Questions tagged [atmosphere]
The gaseous envelope surrounding the *Earth*, and retained by the Earth's gravitational field. If your question is about the atmosphere on another celestial body or is more astronomy related, please ask on Astronomy.SE.
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How could oxygen levels have ever been higher if there is so little carbon dioxide present?
Assumptions: Essentially all oxygen that's ever been present in the atmosphere originated from oxygenic photosynthesis. The production of an oxygen molecule during photosynthesis leads to the ...
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Do I understand pressure coordinates in the right way?
The question is simple: I still have problems with atmospheric pressure coordinates:
Given the pressure dependence in the picture, what are the velocity coordinates of an air parcel moving with $\vec ...
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My snarky cousin tossed a monkey into my ability to see large cloud at 300 miles HELP!
The top of a cumulonimbus cloud is usually about 40,000 feet and can reach heights of over 60,000 feet, which would be visible for a distance of 245 or 300 miles, respectively. from How far away can ...
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Estimating atmospheric vertical motion from 3D fields in WRF output
I have WRF data on isobaric levels that unfortunately does not contain a z-wind or omega field within the output, and I would like to produce some estimate as to the magnitude of synoptic-scale ...
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Is it possible to calculate dew point at pressure levels from ERA5 data?
I would like to calculate dew point values at different pressure levels from the ERA5 data set. Is this possible and if so, how exactly can it be done? I have found an approximate formula that use ...
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How to estimate altitude of tropopause of other planets?
Is it possible to come up with a formula to estimate the height of the tropopause and the upper layer lapse rate only based on atmospheric composition and other atmospheric parameters (not relying on ...
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Why aren't weather balloons left in the atmosphere permanently?
I was reading about weather balloons and the articles said that weather balloon flights usually last about two hours. When I looked up why, some articles said that when the balloons get high enough in ...
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How does Madden-Julian Oscillation (MJO) affects Tropical cyclones, onset of monsoon and the ENSO Cycle?
How does Madden-Julian Oscillation (MJO) affects Tropical cyclones, onset of monsoon and the ENSO Cycle?
I cant seem to find any "general explanation" (concept wise) for how MJO affects the ...
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Why are Hadley cells not symmetrical?
Why are Hadley cells not symmetrical?
For example, during summer in the northern hemisphere, the Hadley cell in the Northern hemisphere is significantly weaker than the one in the Southern Hemisphere.
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Why don't terrestrial storms heat up the upper atmosphere?
I was reading some articles on Jupiter, when I stumbled across this article, which said that the Great Red Spot makes the upper atmosphere really, really hot. As in "hotter-than-lava". This ...
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Moist adiabatic lapse rate
I asked this question in the Physics SE but it still lies unanswered. Hopefully Earth Science SE is more knowledgeable in the matter.
Wikipedia gives the following equation to calculate the moist ...
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Why air parcel is on a circular trajectory when considering Coriolis force
According to Coriolis force an air parcel is deflected in the absence of other forces by the acceleration (Holton, 4th Edition):
These equations lead to circular motion.
This figure is from a Matlab ...
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How does a volcanic eruption cool the planet's surface?
For example, after the eruption of Mt. Pinatubo in 1991 according to this paper,
The introduction of large amounts of sulphuric acid aerosol into the stratosphere increases the planetary albedo (...
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If the Sea level rises, will the mountains lose their height?
I read that the altitude of mountains is measured from the sea level. So, if the sea level rises significantly due to global warming, will the mountains and hills lose some of their altitudes and ...
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What is the "average relative humidity" of the Earth's atmosphere?
What is the current ratio of the amount of water in the Earth's atmosphere compared to its moisture storage capacity?
I see values like "a half" or "70% on various web pages, but can't ...
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What does the index "p" mean in the gradient of geopotential in pressure coordinates?
Currently I hear a series of tutorial videos on atmospheric dynamics as a first starting preparation for reading more detailed material, such as Holton. In particular I refer to this part:
https://www....
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Book on atmosphere dynamics
I plan to study a good introductory book on atmospheric dynamics:
which one is more recommended? My background is a university degree in physics, but I'm new to meteorology.
