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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Where on Earth does the atmosphere have the most $O_2$ concentration?
Is there a map that shows the average oxygen concentration in the atmosphere? Seems to me that it would be where the most plants are but I wonder if population and industry make a difference in oxygen ...
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1answer
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Where on Earth has the least changing temperature? [closed]
Is there a map that shows places where the temperature changes the least season to season? Is there a place on Earth where the temperature is the most constant in a comfortable range?
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If the nitrogen and oxygen in our atmosphere were doubled would the pressure double?
As to P=ρgh, would the height of the atmosphere be affected by an increase in nitrogen and oxygen mass or would the height remain constant? Thanks!
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Can cloud seeding make a much hotter summer, at a middle latitude, at the area that receives less water than expected?
My country, Spain (40ºN), receives clouds from the Atlantic Ocean during the summer. Our most visited beaches are on the Eastern coast, which sits on the Mediterranean Sea, there is typically more dry ...
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How big does something have to be to cause an atmospheric event upon entry to the Earth's atmosphere?
The question is about a foreign object, ranging from an asteroid to a spaceship. How large does it have to be in order for its presence to start messing with the weather patterns, causing the like of ...
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1answer
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Why (actually) is the night sky so bright in the city? How far up is that happening?
The recent news reported by the New York Times, the BBC and the NPR web sites (for example) as well as in the Iceland Review and Iceland Magazine sites, about the shutting-off of Reykjavik's ...
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How long is the ISS visible from Earth? [closed]
If I‘d lie on the ground and the ISS became visible, how long could I see it (min/sec), if the circumstances were perfect and I didn't change my position?
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Why is the sky blue? Due to the ozone layer or due to ''light scatterization in atmosphere''? [closed]
I've found several answers to the question of why the sky is blue.
Basically the title. Elaborate however you want...
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1answer
437 views
How to calculate the solar radiation at any place, any time
The solar radiation is one of the important factors controlling the formation of $O_3$, and thereby impacting the levels of various secondary species in the atmosphere.
However, in the campaign of ...
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2answers
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what is the best way to actually make the Earth lose heat?
I know that refrigerated air just moves heat around, and creates more by using fossil fuel energy in the process. If we wanted to actually reduce the amount of net heat energy in an area on the ...
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How do I calculate Per capita $\ce{CO2}$ emissions?
I need to find the per capita $\ce{CO2}$ emissions for Canada in 2010 (expressed in kg/day). I know that Canada had $\ce{CO2}$ emissions of 0.55 (Gt) and a population of 34 million in 2010.
I am just ...
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1answer
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Would a global cooling event disable solar energy usage?
Imagine that we've improved the level quality, affordability, and ease of use of photo-voltaic solar, and it's use is widely distributed in the USA. We've improved the grid for power distribution, we ...
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1answer
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Could a firestorm create a hurricane-like cyclone?
Mesocyclones form when air rises and rotates in a "pillar" of sorts. It's sometimes associated with thunderclouds and tornado formation.
A certain kind of cumulonimbus, the cumulonimbus flammagenitus,...
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Why is the night very bright in the Himalayas?
Some years ago I had the chance to climb the Himalayas. Not the Everest of course, but the Annapurna Base Camp which is about 4km above sea level.
During the night of the stay I went out to do some ...
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1answer
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What atmospheric phenomenon am I seeing in this photo?
On a trip to Brighton, England on April 12th, 2015, I noticed this strange plume in the sky over the English Channel at about 13:00 hours. It looks like;
Something that fell out of the sky - the news ...
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1answer
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How does the tornado chaser locate the spot?
In my opinion, tornado is hard to forecast in three different aspects:
The size of tornado is about 100 ~ 1000 m which can't be represented well in weather model or detected by limited weather ...
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1answer
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Causes of fluctuations in atmospheric oxygen in past 300 Mya
I have two questions based on the history of atmospheric oxygen levels depicted below.
Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sauerstoffgehalt-1000mj2.png.
