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What causes these banded clouds?

A set of banded clouds can be seen in MODIS imagery during several days in January and February over the Gulf of Maine. They tend to occur with very cold winds from the NW following storms. There are ...
1k 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 ...
18k views

How to calculate specific humidity with relative humidity, temperature, and pressure

I know there is this question already How do I convert Relative Humidity into specific humidity but I don't have ρws = density of water vapor (kg/m3) and ρ = density of the moist or humid air (kg/m3)....
754 views

Safest spots when an asteroid hits? [closed]

I am breaking this question and no longer making an effort in refining it with the exception of adding an associated link with the scenarios. I always wondered if a devastating asteroid was ...
298 views

Can large (and wet) storms really trigger large magnitude Earthquakes?

At the 2011 AGU Fall meeting, this poster claimed that the water erosion from Taiwan's wettest storms could prematurely trigger large magnitude earthquakes , $M \ge 6.0$. If this was true, this ...
16k views

What caused the bend in the Emperor/Hawaii chain of islands, 45 million years ago?

What caused the bend in the Emperor/Hawaii chain of islands, 45 million years ago? Has there been any updates to this mystery I am unaware of? Are there any new theories that could potentially ...
14k views

What is the difference between eluvium and alluvium?

I was reading about kimberlite on Wikipedia and it mentioned eluvium. I've heard of alluvium, alluvial fans, alluvial deposits, etc. However, when I looked up eluvium, it sounded exactly like alluvium....
791 views

Are there secondary causes of sea level change?

Aside from the fraction of water stored as ice on land and temperature of the water, are there other factors that change sea level, and if so what are is the magnitudes of the these changes? For ...
3k views

How high can a mountain possibly get?

Mount Everest is 8,848 metres (29,028 feet) above sea level and is the result of a continental plate smashing into another continental plate. Can a tectonic process build a mountain that's even higher?...
935 views

What processes produced the basalt columns of the Giant's Causeway?

The Giant's Causeway is, according to the Wikipedia page was formed during during the Paleogene Period, Antrim was subject to intense volcanic activity, when highly fluid molten basalt intruded ...
1k views

What are these lake-like blue patches in the desert, visible in satellite image?

I found some blue patches in the Arabian desert in Google Earth. It looks like as if they were lakes with sand dunes rising out of the water. But there isn't water in the desert, at least not this ...
517 views

Are mantle plumes distributed around the core randomly or in a known pattern?

Background: The theory of mantle plumes is useful (although controversial) in explaining the occurrence of intra-plate volcanoes. The website here suggests that "hotspots" exist in fixed locations ...
7k views

Why does air subside in the Eye - the lowest pressure area of a tropical cyclone?

A low pressure area is associated with rising air while a high pressure area is associated with subsiding air. The best explanation I could come up with is either the cyclone is an exception or the ...
9k views

Which clouds can produce lighting and thunder?

There are several number of cloud types, but I only know that cumulonimbus clouds discharge electricity, which in turn produces thunder and lightning. Is this type of cloud (cumulonimbus) the only ...
2k views

How to read a NetCDF4 file in Matlab?

I have downloaded the sea surface temperature data from the Ocean Color website, the file is in NetCDF format and contains no of geophysical_data variables like sst,...
566 views

Why cannot people burn all the atmospheric oxygen? [closed]

We are told that photosynthesis, developed a couple of billion years ago has produced all the atmospheric oxygen. I wonder, why did the process stop? Why do modern plants prefer to recover the entropy ...
15k views

Why is there a seasonal cycle to the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere?

I'm doing some homework on the increase of $\mathrm{CO}_2$ in the atmosphere. On one of the graphs it shows the amount of $\mathrm{CO}_2$ peaks in May and has a low in November. Why is this? Shouldn't ...
502 views

How will cloud feedback effects on the climate change as the result of global warming?

So global warming will increase the tropospheric temperatures, which, in turn, would make the clouds higher than they otherwise would be. And higher clouds (especially cirrus clouds) tend to trap in ...
58k views

Are the processes of the rock cycle currently in dynamic equilibrium?

The standard representation of the rock cycle usually looks like this: Does each stage of the rock cycle currently balance? That is, are the various processes in dynamic equilibrium, so that the ...
2k views

How is the equilibrium of 21% oxygen in Earth's atmosphere established?

The atmosphere is 21% oxygen. I assume that there must be an equilibrium between processes that produce oxygen (e.g. photosynthesis) and those that consume oxygen (e.g. aerobic respiration). Moreover,...
5k views

Effect on sea level if the Earth stopped rotating

Would sea level change at the equator if the Earth stopped spinning? I am assuming it is currently bulging around it due to centrifugal force.
518 views

What causes the beautiful Auroras on the north and south magnetic poles?

What is the scientific reason for the majestic sights of the northern and southern lights, otherwise known as Auroras near the magnetic poles, and why do the northern lights differ from the southern ...
538 views

Who are the 3% in the often cited “97% of climate scientists”?

The media have variously reported that: Ninety-seven percent of climate scientists agree that climate-warming trends over the past century are very likely due to human activities. Based on this ...
24k views

Why do gold deposits form only in certain areas of the earth?