An Introduction to
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Why does Earth's atmosphere have a whiter color near the horizon?
Why does Earth's atmosphere have a whiter color (paler) near the horizon? (on a clear, cloudless day when the sun is highest in the sky)?
The amount of air being greater in this direction, why is the ...
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Why doesn't earth radiate at wavelengths where there is strong absorption?
Having in mind the absorption of IR radiation by various atmospheric gases, why is there almost no outgoing radiation into space where absorption is strong?
At the $CO_2$ 15um wavelength, there is ...
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How to calculate the moist adiabatic lapse rate?
I'm trying to calculate the saturated moist adiabatic lapse rate with the following formula:
$L_m = \frac{y_d}{1+\frac{L_v}{c_p}\frac{d_q(s)}{dT}}$
with:
$y_d = 9.8 (K\ km^{-1})\\\\$,
$L_v = 2.5*10^6 ...
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How can combusted methane from landfill samples be quantified? [closed]
Background:
For my studies I'm wanting and attempting to make a landfill greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) model that predicts the amount of greenhouse gas equivalent emissions ($GHG_{eq}$ [tonnes/year]) ...
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How to demonstrate the warming effect of CO2 at home?
Is there any simple experiment which can be done to show empirical evidence that carbon dioxide causes the greenhouse effect?
I'm imagining something simple like two sealed fish tanks, one filled with ...
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How does the partial pressure of oxygen relate to its concentration in water?
I've read that the partial pressure of oxygen in water will be the same as the partial pressure of oxygen in the atmosphere, but that the saturation of oxygen in water is dependent on factors like ...
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Which chemicals are most responsible for the blue sky?
Earth's atmosphere is especially good at refracting blue light, which makes the sky blue.
Which gas or gasses is/are responsible for this?
If some gasses in the atmosphere do not refract blue light, ...
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In geostrophic wind, what is the mechanism behind the tendency of the coriolis effect/force and the pressure gradient force to balance each other out?
I understand that it is possible for the coriolis effect and the pressure gradient force (PGF) to cancel each other out, but it appears to be a tendency (rather than just a possibility). What is the ...
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How much water is the atmosphere receiving
I was reading this Question earlier about how if water is getting lost into space and one of the answers said that (paraphrase) the Earth lost about enough water for the oceans to reduce by 12 cm, if ...
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Are there any types of winds or waves that are produced just by Earth's rotation?
Are there any types of wind or waves caused and produced only and exclusively by Earth's rotation? Not influenced by Earth rotation, but produced solely by it?
In the case of waves, are Rossby waves 1 ...
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What does "red sun at night, sailor's delight" mean and is it true?
There is proverb that sounds like:
Red sun at night, sailor’s delight; red sun in the morning, sailor
take warning.
Is it valid and if it is then what is it about?
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What is the current atmospheric concentration of $\small\sf{CO_2}$ in the atmosphere in atm (or bar)?
For some reason, I can only find the answer in ppm and I don’t know how to do this conversion.
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Does high atmospheric pressure in the atmosphere push warm air down?
The BBC ran an article Extreme weather: What is it and how is it connected to climate change that contained this graphic:
Is this accurate? Does high pressure in the atmosphere push warm air down, ...
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Why is the Northern Hemisphere warming faster than the Southern Hemisphere?
Hi I just found the NOAA table. It clearly shows that the N. hemisphere has warmed much more than the southern hemisphere since 1880!
https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/access/monitoring/monthly-report/global/...
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How to calculate greenhouse effect for planet as well as for the atmosphere?
I recently found a calculation on how to calculate the greenhouse effect for Earth from another question here, but I couldn't make heads or tails of the calculations that were provided in one of the ...
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What's the effect of space launches on climate?
Do space launches warm or cool the surface temperature (admittedly, for a little bit)? This BBC article presents it as an emerging climate problem but also says
If the amount of black carbon expelled ...
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Confusion about the horizontal pressure gradient force being equal to the gradient of the geopotential in pressure coordinates
I asked this in the physics exchange and thought I would ask here as well:
I see many sources in atmospheric dynamics express the following:
$\frac{1}{\rho}(\nabla p) = \nabla_p \phi$
For example this ...
