Earth's Atmosphere

The biosphere consists of a compound infusion of gases; the main components are oxygen, nitrogen, and carbon dioxide. The concentration of these gases have been changing for many years. For the most part, this is influenced by human activity. In a persistent effort to improve the quality and longevity of life, humans (particularly in industrialized societies) have tendencies to negatively impact the environment, and at the same time, we strive to replenish what we have nearly depleted to balance the scale.

The atmosphere in a place and time in regards to heat, dryness, sunshine, wind, rain, etc.

What are the different layers of the atmosphere? What are some characteristics of each? I mentioned in class that you should focus on knowing about two of these atmospheric layers in particular.

Weather and climate are separate but related terms. The term weather refers to short-run atmospheric conditions that exist for a

The element of air gives humans life. Air represents new life and new possibilities. Life is what allows humans to think, feel, see and have emotions. In The Wars by Timothy Findley the element of air pushes humans to reach their full potential. Robert Ross illustrates this with his desire to live, desire to leave a mark and his desire to overcome hardships. Soldiers did not want to just live; but to live for something and leave a legacy in history.

Nitrogen fixation = Nitrogen gas is combined (fixed) with hydrogen by nitrogen-fixing bacteria to become ammonium

Movements and interactions in the lithosphere and the internal Earth processes that drive them are referred to as the _____ cycle.

*Nitrogen, which accounts for 78 percent of the atmosphere, exists in the atmosphere in a form unusable by living organisms.

There are three different weather bands in each hemisphere, they are trade winds, polar easterlies, and prevailing westerlies.

Higher altitudes are cooler than lower altitudes, which is explained by the lapse rate. On local scales, temperature differences can occur because different surfaces (such as oceans, forests, ice sheets, or man-made objects) have differing physical characteristics such as reflectivity, roughness, or moisture content.

It is stratified in temperature, with warmer layers higher up and cooler layers farther down. This is in contrast to the troposphere near the Earth's surface, which is cooler higher up and warmer farther down. The border of the troposphere and stratosphere, the tropopause, is marked by where this inversion begins, which in terms of atmospheric thermodynamics is the equilibrium level. The stratosphere is situated between about 6 mi and 30 mi altitude above the surface at moderate latitudes, while at the poles it starts at about 5 mi altitude.

The Earth formed 4.6 billion years ago through collisions in the giant disked shape cloud created from the Bing Bang. It is a dynamic planet, with

1) The ozone layer is a layer of ozone high up in the Earth's atmosphere stratosphere.

I. (Main Point = Need) According to NASA climate is made up of two things. Those two things are the climates of certain locations during the different seasons and the Earth’s climate which is a combination of all those different induvial climates.

“The atmosphere holds carbon dioxide and other gases that keep the planet warm and protect its surface from radiation.” Again, radiation is a bad thing, so the atmosphere helps with that as well. It keeps the good gasses in (the bad, too, unfortunately, though I think it keeps some gasses out as well) that would otherwise make Earth impossible to be sustain life.