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The influence of the evolution of life has to be taken into account rather soon in the history of the atmosphere because hints of earliest life forms appeared as early as 3.5 billion years ago. [53] How Earth at that time maintained a climate warm enough for liquid water and life, if the early Sun put out 30% lower solar radiance than today, is ...
The atmosphere envelops the earth and extends hundreds of kilometres from the surface. It consists mostly of inert nitrogen (78%), oxygen (21%) and argon (0.9%). [4] Some trace gases in the atmosphere, such as water vapour and carbon dioxide, are the gases most important for the workings of the climate system, as they are greenhouse gases which allow visible light from the Sun to penetrate to ...
The atmospheric circulation can be viewed as a heat engine driven by the Sun's energy and whose energy sink, ultimately, is the blackness of space. The work produced by that engine causes the motion of the masses of air, and in that process it redistributes the energy absorbed by the Earth's surface near the tropics to the latitudes nearer the ...
An atmosphere (from Ancient Greek ἀτμός (atmós) 'vapour, steam' and σφαῖρα (sphaîra) 'sphere') [1] is a layer of gases that envelop an astronomical object, held in place by the gravity of the object. A planet retains an atmosphere when the gravity is great and the temperature of the atmosphere is low.
Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, ocean Ecosystem (PACE) is a 2020s NASA Earth-observing satellite mission to observe global ocean color, biogeochemistry, and ecology, as well as the carbon cycle, aerosols and clouds. [3] PACE is intended to be used to identify the extent and duration of phytoplankton blooms and improve understanding of air quality. [4]
[29] [30] Circulation in the atmosphere and oceans transports heat from the tropical regions to regions that receive less energy from the Sun. Solar radiation is the main driving force for this circulation. The water cycle also moves energy throughout the climate system. In addition, certain chemical elements are constantly moving between the ...
The earth’s atmosphere has several layers, what NASA calls “a multi-layered cake. We live in the troposphere, which in the U.S. extends about 6 miles above the earth’s surface. It’s where ...
At the ocean-atmosphere interface, the ocean and atmosphere exchange fluxes of heat, moisture and momentum. Heat. The important heat terms at the surface are the sensible heat flux, the latent heat flux, the incoming solar radiation and the balance of long-wave radiation. In general, the tropical oceans will tend to show a net gain of heat, and ...