The notes below the chart explain ...
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2answers
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How do we measure (or empirically calculate) the amount of entropy in the atmosphere and oceans?
Here's a paper on the entropy budget1, where moist entropy is defined in equation (8) as
$$
s = (1-q_t)(C_{pd} \ln T - R_d \ln p_d) + q_t C_l \ln T + \frac{q_v L_v}{T} - q_v R_v \ln \mathcal{H}
$$
...
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2answers
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Calculating exoatmosphereic flux and figuring out amount of SW Earth will absorb at an albedo of 0.3?
Am working through two problems which I am not sure if I am handling correctly. Here they are:
a. If the Earth decreases its distance from the sun by 0.03
Astronomical Units (AU), what will be ...
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2answers
138 views
A rough picture about the ground-level ammonia (NH3)
Ammonia is the only alkaline gas in the atmosphere. It is one of the key features to control the acidity of aerosols and the formation of ammonium salts.
In the environment of $NH_3$-rich and $NH_3$-...
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1answer
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Does the snow come from local moisture or transported moisture?
Currently there is a snow storm coming from Europe over the UK. This is drastically dropping the temperature and making it snow lots.
Is the snow coming from moisture that has been brought over from ...
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1answer
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Are there any flights that fly east both from origin to destination and from destination to origin?
Flying east is faster so I expect that if the destination are on opposite points or closer, that the flights between them always be to the east.
For example Los Angeles to Delhi. I see the fly is ...
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1answer
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How do you calculate the elevation at which clouds will form (lifting condensation level)?
I have a parcel of air at 30°C with a dew point temp of 15°C. It goes up and then back down a mountain 4km in height. Assuming the normal and dry adiabatic lapse rates apply, and an ELR=7.5°C/km, ...
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Why does the Earth have six atmospheric bands? [duplicate]
I know that the earth has atmospheric banding like the gas giants.
What I want to know is why six in specific? What physical processes or equations determine the number of atmospheric bands on a ...
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How to analyze this data showing atomospheric CO2, CH4 and tempertures obtain from an ice sample?
Here is the chart:
My questions are:
Is the atmosphere in equilibrium over this record?
how would I determine what the maximum and minimum values for each
record is (approximation).
Is there a ...
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0answers
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Why are all rainbows are not the same? [closed]
How does these rainbows water drops differ? I know it has to do with the size of water drops refracting light.
Is there a formula that determines the type of rainbow?
Icebow
Unlike this questions ...
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What would happen to the Subtropical Ridge/Horse latitudes and Polar front if the Earth was rotating 5% faster?
Would they move towards the Equator/Poles? Stay in the same place?
What about if the Earth was rotating 10% slower?
Is there a rotation speed for Earth which will lead to 4 wind belts instead of 3 ?
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1answer
156 views
Persistence time of ozone
Ozone is formed in the upper atmosphere by ultraviolet light, and broken down by ultraviolet, spontaneous reactions and artificial pollutants among other things.
Suppose there were no artificial ...
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How to transform the inventory data from degrees to kilometers
First all, my question was different from the question Converting grid resolution from degrees to kilometers.
In chemical transport modeling, the pollutant source inventory was an essential input ...
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1answer
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How rare are double rainbows?
We have all seen rainbows in our lives. But the other day, I saw a double rainbow! How rare are double rainbows and what causes them to appear?
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Does anyone have absorption coefficients at different wavelengths for sulfur dioxide? [closed]
Does anyone have absorption coefficients for sulfur dioxide at various wavelengths?
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How do I find the horizontal pressure level that divides the atmosphere into 2 layers of equal mass?
Surface pressure given is p = 1000 hPa. (the temperature along the atmosphere is constant (T = −10 °C; hydrostatic equilibrium assumed). I tried using the hypsometric equation to find the height of ...
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1answer
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What are the band names of the NCEP grib files?
