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The voltage tears apart the air molecules and the gas begins to glow. The nitrogen and oxygen in the Earth's atmosphere causes St. Elmo's Fire to fluoresce with blue or violet light; this is similar to the mechanism that causes neon signs to glow.
Negative air ions (NAI) are important air component, generally referring to the collections of negatively charged single gas molecules or ion clusters in the air. They play an essential role in maintaining the charge balance of the atmosphere. [1] [2] The main components of air are molecular nitrogen and oxygen.
The basic concept of a global circuit is that through the balance of thunderstorms and fair weather, the atmosphere is subject to a continual and substantial electrical current. Principally, thunderstorms throughout the world carry negative charges to the ground, which is then discharged gradually through the air away from the storms, in ...
The rising air creates a low pressure zone near the equator. As the air moves poleward, it cools, becomes denser, and descends at about the 30th parallel, creating a high-pressure area. The descended air then travels toward the equator along the surface, replacing the air that rose from the equatorial zone, closing the loop of the Hadley cell. [3]
Atmospheric thermodynamics is the study of heat-to-work transformations (and their reverse) that take place in the Earth's atmosphere and manifest as weather or climate. . Atmospheric thermodynamics use the laws of classical thermodynamics, to describe and explain such phenomena as the properties of moist air, the formation of clouds, atmospheric convection, boundary layer meteorology, and ...
Radiative forcing is defined in the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report as follows: "The change in the net, downward minus upward, radiative flux (expressed in W/m 2) due to a change in an external driver of climate change, such as a change in the concentration of carbon dioxide (CO 2), the concentration of volcanic aerosols or the output of the Sun." [3]: 2245
The cooler, higher-latitudes leads to cooling of air parcels, which causes the poleward air to eventually descend. [26] When the movement of air is averaged annually, the descending branch of the Hadley cell is located roughly over the 25th parallel north and the 25th parallel south. [1]
Radiation heat flow occurs in the direction from the surface to the atmosphere and space, [6] as is to be expected given that the surface is warmer than the atmosphere and space. While greenhouse gases emit thermal radiation downward to the surface, this is part of the normal process of radiation heat transfer . [ 77 ]