CHAPTER 3

ATMOSPHERE

PREPARED BY :
GROUP 3
 The atmosphere is the realm of kites, hot air balloons, and spaceships. It starts
at ground level and then goes straight up, getting thinner and colder, until it
finally ends at the edge of space. The Earth would be no better off than Venus
or Mars.
Atmosphere also provides the air (oxygen) we breathe. Humans can sur-vive
for about 28 days without food and 3 days without water-but only three to four
minutes without air.

Atmospheric Variables include:

* Temperature
* Pressure
* Water Vapor
* These variables interact and change over time, leading to weather.
A meteorologist is a person who studies the weather and
its atmos-pheric patterns.
• Temperature drops of 30°F in the two hours preceding a
cold front are possible.

What is the atmosphere made of? Air? Water? Smoke?

• Most of the time you can’t even see the atmosphere
unless there is fog, rain, snow, clouds, wind, or some
other atmos-pheric player.

The original atmosphere was a lot like a solar nebula

and similar to the gaseous plan-ets. That atmosphere was
gradually replaced by compounds emitted from the crust
or the impacts of meteoroids and comets loaded with
volatile matter.
The atmosphere contains oxygen produced almost solely by algae
and plants. The atmosphere’s present composition is nitrogen,
oxygen, and other miscella-neous gases.
COMPOSITON
The atmospheric gases blanketing the Earth exist in a mixture. This
mixture is made up (by volume) of about 79% nitrogen, 20%
oxygen, 0.036% carbon dioxide, and trace amounts of other
gases.
ATMOSPHERE divided into four layers:
The layer nearest the earth is the troposphere, which reaches an
altitude of about 8 km in polar regions and up to 17 km around the
equator.
The layer above the troposphere is the stratosphere, which
reaches to an altitude of around 50 km.
The mesosphere reaches up to approxi-mately 90 km and lies
above the stratosphere. Finally, the thermosphere, or iono-
sphere, is still further out and eventually fades to black in outer
space.
ATMOSPHERE

•TROPOSPHERE
The lowest of the atmospheric
layers, the troposphere,
extends from the earth’s
surface up to about 14 km in
altitude. Virtually all human
activities occur in the
troposphere. Mt. Everest, the
tallest mountain on the planet,
The troposphere is where all the local temperature, pressure, wind,
and precipitation changes take place.
The air pressure at the top of the troposphere is only 10% of that at
sea level. There is a thin “shock absorber” zone between the
troposphere and the next layer (stratosphere) called the
tropopause.

• STRATOSPHERE
• Above the troposphere is the stratosphere, where air flow is
mostly sideways..
There is a gradual change from the troposphere to the stratosphere,
which starts at around 14 km in altitude. The stratosphere extends
from 14 km to around 50 km.
The melding of the stratosphere upward into the
mesosphere is called the stratopause.

• OZONE
Ozone is one of our atmospheric bodyguards. Even
small amounts have an important role in protecting
planetary life. Concentrated in a thin layer in the upper
stratosphere, atmospheric ozone is an exceptionally
reactive form of oxygen. It is found in the stratospheric
layer, around
Ultraviolet 15 to
radiation 30a km above the Earth’s surface.
with
wavelength between 200 and
400 nanometers (nm) is usually
divided into three main ranges
of the spectrum.
Ozone molecules are constantly created and destroyed in the [Link]
amount is relatively constant and only affected naturally by sunspots,
seasons, and latitude.
There are other bit players in the stratosphere. These are collections of
droplets called polar stratospheric clouds. These unique cloud-like
condensa-tions of trace chemicals condense in the cold (-80° C or below)
Southern Hemisphere’s winter.
Chlorine and nitrogen interact in the atmosphere in ways that form chlorine
nitrate. This compound does not interact with ozone or atomic oxygen, so it
serves as a storage tank for chlorine in the environment.
Ozone Depletion
For the past 50 years, chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) held the answer to
lots of material problems. They were stable, nonflammable, not too toxic, and
cheap to produce. They had a variety of uses including applications as
refrigerants, solvents, and foam-blowing agents.
• In 1985, since other types of chlorine compounds were still being
used, the policy of the Vienna Convention was adopted to gather
international cooperation and reduce the number of all CFCs by
half.
• In 1992, with new information on the ever-shrinking ozone layer,
developed countries decided to totally stop production of halons by
1994 and CFCs by 1996. Halons are compounds in which hydrogen
atoms of a hydrocarbon are replaced by bromine or fluorine.

