Test: Geography- 7 - UPSC MCQ

Tarapur – Maharashtra
Narora – Uttar Pradesh

During the south-west monsoon period after having rains for a few days, if rain fails to occur for one or more weeks, it is known as break in the monsoon. These dry spells are quite common during the rainy season. These breaks in the different regions are due to different reasons:
(i) In northern India rains are likely to fail if the rain-bearing storms are not very frequent along the monsoon trough or the ITCZ over this region.
(ii) Over the west coast the dry spells are associated with days when winds blow parallel to the coast.

Anamudi peak is located in Annamalai hills and Kangchenjunga is located in Eastern Himalayas.

The Sea of Galilee is Israel’s largest freshwater lake. At 209 meters below sea level, it is the lowest freshwater lake on Earth, and the second lowest lake in the world after the Dead Sea, a saltwater lake.

The Arctic Ocean is located within the Arctic Circle and surrounds the North Pole. It is connected with the Pacific Ocean by a narrow stretch of shallow water known as bering strait.

• All waters in nature, whether rain water or ocean water, contain dissolved mineral salts. Salinity is the term used to define the total content of dissolved salts in sea water. It is calculated as the amount of salt (in gm) dissolved in 1,000 gm (1 kg) of seawater. It is usually expressed as parts per thousand (o/oo) or ppt. Salinity is an important property of sea water. Salinity of 24.7 o/oo has been considered as the upper limit to demarcate ‘brackish water’.
• In the land locked Red Sea, salinity is as high as 41o/oo, while in the estuaries and the Arctic, the salinity fluctuates from 0 – 35 o/oo, seasonally.
• The salinity variation in the Pacific Ocean is mainly due to its shape and larger areal extent.
• The highest salinity is recorded between 15° and 20° latitudes.
• Maximum salinity (37 o/oo) is observed between 20° N and 30° N and 20° W – 60° W. It gradually decreases towards the north.
• Maximum salinity (37 o/oo) is observed between 20° N and 30° N and 20° W – 60° W. It gradually decreases towards the north.

The principal tributaries of Brahmaputra River joining from right are the Lohit, the Dibang, the Subansiri, the Jiabharali, the Dhansiri, the Manas, the Torsa, the Sankosh and the Teesta whereas the Burhi dihing, the Desang, the Dikhow, the Dhansiri and the Kopili joins it from left.
Hindon and Sindh are the tributaries of Yamuna River.

Situated on the northeastern tip of the country, the state of Arunachal Pradesh is a part of Eastern Himalayan Ranges. The important forests types found in the state are Tropical evergreen, semi evergreen, deciduous, Pine, Temperate, Alpine and grassland.

For rice, high rainfall, temperature and clayey soil is required which can hold water.
For Cotton, light rainfall is needed. For Jute high rainfall and temperature is needed.
Wheat requires moderate temperature and rainfall during growing season and bright sunshine at the time of harvest. It thrives best in well drained loamy soil.
Maize requires moderate temperature, rainfall and lots of sunshine. It needs well-drained fertile soils.

All are responsible for thunderstorms.
A thunderstorm, is a storm characterized by the presence of lightning and its acoustic effect on the Earth’s atmosphere, known as thunder.
Thunderstorms occur in a type of cloud known as a cumulonimbus. They are usually accompanied by strong winds, and often produce heavy rain and sometimes snow, sleet, or hail, but some thunderstorms produce little precipitation or no precipitation at all.
Thunderstorms result from the rapid upward movement of warm, moist air, sometimes along a front. As the warm, moist air moves upward, it cools, condenses, and forms a cumulonimbus cloud that can reach heights of over 20 kilometres. As the rising air reaches its dew point temperature, water vapor condenses into water droplets or ice, reducing pressure locally within the thunderstorm cell. Any precipitation falls the long distance through the clouds towards the Earth’s surface. As the droplets fall, they collide with other droplets and become larger. The falling droplets create a downdraft as it pulls cold air with it, and this cold air spreads out at the Earth’s surface, occasionally causing strong winds that are commonly associated with thunderstorms.

The Tigris is the eastern of the two great rivers that define Mesopotamia, the other being the Euphrates. The river flows south from the mountains of south-eastern Turkey through Iraq and empties into the Persian Gulf.
The Mekong is a trans-boundary river in Southeast Asia. From the Tibetan Plateau the river runs through China’s Yunnan Province, Myanmar, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia, and Vietnam.

Dhola–Sadiya Bridge connects northeast states of Assam and Arunachal Pradesh. The bridge spans the Lohit River, a major tributary of the Brahmaputra River. It is the longest bridge in India over water. However, Kacchi Dargah–Bidupur Bridge under construction in the Indian state of Bihar, is expected to become the longest bridge in India upon its completion.

The Kamlang Wildlife Sanctuary is situated in the Lohit District of Arunachal Pradesh. The park is named after the Kamlang River which flows through it.

The NW-1 passes through West Bengal, Jharkhand, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh.

