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Atmospheric waves, associated with a small dust storm of north western Africa on 23 September 2011. An atmospheric wave is a periodic disturbance in the fields of atmospheric variables (like surface pressure or geopotential height, temperature, or wind velocity) which may either propagate (traveling wave) or be stationary (standing wave).
The Hadley cell is a closed circulation loop which begins at the equator. There, moist air is warmed by the Earth's surface, decreases in density and rises. A similar air mass rising on the other side of the equator forces those rising air masses to move poleward. The rising air creates a low pressure zone near the equator.
Air suitable for use in photosynthesis by terrestrial plants and respiration of terrestrial animals is found within the troposphere. [3] The study of Earth's atmosphere and its processes is called atmospheric science (aerology), and includes multiple subfields, such as climatology and atmospheric physics.
Atmospheric electricity is always present, and during fine weather away from thunderstorms, the air above the surface of Earth is positively charged, while the Earth's surface charge is negative. This can be understood in terms of a difference of potential between a point of the Earth's surface, and a point somewhere in the air above it.
Waves in the oceans can travel thousands of kilometers before reaching land. Wind waves on Earth range in size from small ripples to waves over 30 m (100 ft) high, being limited by wind speed, duration, fetch, and water depth. [1] When directly generated and affected by local wind, a wind wave system is called a wind sea.
A geostrophic current is an oceanic current in which the pressure gradient force is balanced by the Coriolis effect. The direction of geostrophic flow is parallel to the isobars , with the high pressure to the right of the flow in the Northern Hemisphere , and the high pressure to the left in the Southern Hemisphere .
The North Pacific Current flows east, eventually bifurcating near the west coast of North America into the northward flowing Alaska Current and the southward flowing California Current. [17] The Alaska Current is the eastern boundary current of the subpolar Alaska Gyre, [ 18 ] while the California Current is the eastern boundary current that ...
[5] [18] The Earth is surrounded by a layer of charged particles (ions and electrons) in the atmosphere at an altitude of about 60 km (37 mi) at the bottom of the ionosphere, called the D layer, which reflects ELF waves. The space between the conductive Earth's surface and the conductive D layer acts as a parallel-plate waveguide which confines ...