Into the Troposphere

The Troposphere is why we are alive. It keeps us warm and without it we would have an average temperature of minus fifty degrees Celsius. The atmosphere is equivalent to four point five metres thickness of concrete. Without it invisible visitors from space would destroys us and raindrops would beat us silly. The atmosphere extends up to one hundred and ninety kilometres and is divided into four different layers. The Troposphere, Stratosphere, Mesosphere and the Ionosphere which is now more commonly known as the Thermosphere. The Troposphere alone has enough warmth and oxygen to keep us alive. It’s thickest at the equator. 

Beyond the Troposphere is the Stratosphere where an invisible boundary lies in between them and flattens storm clouds into anvil shapes. It is called the Tropopause which was discovered in 1902 by a Frenchmen called Leon-Philippe Teisserene de Boit. The temperature there at 10km is minus fifty seven degrees Celsius. After you leave the Troposphere the temperature warms back up to four degrees Celsius because of the absorptive effects of the ozone then it plunges to a minus ninety degrees Celsius in the Mesosphere before it sky rockets to one thousand five hundred degrees Celsius where in the Thermosphere the temperature can vary over five hundred degrees from day to night.

Temperature is the measurement of active molecules. At sea level air, molecules can only move a tiny distance before they bang into each other due to how thick they are. Molecules are always colliding into each other and when they hit one another heat gets exchanged except at fifty kilometres on the top of the Thermosphere where molecules will barely come in contact with each other which is good for spaceships, satellites because if there was more heat any manmade objects would burst into flames.

Spaceships must take extreme care in the outer atmosphere. If a spacecraft comes in at a steep angle for example 6 degrees it can generate drag of an exceedingly combustible nature. Also it could simply rebound back into space.

In the 1780’s people began to experiment with balloon ascents in Europe and were surprised at how chilly it got above the ground. For each one thousand metres the temperature dropped one point six degrees Celsius. They thought the closer you got to a source of heat the hotter it became. The only problem with that is the sun in ninety three million miles away and if it came another hundred metres closer it would cause bushfires in Australia and the smell of smoke in Ohio. Sunlight energises atoms which increases their activity which leads to them banging into each other and releasing heat into the atmosphere. Whenever you feel the warmth from the sunlight its really excited atoms you are feeling.

Altogether there is about five thousand two hundred million tonnes of air around us. Seven hundred and fifty million tonnes of cold air is pinned under billions of tonnes of warm air. The air above our heads is also a source of energy. One thunder storm has enough power to generate four days’ worth of electricity in U.S.A. The sky is a very lively place. Every second about one hundred lightning bolts hits the surface of the Earth accompanied by about forty thousand thunderstorms per day. Air moves due to the internal engine of the planet namely convection. Warm air rises from the equational area until it hits the Tropopause then it spreads out across the sky cooling down overtime until it sinks looking for an area with low pressure and then it heads back to the equator where it finishes its cycle.

Low pressure areas are made from rising air which follows water molecules into the sky forming clouds and rain. Tropical and summer storms are heavier than other storms because warm air can hold more moisture than cool air. Therefore areas with cloud and rain have a low pressured area and areas with sunshine and a fair weather and a higher air pressure. Air pressures are different due to the uneven heat from the sun. Air can’t avoid this so it travels around trying to keep the air pressure even everywhere.

In Ecole Polytechmique in Paris a scientist named Coriolis worked out the details of the interaction in the wind. He explained that anything moving through a straight line laterally to the Earths spin will to the right towards the Northern Hemisphere or to the left towards the Southern Hemisphere. This effect is called the Coriolis Effect and is the creator of spins that create cyclones and sometimes hurricanes.

Oceans differences in temperatures, salinity, depth and density have a huge effect on how heat is moved around. The Atlantic Ocean is saltier than the Pacific therefore the water is denser.  Because dense water sinks the Atlantic currents do not reach the North Pole.  If they did it would deprive Europe of its warmth. The main heat transfer is Thermohaline circulation which originates in slow, deep currents far below the ocean’s surface which was discovered in 1779 by Count von Rumford. Thermohaline moves heat around and helps to stir up nutrients as currents rise and fall making the oceans habitable for fish and other marine life.

The oceans are crucial for life because they soak up huge volumes of Carbon Dioxide. The sun now burns twenty five percent brighter which should have had a catastrophic effect on the Earth, but life itself is keeping the Earth cool. Trillions of marine organisms capture atmospheric carbon in the form of carbon dioxide which they trap in their shells keeping the earth’s temperature at a liveable level.  If this did not happen the earth’s temperature would rise.  When these organisms die they fall to the bottom of the ocean and turn into limestone keeping the carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Unfortunately humans have a knack for burning things as a total of one hundred billion tonnes of carbon dioxide was released into the atmosphere in 1850. Nature has saved us from ourselves with the Earth’s oceans and forests soaking up huge volumes of carbon dioxide. The Earths rapid increase of heat would cause many trees and plants to die and they won’t be able to store carbon dioxide for us.  But luckily nature is magnificent and the cycle of the earth cleaning itself allows organisms to live on it.