MESOSPHERE
Above the stratosphere is the mesosphere, a middle layer
separating the lower stratosphere from the inhospitable
thermosphere. Extending from 80 to 90 km and with
temperatures around-101°C, the mesosphere is the
intermediary of the earth’s atmosphere layers.
THERMOSPHERE
The changeover from the mesosphere to the thermosphere
layer begins at a height of approximately 80 km. The
thermosphere is named because of the return to rising
temperatures that can reach an amazing 1,982°C.

JET STREAM
The jet stream is a long, narrow current of fast-moving air found in
the upper levels of the atmosphere.
PRESSURE
Air pressure is the force applied on you by the weight of air
molecules.
Approximately 14.7 pounds per square inch (psi). The standard value for atmos-
pheric pressure at sea level is equal to:
1 atm 760 mm Hg (millimeters of mercury) = 1013 millibars = 14.7 psi (pounds force
per square inch) = 1013.25 hPa (hectopascals)

Wind
Winds are a product of atmospheric pressure. Pressure differences cause air
to move. Like fluids, air flows from areas of high pressure to areas of low
pressure. Meteorologists predict winds by looking at the location and
strength of regional high and low-pressure air masses. If the changes are
small, the day is calm.
In 1806, Admiral Sir Francis Beaufort of the British Navy came up with a way
of describing wind effects on the amount of canvas carried by a fully rigged
frigate.

The wind chill factor measures the rate of heat loss from exposed skin to that of
surrounding air temperatures.
Air cushion is blown away and
has to be reheated by the
body. See Table 3-3 to get an
idea of the wind chill
equivalent temperatures at
different wind speeds.
Relative humidity
• is the relationship between the air’s temperature and the amount
of water vapor it contains.
Convection
• In atmospheric studies, convection refers to vertical
atmospheric movement. As the earth is heated by the sun,
different surfaces absorb different amounts of energy, convection
occurs, and surfaces are quickly heated.
• A thermal is the mass of warm air that rises from the surface
upward.
FRONTS
Atmospheric fronts are conflicts between air masses.
Depending on the air masses involved and which way the
fronts move, fronts can be warm, cold, stationary, or
occluded.
Fig. 3-2 illus-trates the air flow of a cold front.
 Fig. 3-3 shows the gradual air flow angle and approach
of a warm front
Clouds
These visible wonders of the troposphere are found in a
variety of shapes and sizes. While some clouds are happy just
to be, others come with precipitation like mist, rain, sleet,
hail, and snow.
A cloud is a combination of tiny water droplets and/or ice crystals
sus-pended in the atmosphere.
Table 3-4 lists a few of these Latin root words. Additional detail is
provided by measuring a cloud’s
HIGH-LEVEL CLOUDS base height or altitude from the
ground. High-level clouds form above 6,000 meters

Cirrostratus are sheet-like, high-level clouds made

of ice crystals. Although cirrostratus can blanket the
sky and be many thousands of meters thick, they are
fairly transparent. The sun or the moon is usually
seen through cirrostratus.
Halos are formed when
light refracts off a cloud’s
ice crystals. Since
cirrostratus clouds get
thicker when warm fronts
advance, a halo gradually
fades or disappears from
around the sun or moon
as the weather changes.
Fig. 3-4 illustrates
high-level, cirrus-type
clouds (top) and
midlevel altocumulus
Fig. 3-4 High altitude cirrus clouds are wispy, while mid-level altostratus are
flat bottomed.

Mid-Level Clouds
The bases of midlevel clouds usually form around 2,000 to 6,000 meters. Found at
lower altitudes, they are usually warm enough that their water droplets don’t freeze,
but they can contain ice crystals when temperatures are cold enough.

