Question

You're at the top of Mt. Everest where the air pressure is quite low. You capture some of that air in an airtight can and bring it back to College to analyze it. You find the partial pressure of oxygen to be ________ than the partial pressure of oxygen found the air in College. You also find the partial pressure of carbon dioxide to be ________ than the partial pressure of carbon dioxide found in the air in College.

A) greater; less

B) less; greate

C)greater; greater

D)less; less

Answer 1

Answer is option D) less, less

Reason: As the altitude increases the atmospheric pressure is lower which lowers the partial pressure on oxygen. This in turn decreases the density of oxygen in the air. Thus air that is delivered to the lungs and into the alveolus has a lower density of oxygen which affects the uptake off oxygen negatively leading to environmental hypoxia.
Therefore Atmospheric pressure decreases and the Po2 falls because of the decreasing Po2 in the air around the climber and the PCo2 falls because of hyper ventilation.