Importance of the Earth's Atmosphere
- Temperature. One of the most important benefits the atmosphere provides is maintaining the Earth’s temperature. ...
- Radiation. The atmosphere serves as a protective shield against radiation and cosmic rays. ...
- Physical Protection. ...
- Weather and Water. ...
What are the disadvantages of the Earth atmosphere?
- The atmosphere holds in some "greenhouse" gases that retain the heat of the Sun. ...
- Clouds regularly obscure good astronomical viewing
- The atmosphere refracts light which means the position and clarity of star viewing is less accurate
- Pollution from light and chemicals obscure observations
How does the atmosphere insulate the Earth?
The “greenhouse gas” mechanism does not exist. The atmosphere (including CO2) provides convection cooling to the Earth’s surface. Cloud cover does *temporarily* prevent radiational cooling by reflecting radiation back to the surface. This is distinctly different than the fictitious greenhouse gas model of absorption-and-reemission.
What is the purpose of Earth atmosphere?
The atmosphere works as a place to contain the oxygen that is necessary for life, works as a blanket to shield the earth from radiation and helps to create the different types of weather that are felt on the Earth. The atmosphere also contains small amounts of carbon dioxide that is necessary for plants to be able to live.
What on Earth is happening to our atmosphere?
“Tropos” means change. This layer gets its name from the weather that is constantly changing and mixing up the gases in this part of our atmosphere. The troposphere is between 5 and 9 miles (8 and 14 kilometers) thick depending on where you are on Earth.
How does the atmosphere support life on Earth?
The atmosphere supports life on Earth by protecting it from dangerous electromagnetic radiation, by creating and controlling weather and climate and by providing the gases that plants and animals need to breathe .
What is the atmosphere made of?
The atmosphere is composed of the troposphere, the tropopause, the stratosphere, the mesosphere and the ionosphere. The ozone layer, which lies in the upper stratosphere, is the planet's primary protector from electromagnetic radiation in the ultraviolet band of the spectrum.
What is the difference between oxygen and carbon dioxide?
Chemical reactions in the atmosphere yield the gases that make life possible. Oxygen in the troposphere allows human life, while carbon dioxide allows plant life to thrive. ADVERTISEMENT.
Which layer of the atmosphere absorbs the most energy from the sun?
By absorbing the UV radiation, the ozone layer keeps the bulk of rays from reaching Earth's surface. The ionosphere also helps to support life by absorbing energetic protons from the sun. Weather and climate take place in the troposphere.
How does water evaporate?
Water evaporates from the oceans and forms clouds. The clouds then release the water over land as rain, snow and other precipitation. Some of this precipitation is absorbed into the ground, where it provides water for all living things.
Why is the atmosphere important?
The atmosphere is vital for all life on the planet, not only humans, and for reasons other than supplying gases needed for respiration and photosynthesis. Winds also transport water into the interiors of large areas of land, which would otherwise rapidly become parched desert.
How does the troposphere respond to the atmosphere?
A Perfect Planet emphasises how different elements of our environment are interconnected. The atmosphere responds to varying heating by sunlight, driving movement. These motions in the troposphere are what we experience as wind. The oceans supply water vapour, which absorbs and releases heat, forms clouds and scatters sunlight. The patterns of continents, oceans and sea ice at the surface determine the heating that drives the troposphere from below. Volcanic activity has outgassed the atmosphere itself from the body of the forming planet and continues to supply many trace gases and small particulates to the mix. Variations in volcanic output are connected to sometimes huge climate changes. Life has modified the composition of the atmosphere, resulting in the present range of gases, which is very different to the carbon dioxide-dominated atmospheres of Venus and Mars. Now humans are leaving our own mark in pollutants and greenhouse gases.
What is the altitude of the Meteosat 11?
Earth viewed by Meteosat-11 on 10 February 2019. Meteosat-11 is a geostationary satellite that orbits at an altitude of over 36,000 km above the equator, with a period of one day. It therefore hovers above a point on the Earth's surface, close to longitude = 0 degrees, latitude = 0 degrees.
What determines the heating of the troposphere?
The patterns of continents, oceans and sea ice at the surface determine the heating that drives the troposphere from below. Volcanic activity has outgassed the atmosphere itself from the body of the forming planet and continues to supply many trace gases and small particulates to the mix.
How high is space?
By convention ‘space’ is said to start at an altitude of 100 km, although this is a rather arbitrary round number and there is no ‘top’ to the atmosphere as such, rather atoms and molecules simply become increasingly rare, but a very few reach out even beyond the Moon’s orbit and are lost to Earth.
What is the atmosphere above the troposphere called?
The atmosphere above the troposphere is called the stratosphere and appears a clear, blue colour in the image. In the stratosphere the temperature begins to rise again with increasing height. In contrast to the troposphere, the stratosphere is very stable, or stratified, as implied by the name.
How much less is the atmosphere than the ocean?
The mass of the atmosphere is about 250 times less than that of the oceans and accounts for less than one millionth of the total mass of the planet. The atmospheric pressure and density of air decrease exponentially with height above the surface.
How has TES improved the atmosphere?