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Mean free path and Scale height
Banks and Kockarts, in Aeronomy (Part B), has provided an illustration of the vertical distribution of the mean free path of atomic hydrogen for several thermopause temperatures (Fig. 16.3, p.84/362). ...
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Why does the camera do this and what does the sky really look like around 87,000 ft altitude?
When watching this high altitude balloon video I stumbled across a weird thing: Go to 6:08 and watch as the black sky suddenly turns to blue due to a different camera position. This is an image from ...
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Why is there a window in the absorption spectrum of Earth's atmosphere at a wavelength of 4 μm?
Looking at the Wikipedia page for absorption bands, it seems to me that there's a sizable window - i.e. a local minimum - in the graph for electromagnetic radiation absorption, as per the edited image ...
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Strange Circular Rays showing up on radar
Can anyone explain these strange rays?
They seem to be pulsing in roughly the same location when you watch the radar and are always in the same circle pattern.
Thanks for your input!
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How do you convert the μmol/mol units for atmospheric CO2 into CO2 mass fraction?
The Keeling curve reports CO2 in units of μmol/mol, but people's (and country's) emissions are generally reported in kilograms or tons of CO2. I would like to convert μmol/mol of CO2 in the atmosphere ...
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What does the "strength" of a circulation cell refer to?
I'm reading articles about climate models for possible exoplanets, and I'm confused as to what the "strength" of a Hadley or Ferrell cell refers to. Does it refer to wind speed? Wind force?
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divergence of static stability identical parameters
All,
The static stability of the atmosphere is defined as:
$\sigma =-\dfrac{T}{\theta} \dfrac{d\theta}{dp}= \dfrac{dT}{dp}-\dfrac{R}{c_p} \dfrac{T}{p}$
where:
$T$ is temperature,
$P$ is pressure,
$R$ ...
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Where does this refractive index formula come from: $n_{1} = n - 1 = \frac{77.6P}{T} 10^{-6}$
In this equation, $n_{1} = n - 1 = \frac{77.6P}{T} \cdot 10^{-6}$ the variable P is the total air pressure and T is expressed in Kelvin. This equation describes the refractive index of moist air as EM ...
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What does the refractive index static coefficient measure and how is it derived?
From my understanding the refractive index structure coefficient $C_{n}^2$ measures atmospheric turbulence, but I'm not entirely sure as the literature seems to imply that there are slightly different ...
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What would the approx. min and max temperatures be for Snowball Earth with no atmosphere?
I saw a similar previous question on this website about the temperature of the Earth with no atmosphere. It sounds like if the Earth did lose its atmosphere we’d end up with either Snowball Earth or ...
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Is there a simple model for the interaction between greenhouse gases and infrared radiation?
I am thinking (in the simplest model) that the Earth emits $N$ photons per unit time, some proportion $p$ hit a greenhouse gas particle and will be re-emitted back towards the earth with a probability ...
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Visible satellite imagery, atmospheric anomaly (descending air) in cumulus fields?
When looking at GOES satellite imagery, in the visible channels. I have noticed these "lines" if you will, usually forms in Cumulus fields. I understand the process of the 'Mackerel sky' (...
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Cluster of cow burps now mapped; which satellites contribute to GHGSat's high-resolution maps of ppb levels of methane emission? How do they do it?
CNN's April 30, 2022 Planet-warming emissions from cow burps have been seen from space begins:
The emissions were detected by environmental data company GHGSat's high-resolution satellites in ...
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How do meteorologists accurately measure outdoor air temperature? There's sunlight, local trapping of air, radiant heat, precipitation
I'd like to know how the state-of-the-art meteorological direct, localized measurements of the temperature of the air is measured.
If you put a thermometer in sunlight it may read high. If you put it ...
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Clarification of dry deposition of particles
I found a formula for the dry deposition speed of particles and an electric circuit analogy to go with it. I would like some clarification on this figure:
I'm mostly interested in the top right ...
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What kind of clouds did Joseph Kittinger see at 102,000 ft?
When Joseph Kittinger in Excelsior III dwelt at his peak altitude of 102,000 ft (31 km), he reportedly saw clouds at his altitude. What in the world could these clouds have been? Polar stratospheric ...
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