cloud cover, the occurrence of precipitation, among others. It is important to note that this is short-term description of the conditions; as you are well aware, weather can change rapidly. Climate on the other hand, is a long-term average of the variables listed above in a specified region. These averages include repeating seasonal changes. So, for example, Olympia's climate can be roughly described as having cool, wet winters and dry, sunny summers although daily deviations from these trends are very common.

The idea that the sun is ultimately responsible for all weather can be understood when one considers what causes changes in the above variables. Changing temperatures, blowing wind, falling rain, and all other phenomena that we would describe as weather, could not occur without the input of energy from the sun. Wind, for example, is due to large-scale movements of air that is due to uneven heating from the sun. The well known "on-shore breezes" that occur in the afternoon during summer, are caused by this type of uneven heating. The air over land heats up to a greater extent than land over the water causing it to rise; the result is slightly lower air pressure over the land - in effect, a partial vacuum - resulting in the flow of cooler air from the sea to the land. No sun - no heating - no wind. Likewise, the ocean currents, which also are driven by uneven heating from the sun, would not occur. Rain could not occur without energy from the sun to evaporate water. In essence, a planet just like the earth, covered by 70% ocean and 30% land, if it were far removed from a star would have no storms, wind or precipitation because their would simply not be enough energy to move all the matter that is necessary to cause weather changes. It would be desolate, frozen and lifeless.
 

2) The four layers of the atmosphere are, from lowest to highest:

troposphere (0 - 10 km)
stratosphere (10 - 50 km)
mesosphere (50 - 100 km)
thermosphere (100 km - 200 km)

One could test this hypothesis by measuring how much light is absorbed by ozone and determining if enough energy is provided by this process to actually heat the stratosphere as much as is observed. This would entail calculating how much energy would be required to heat the stratosphere a given amount - not a simple calculation but not impossible to approximate.
 

3) Clouds are loose aggregations of tiny water droplets (0.01 - 0.02 mm in diameter); these droplets are so small that air currents hold them aloft. They are white for the same reason that snow and milk are. The particles are so numerous and are small enough that there are many, many reflections of light as it interacts with the cloud "surface"; this light is scattered in all directions. Since the combination of all colors appears white, then the light scattered off clouds makes them appear as puffy white cotton balls.

The percent of water that actually exists in clouds is a surprisingly small 0.04%, as the following calculation shows.

Clouds play are large role in the earth's energy budget as they reflect 22% of incoming solar radiation. This is a very large fraction, so the role of clouds in climate change is extremely important. If the cloud cover of Earth were to increase, this would result in less solar energy reaching the surface since the fraction reflected would increase. Given that clouds form when evaporated water condenses in the atmosphere, anything that increased the rate of evaporation would be expected to increase the amount of cloud cover - so warmer temperatures would be expected to lead to more clouds. Thus clouds could play have a moderating effect on climate change; an increase ocean temperatures from global warming could be partially offset by a cooling effect from increased solar reflectivity.
 

4) A water budget for the Great Salt Lake could be conceptually drawn based on the information presented on pages 6 and 7 from Refuge. The inputs and outputs are represented below.

The Great Salt Lake differs from many lakes in that it is terminal - it has no outlet to the sea. Most lakes would have a very large output in the form of flow toward the ocean; this will often be much larger than the output due to evaporation. Thus, in most lakes, any minerals that wash into the lake from uphill streams are usually flushed by the outflow to the ocean, so their concentrations do not increase over time. This is not true in the Great Salt Lake. Here, minerals that enter the lake do not have a means of leaving so they accumulate over time. Hence the high salt concentration.

In the Great South Lake, the relative size of the inputs and outputs varies seasonally. As described in Refuge, the rate of evaporation is higher than the rate of water input during the late spring and summer, resulting in a drop in lake level. During the fall, when the lake cools and evaporation slows, the lake begins to rise again. It also rises rapidly during the spring when the rate of input from rain and snow melt greatly exceeds the evaporation rate. This provides a good illustration of how the mass reservoir of a system will vary in size as the inputs and outputs fluctuate.
 

5) The jet stream reaches a velocity of 100 meters per second (p. 22). Converting to miles per hour we have:

6) From the water budget on page 27 we see that 425,000 cubic kilometers of water evaporate each year from the ocean. Converting to gallons we have:

7) Let evaporation rate be ER, precipitation rate = PR and runoff rate = RR

This simply is way of looking at a "rain budget". The rain that falls, PR, must be accounted for: it will either runoff the land, RR, or evaporate, ER.

The concept of precipitation flux is distinct from precipitation rate in a very important way. The precipitation rate is simply the total amount of rainfall that fall in a given location in a year. The flux is the ratio of the total precipitation divided by the total land area. This allows a "fairer" comparison of precipitation amounts since it takes into account the fact that certain continents have far more area than others. To write an equation,

This is why the units of flux are given as volume per time per unit area in the table on page 26.

From the same table, the data for North America 42% of the total precipitation received flows into the ocean as runoff (5.9 ´ 10³ km³/yr out of a total of 13.9 ´ 10³ km³/yr) and 58% of the total precipitation evaporates.
 

8) On page 30 it is reported that the minimum ocean temperature required to spawn hurricanes is 27° C. As the area of surface waters that are at this temperature or higher increases with global warming, the number and severity of hurricanes is expected to increase. This will have obvious financial implications for property owners and those who insure them.