TES data, together with data from other instruments aboard Aura, have significantly improved our understanding of how ozone affects human health, climate and other parts of the Earth system. A 2015 TES study showed how ozone produced in Asia was transported around the world, increasing ozone emissions on the U.S. West Coast, even as U.S. ozone emissions were declining. TES data also helped quantify how ozone in the upper troposphere serves as a greenhouse gas, warming the atmosphere. This information was used to test climate model predictions of ozone’s greenhouse effect, quantifying how regional changes in pollutants that create ozone have altered climate. TES measurements have also improved our understanding of global air quality by documenting increases in tropospheric ozone levels in many regions of the world, such as Asia.
Why is oxygen important to the Earth?
Not only does it contain the oxygen we need to live, but it also protects us from harmful ultraviolet solar radiation. It creates the pressure without which liquid water couldn’t exist on our planet’s surface. And it warms our planet and keeps temperatures habitable for our living Earth.
What are the two pollutants that are present in the atmosphere?
Data from NASA's Tropospheric Emission Spectrometer on NASA's Aura satellite show the relative concentrations of two atmospheric air pollutants, ozone (seen above) and carbon monoxide (seen in browse view), in January 2006. Credit: NASA
What is the primary source of ozone?
Contributions of nitrogen dioxide emissions - the primary source of ozone - to the global average thermal absorption of ozone as observed by the Tropospheric Emission Spectrometer instrument on NASA's Aura spacecraft in Aug. 2006. High values (red) indicate that emissions in that location contribute more strongly to the trapping of heat in Earth's atmosphere relative to other locations. Credit: NASA-JPL/Caltech/CU-Boulder
What is the role of hydroxyl radicals in the atmosphere?
Bowman said one key to that stability is the hydroxyl radical (OH), a chemical that plays a central role in the ability of Earth’s atmosphere to cleanse itself of pollutants. One of the most reactive gases in our atmosphere, OH is like a global detergent that helps keep things in balance by removing pollutants from the lower atmosphere.
What is the edge of the atmosphere called?
Beneath us, the very edge of the atmosphere — known as Earth’s “limb” — appears as a glowing halo of colors; a luminescent layer cake that gradually fades into the blackness of space. And suddenly our atmosphere, which seemed so vast and mysterious from the ground, appears shockingly thin, even fragile. So thought retired NASA astronaut Scott Kelly.
How thick is the atmosphere on Earth?
Further, about 80 percent of the atmosphere is contained within its lowest layer, the troposphere, which is, on average, just 12 kilometers (7.5 miles) thick.
How does the atmosphere affect the Earth's surface?
Most of it is absorbed by clouds, carbon dioxide, and water vapour and is then reemitted in all directions. The atmosphere thus acts as a radiative blanket over Earth’s surface, hindering the loss of heat to space.
How does water cooling affect the atmosphere?
Foremost among the cooling effects is the energy required to evaporate surface moisture, which produces atmospheric water vapour. Most of the latent heat contained in water vapour is subsequently released to the atmosphere during the formation of precipitating clouds, although a minor amount may be returned directly to the surface during dew or frost deposition. Evaporation increases with rising surface temperature, decreasing relative humidity, and increasing surface wind speed. Transpiration by plants also increases evaporation rates, which explains why the temperature in an irrigated field is usually lower than that over a nearby dry road surface.
How is solar radiation absorbed?
An additional 23 percent or so of the incident solar radiation is absorbed on average in the atmosphere, especially by water vapour and clouds at lower altitudes and by ozone (O 3) in the stratosphere. Absorption of solar radiation by ozone shields the terrestrial surface from harmful ultraviolet light and warms the stratosphere, producing maximum temperatures of −15 to 10 °C (5 to 50 °F) at an altitude of 50 km (30 miles). Most atmospheric absorption takes place at ultraviolet and infrared wavelengths, so more than 90 percent of the visible portion of the solar spectrum, with wavelengths between 0.4 and 0.7 μm (0.00002 to 0.00003 inch), reaches the surface on a cloud-free day. Visible light, however, is scattered in varying degrees by cloud droplets, air molecules, and dust particles. Blue skies and red sunsets are in effect attributable to the preferential scattering of short (blue) wavelengths by air molecules and small dust particles. Cloud droplets scatter visible wavelengths impartially (hence, clouds usually appear white) but very efficiently, so the reflectivity of clouds to solar radiation is typically about 50 percent and may be as high as 80 percent for thick clouds.
What determines the Earth's radiation budget?
Average radiation budgets. The difference between the solar radiation absorbed and the thermal radiation emitted to space determines Earth’s radiation budget. Since there is no appreciable long-term trend in planetary temperature, it may be concluded that this budget is essentially zero on a global long-term average.
Why do deserts absorb solar radiation?
High-altitude desert regions consistently absorb higher-than-average amounts of solar radiation because of the reduced effect of the atmosphere above them. Average exchange of energy between the surface, the atmosphere, and space, as percentages of incident solar radiation (1 unit = 3.4 watts per square metre). Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
How hot is the stratosphere?
Absorption of solar radiation by ozone shields the terrestrial surface from harmful ultraviolet light and warms the stratosphere, producing maximum temperatures of −15 to 10 °C (5 to 50 °F) at an altitude of 50 km (30 miles).
Why do surface temperatures rise?
Conversely, as atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide, methane, chlorofluorocarbons, and other absorbing gases continue to increase, in large part owing to human activities, surface temperatures should rise because of the capacity of such gases to trap infrared radiation. The exact amount of this temperature increase, however, ...