I'm downloading .grib files from NCEP: ftp://nomads.ncdc.noaa.gov/GFS/analysis_only/
Each file has 315 bands. What are their names?
Reproducibility with R:
...
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2answers
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How do I convert kg·kg⁻¹ to ppbV (parts per billion volume)?
I am using the CAMS model output data to figure out the ground level ozone at a particular place. It is given in mass mixing ratio, and I want to convert to parts per billion volume mixing ratio (...
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1answer
162 views
How does temperature impact the elevation distribution of orographic precipitation?
Consider the case of two weather systems of different temperatures hitting the Andes Mountains from the west: After traveling a long distance over the Pacific ocean I would expect the air in both ...
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What does the notation “kg kg-1” for units mean for specific humidity
I am using a data set from Justin Sheffield at Princeton that includes specific humidity. The description is as follows:
"Reanalysis 6-hourly specific humidity interpolated to 1.0deg with account ...
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1answer
440 views
How high is too high for hydrogen to rise?
If hydrogen is the lightest gas known, would it rise making the outermost part of the atmosphere mostly hydrogen?
Images to associate with your answer would be much appreciated.
Thanks
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On the light difference between morning and afternoon
It is long time that I am looking for what physical reason explain this observation:
the sun ambient light between sunrise and midday is crispy, somehow whiter than that of the afternoon hours. In ...
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1answer
245 views
Why is the Earth's shadow blue?
After every sunset, once the sun is gone, I always enjoy seen the belt of venus rising in the other side, followed by the Earth's shadow.
This is a picture I took (you will find better ones online). ...
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minimum mass required for earth to retain its atmosphere?
How would one calculate the minimum mass required for the earth to retain an atmosphere?
If we could hypothetically start removing mass from the earth with a star-trek style transporter, how much ...
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2answers
843 views
Why air do not suffer density stratification of its gaseous components?
The different gases that make up the air have different densities. So, naively, one would expect the heavier gasses to pool in the lower atmosphere and the light ones at the top.
I asked myself this ...
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Why does the absence of diabatic heating rate and frictional terms make the zonal and vertical velocity identically zero?
I was reading an article on fluid dynamics of tropical cyclones, where I came across a condition which states that,
For adiabatic friction less flow, equations (1) to (5) have a
solution, v(r, z),...
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Why is the temperature *still* rising?
2015 is the hottest year on record, and the average temperature continues to rise.
I don't understand why this continues, as (over the past twenty years) so much work was put into reducing Global ...
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2answers
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Is the impact of carbon emision dependent on the location on the earth?
While I was reading how the EU taxes aviation companies based on carbon emissions it occurred to me that the effect of carbon emissions on global temperature etc. may depend on where the carbon is ...
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1answer
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What controls the tendency of trace elements in different particle size fractions?
Trace element atmospheric particles are introduced from different sources, with both anthropogenic and natural origins.
By analyzing the concentration levels of 18 elements in samples of $PM_{2.5}$ ...
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Why do nearby thunderstorms move in different directions?
The image below from the Australian Bureau of Meteorology shows several thunderstorms in southeast Queensland today and the directions they are expected to move.
I'm surprised how different these ...
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1answer
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Rayleigh scattering from the moon light
If the moon reflects exactly the sun spectrum, then the blue photons part of the spectrum should scatter in the atmosphere during the night (assuming a perfect dark night sky). Why don't we see a ...
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practice papers for IESO [duplicate]
I am from India. Please suggest where to find practice questions for earth science Olympiad? Are papers apart from the 2010,2011 entrance test available?
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Dry deposition of the total sulfate deposition in forested region
Sulfate is one important inorganic aerosol in the atmosphere. It's subject to removal by two main mechanisms.
Wet deposition which include rain/wash-out and cloud deposition.
Dry deposition ...
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2answers
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How long does it take air to circle the world?
I live in New York and I am investing in a carbon offset program in Korea to decommission a coal electricity generation plant.
Will I ever breathe the cleaner air as a result of that project? And how ...