In the map above you can find that most elements are spread evenly throughout Earth's crust and that they are available all around the Earth. However, gold can only be found in certain areas of the ...
2k views

How could this pyramidal Mountain have been formed?

How could this pyramidal peak have been formed in Antarctica? Little is known about it as far as I know but what is known is that its miles away from any existing plate boundary and its shape is also ...
158 views

How would weather change on a tidally-locked terrestrial planet?

On Earth, weather is very much affected by the Earth's rotation around its axis and around the Sun. Even locations that are almost on the equator do have strong annual variations in precipitation and ...
446 views

In an Earth-like planet with no history of carbon-based life forms, would there be limestone?

The extent of my understanding of limestone is about what Wikipedia says at the very top of the page: Limestone is a sedimentary rock, composed mainly of skeletal fragments of marine organisms such ...
12k views

Why silicon is abundant in earth surface?

What is the reason for having silicon in so large quantity on earth surface?
2k views

Deciphering NCDC data

I need US monthly climate data for the years 1992-2012. It would be great to get down to a county level, but by state would be just fine. Every site that I go to inevitably kicks me to the NCDC, but I ...
2k views

How often do king tides (perigean spring tides) occur?

Recently, there has been a lot of information about "King Tides" (i.e, perigean spring tides) on the news with a number of groups relating the peak king tide to future normal conditions (2050) under ...
989 views

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 ...
255 views

Which particles are classified as PM2.5? How exactly is this defined?

Question When discussing "PM2.5", is there any standardized understanding of which particles are or are not included? Is it everything that's 2.5 microns and smaller? Or Everything between 2....
142 views

Relationship between tides and earthquakes

Ide et al. (2016) suggest that earthquakes (especially those of high magnitudes) are more probable during periods of high tidal stress (during full and new moons). While they show a comprehensive ...
2k views

If the earth is a globe, what causes temperature differences across lines of latitude?

If the earth is a globe and the sun is 93 million miles away, why is the equator the hottest place on earth? In terms of distances to the sun, the distance to the equator is almost equal to that as ...
13k views

How do 'greenhouse gases' let heat in, but not let it out?

That honestly doesn't make any sense to me. How could heat pass through a gas one way but not the other? Its not like our upper atmostphere has a bunch of doors that can only open one way. To me, that ...
19k views

How is the mass of the Earth determined?

According to textbook knowledge, the mass of the Earth is about $6 × 10^{24}\,\mathrm{kg}$. How is this number determined when one cannot just weight the Earth using regular scales?
3k views

Is earthquake prediction possible?

After the Tohoku and East Coast quakes, I skimmed over several books discussing the validity of earthquake prediction as a discipline, yet found no significant breakthroughs. What should change in our ...
6k views

How to get cell indices from latitude and longitude in WRF model grids?

I am using Weather Research and Forecasting model WRF and the WRF Preprocessing System WPS and could not get a satisfying answer from wrfhelp. Can anyone guide me in transforming latitude and ...
12k views

What are the differences between an LES-SGS model and a RANS based turbulence model?

I'm kind of new to the Large Eddy Simulation (LES) modeling world and I wondered what is the difference between an LES subgrid scale model like the Smagorinsky–Lilly model and a one-equation Reynolds-...
2k views

Why is WRF most often configured at 3:1 nesting ratio?

In WRF application, nested domain has always been used for weather/air quality modeling for the place of interest in a better resolution. The figure below illustrates this: I have noticed that the ...
41k views

What would be the temperature of earth if there was no atmosphere?

I do know that the atmosphere protects life on Earth by absorbing ultraviolet solar radiation, warming the surface through heat retention (greenhouse effect),and reducing temperature extremes between ...
6k views

Is this XKCD comic an accurate timeline of the earth's average temperature?

Apologies for the length of the image, which I found at http://xkcd.com/1732/. I'm mostly interested in the temperature line itself, both the historical data and the forward projections. The reason I ...
264 views

What can we learn by studying lunar atmospheric tides?

Lunar atmospheric tides are likely insignificant for weather, although Guoqing (2005) asserts that The lunar revolution around the earth strongly influences the atmospheric circulation. They don't ...
3k views

How do we know the asteroids formed at the same time as earth?

In continuation of the question Why is Earth's age given by dating meteorites rather than its own rocks?, what evidence do we have that the asteroids indeed formed at the same time as earth? Is there ...
2k views

What sort of climate zones would be present if Earth was tilted like Uranus?

The three main climate zones on Earth are tropics, temperate and polar. Due to Earth's axial tilt, the three zones experience different seasonal patterns: The tropics experience 2 or 4 wet/dry ...
16k views

Why do crystals, like quartz and diamonds, form in different colors?

Some crystals, like quartz and diamonds, form in a variety of different colors. For example, quartz can be clear, 'foggy', pink, yellow, and even blue. What happens during the crystal's formation to ...
5k views

Why don't scientists use fire entry suits to study volcanoes?

It seems like the only personal protective equipment (PPE) that volcanologists use are aluminized suits that don't provide any protection from direct contact with lava, making an unexpected splash ...
5k views

What is the origin of the ocean's salt?

We know we cannot live without salt, but an investigation into the origins of ocean's salt leads one to believe that this issue is not fully resolved yet. What geological phenomenon caused the earth ...