• Conservation Agriculture (CA) is a farming system that can prevent losses of arable land while regenerating degraded lands. It promotes maintenance of a permanent soil cover, minimum soil disturbance, and diversification of plant species. It enhances biodiversity and natural biological processes above and below the ground surface, which contribute to increased water and nutrient use efficiency and to improved and sustained crop production.
• CA principles are universally applicable to all agricultural landscapes and land uses with locally adapted practices. Soil interventions such as mechanical soil disturbance are reduced to an absolute minimum or avoided, and external inputs such as agrochemicals and plant nutrients of mineral or organic origin are applied optimally and in ways and quantities that do not interfere with, or disrupt, the biological processes.
• Complemented by other known good practices, including the use of quality seeds, and integrated pest, nutrient, weed and water management, etc., CA is a base for sustainable agricultural production intensification. It opens increased options for integration of production sectors, such as crop-livestock integration and the integration of trees and pastures into agricultural landscapes.

Wheat is the main cereal crop in India.
Wheat crop has wide adaptability. It can be grown not only in the tropical and sub-tropical zones, but also in the temperate zone and the cold tracts of the far north, beyond even the 60-degree north altitude. Wheat can tolerate severe cold and snow and resume growth with the setting in of warm weather in spring. It can be cultivated from sea level to as high as 3300 meters.
The best wheat are produced in areas favoured with cool, moist weather during the major portion of the growing period followed by dry, warm weather to enable the grain to ripen properly.
Wheat is grown in a variety of soils of India. Soils with a clay loam or loam texture, good structure and moderate water holding capacity are ideal for wheat cultivation.
Uttar Pradesh is the largest Wheat producing state of India, followed by Punjab, Haryana and Madhya Pradesh.

Tidal currents are the tides which are channelled between islands, bays and estuaries. Tidal current has significance in power generation.

• Although Pacific Ocean is the largest ocean than other oceans, its area is far lesser than all other oceans area combined.
• Continental slope, Guyots, Trenches and other landforms can be observed in the ocean which is far diverse than the continents.

The profundal zone is a very cold zone, such as an ocean or a lake, located below the range of effective light penetration. This is typically below the thermocline, the vertical zone in the water through which temperature drops rapidly. The lack of light in the profundal zone determines the type of biological community that can live in this region, which is distinctly different from the community in the overlying waters. The profundal zone is part of the aphotic zone.

All the above factors influence insolation.
Rotation of earth: The rotation of the earth on the inclined axis has a greater influence on the amount of insolation received at different latitudes.
Angle of inclination of sun rays: Since the earth is a geoid resembling a sphere, the sun’s rays strike the surface at different angles at different places. This depends on the latitude of the place. The higher the latitude, the less is the angle they make with the surface of the earth. The area covered by the vertical rays is always less than the slant rays. If more area is covered, the energy gets distributed and the net energy received per unit area decreases. Moreover, the sun’s rays with small angle traverse more of the atmosphere than rays striking at a large angle.
Length of the day: The length of the day determines the duration of sunlight which affects the amount of solar radiation received by the earth’s surface.
Transparency of the atmosphere: Atmosphere is not transparent for all the radiation coming from the sun because of different composition and layers. It is also one of the controlling factors of insolation to reach earth surface.
Earth’s Distance from Sun: The earth is revolving around the sun in an elliptical orbit, resulting continuous change in the distance between sun and the earth on annual basis. It leads to seasonal variation in solar energy received by the earth.  During aphelion the northern hemisphere is facing the sun and therefore receives energy about 7 percent less than the perihelion (southern hemisphere).

Kaziranga is crisscrossed by four main rivers — Brahmaputra, Diphlu, Mora Diphlu and Mora Dhansiri and has numerous small water bodies.

• The Boeing 747-436 plane was able to achieve a speed of 1,327 kph as it was aided by a strong jet stream generated due to Storm Ciara.
• Jet streams are narrow bands of strong winds that flow over thousands of kilometres from west to east. Major jet streams are found near the upper levels of the atmosphere, around 9 to 16 km from the earth’s surface, and can reach speeds of over 320 kph.
• The jet streams shift to the north or south depending on the season. During winters, the wind current is the strongest. They are also closer to the Equator during winter.
• The major jet streams are the Polar Front, Subtropical, and Tropical jet streams. In India, the Tropical jet stream influences the formation and duration of the summer monsoon.
• Most commercial planes fly at the jet stream level, and a strong jet stream can provide a potent tailwind to a flight travelling from west to east, like the British Airways flight, which flew from New York to London. This helps reduce the travel time for such flights, as their speeds are boosted.

• Equatorial counter-currents are major surface flows that carry water eastward in the Atlantic, Indian, and Pacific Oceans.
• They are located near the equator and are sandwiched between two westward-flowing currents, the North Equatorial Current and the South Equatorial Current.
• Equatorial counter-currents are unique, in that they flow in the opposite direction of the surface winds. The other major surface currents in the tropics flow in the same direction as the prevailing winds.

• Coffee production in India is dominated in the hill tracts of South Indian states, with Karnataka accounting for 71%, followed by Kerala with 21% and Tamil Nadu.
• Coffee is grown in three regions of India with Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu forming the traditional coffee growing region, followed by the new areas developed in the non-traditional areas of Andhra Pradesh and Orissa in the eastern coast of the country and with a third region comprising the states of Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Tripura, Nagaland and Arunachal Pradesh of Northeastern India.
• The two well-known species of coffee grown are the Arabica and Robusta.
• Almost 80% of Indian coffee is exported.
• India is the 7th largest coffee producing country in the world. Brazil is the world’s largest coffee producer.