Altocumulus are found as parallel bands or rounded masses. Commonly a portion of

an altocumulus cloud is shadowed, which helps you tell
Nimbostratus are dark, low-level clouds accompanied by light-to-
medium rainfall.
Stratocumulus clouds generally appear as low, lumpy, layered
clouds that come with weak rainfall. Stratocumulus vary in color
from dark gray to light gray and may appear as rounded masses,
rolls, and so on, with breaks of clear sky in between.
VERTICAL CLOUDS
Fig. 3-5 shows the medium-to-dark, lumpy, low-level-clouds
seen on dreary, rainy days. Probably the most familiar of the
basic cloud shapes is the cumulus
cloud. Formed by either thermal
convection or frontal lifting,
cumulus clouds reach altitudes of
more than 15,000 meters. Fig. 3-6
shows the puffy, cotton-like nature
of cumulus clouds.
Cumulonimbus clouds are much bigger and taller than fair-
weather cumulus. Lower cumulonimbus clouds are made up of water
droplets, but at higher alti-tudes and temperatures below freezing,
ice crystals take over. When everything is just right for a
thunderstorm, happy, fair-weather cumulus clouds quickly turn into
large, nasty cumulonimbus clouds linked to awesome, towering
thunder-storms called supercells.
SPECIALTY CLOUDS
Some clouds are very specialized. They form when specific
events take place. For example, some of these clouds are
formed by aircraft, earlier storms, and the pres-ence of mountain
peaks. A few of these specialty clouds are shown in Fig. 3-7.
Fig. 3-7 Contrails, mammatus, and orographic
clouds are very distinct.

A contrail, short for condensation trail, is a

cirrus-like trail of condensed water vapor that
looks like the tail of a kite or a wide piece of yarn.
Contrails are created at high altitudes when the
heat coming from a high-performance jet engine
hits the extremely cold atmosphere, condensing
water vapor into a minia-ture cloud, which forms a
line behind the engine. If
• Mammatus clouds are shaped like hanging fruit and are formed
in sinking air
• Billows clouds are created from the instability connected with
vertical shear air flows and weak thermal layering. These clouds,
formed by winds blowing at dif-ferent speeds in different air
layers, are often seen at air mass margins of different densities
(warm air)
• Lenticular clouds are shaped like lenses or flying saucers. These
flat clouds are found in windy areas where rising air is cooling
• Tornadoes
Tornadoes are the children of severe thunderstorms. As speeding
cold fronts smash into warm humid air, a convection of temperature
and wind is formed.
 Virginia. Winds were recorded over 420 kph
spawning 127 tornadoes! Three hundred fifteen
people were killed in 11 states and 6,142 were
injured.

Tomadoes are usually classified into one of the

following three different levels:

1. Weak tornadoes (F0/F1) make up roughly 75%

of all tornadoes.
2. Strong tornadoes (F2/F3) make up most of the
remaining 24% of all tor-nadoes.
3. Violent tornadoes (F4/F5) are rare and account
for less than 2% of all tor-nadoes, but cause
nearly 65% of all tornado deaths in the United
Fig. 3-8 Winds have a
States.
major effect on the
In the late 1960s, University of Chicago
shape of billows and
atmospheric scientist T. Theodore.
lenticular clouds.
 Table 3-6 shows the Fujita
scale with its
corresponding wind speeds
and surface damage.
Wind shear describes the sudden
change in the wind’s direction or
speed with increasing altitude.

Fig. 3-9 shows the circular wind motion

that signals a hurricane.

Hurricanes produce dangerous winds,

torrential rains, storm surges, flooding,
riptides, and tornadoes that often
result in huge amounts of property
damage, deaths, and injuries in coastal
locations. In August and September of
2004, hurricanes Charlie, Francis, Ivan,
and Jean pounded the Caribbean and
the United States in rapid succession.
Table 3-7 lists the different hurricane force categories.
In 1953, the Tropical Prediction Center created a list of hurricanes
names. When a tropical depression turns into a tropical storm, it is
given the next name available on the list.
Air Pollution
The atmosphere has many faces. Polluting compounds present
another area for concern. For the great majority of most
industrialized nations, the very air we breathe is laced with smoke,
particulates, and an array of toxic chemicals from human activities
and industrial processes. This is a major problem.
The most common air pollutants are:
*Carbon monoxide
*Chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs)
*Heavy metals (arsenic, chromium, cadmium, lead, mercury,
zinc)
*Hydrocarbons
*Nitrogen oxides
*Organic chemicals
[volatile organic compounds (VOCs),
dioxins]
*Sulfur dioxide
*Particulates
*Most of the time, people
 THANK
YOUUUUU!!!