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The Mysterious Climate Project – Part II
The Atmosphere Around Us… Understanding The Basics
Review
In the last section, we began sorting out fact from fiction, fantasy from reality. We saw how special interest groups manipulated information to support their agendas and learned how the media distorts reality.
Preview
In this section, we’ll begin getting into the “meat and potatoes” of climate change by exploring our different atmospheric layers and identifying the layer containing our natural greenhouse gases.
Earth’s Atmosphere
With all the beauty, mystery, and chaos found in the Universe, Planet Earth somehow got it all together. There isn’t any other known planet in our solar system supporting life as we know it.
From its “Goldilocks” atmosphere to its built-in corrective mechanisms for handling anomalies, earth is simply awesome in its majesty.
Remember Carl Sagan’s muted enthusiasm when discussing our universe and its “billions and billions” of celestial bodies? We hope to impart some of that enthusiasm to you as we travel through “The Mysterious Climate Project”!
Earth’s unique atmosphere can best be described as a gaseous envelope held in place by gravity. Its four distinct layers (delineated from each other by what are called “pause layers”), protect us from a multitude of galactic incursions, tame the sun’s ultraviolet rays, regulate our climate, and perform a host of other necessary functions.
Earth’s four layers (beginning at ground level) consist of:
- The Troposphere
- The Stratosphere
- The Mesosphere
- The Thermosphere
The Troposphere
The word troposphere stems from the Greek "tropos" which translates into "turning" or "mixing." Considering the air in this layer is in a constant up and down flow, this seems like an appropriate definition.
In fact, the troposphere is the most turbulent part of our atmosphere – it is also the part in which most weather takes place. Jet aircraft generally fly just above the troposphere to avoid its turbulence.
The troposphere extends five to nine miles upwards from sea level, depending on your latitude, and is believed to contain 80% of all atmospheric gases. The lower third – that portion closest to our sea level - is believed to contain 50% of all atmospheric gases and is the portion which makes our atmosphere breathable. Earth’s weather regulating greenhouse gases are found in the troposphere.
Temperatures in the troposphere are hottest closer to the earth’s surface and decrease with height.
The Stratosphere
Our stratosphere derives its name from the layering effect produced by the lack of vertical mixing. On its part, the lack of vertical mixing is caused by its parallel air flow as opposed to the up and down bias in the troposphere.
The stratosphere extends from seven to eleven miles above sea level (depending on your latitude) up to thirty-one miles high. It is believed that the combined troposphere and stratosphere contain 99.9% of all the atmospheric mass.
Approximately 90% of earth’s ozone shield is found in the upper reaches of the stratosphere. Ozone, a byproduct of the sun’s radiation and oxygen, protects earth’s inhabitants from the sun’s destructive ultraviolet rays.
The Mesosphere
The mesosphere, meaning “middle sphere,” is sometimes called the “Ignosphere” because of the limited knowledge surrounding its characteristics.
The mesosphere resides in the area from thirty-three to fifty-three miles above earth’s sea level and contains the remainder of our ozone layer.
Temperatures in the mesosphere are the coldest of all our atmospheric layers, starting at minus130 degrees and going far lower.
Most earth bound meteors burn up in the mesosphere as they collide with the gas particles within its layer.
The Thermosphere
The thermosphere, our last layer, receives its name from temperatures often reaching 2,200 degrees centigrade and more.
The thermosphere resides in that portion ranging from fifty-five to over three hundred miles above earth’s sea level and contains less than 0.01% of all air within our atmospheric envelope. The thermosphere’s high temperatures derive from the fact it receives non-dispersed or diluted sun rays. However, since gas molecules making up the air are so far apart, the temperature is not felt.
The thermosphere contains the majority of the ionosphere, an area in which the sun’s radiation is ionized (meaning converted totally or partially into ions). More information of this subject, as well as on the resulting Northern and Southern Light displays, will soon be available on the www.climateclinic.com website.
Summary
As we’ve just discovered, the four layers in our atmosphere regulate our weather, provides protection from the sun’s deadly ultraviolet rays, and protect us from meteors. Getting into the technicalities on how each layer executes their functions is beyond the scope of this series… except for the troposphere.
Coming up…
In the next section of “The Mysterious Climate Project,” we’ll turn the spotlight on the troposphere, that area of our atmosphere containing our natural greenhouse gases. We’ll describe each gas, discuss natural sources of greenhouse gases, and begin reviewing man’s contribution to the natural greenhouse gas cycle.
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