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Atmospheric instability is a condition where the Earth's atmosphere is considered to be unstable and as a result local weather is highly variable through distance and time. [ clarification needed ] [ 1 ] Atmospheric instability encourages vertical motion, which is directly correlated to different types of weather systems and their severity.
Stellar characteristics of importance include mass and luminosity, stable variability, and high metallicity. Rocky, wet terrestrial -type planets and moons with the potential for Earth-like chemistry are a primary focus of astrobiological research, although more speculative habitability theories occasionally examine alternative biochemistries ...
About 3.4 billion years ago, nitrogen formed the major component of the then-stable "second atmosphere". 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. [48]
The Gaia hypothesis (/ ˈ ɡ aɪ. ə /), also known as the Gaia theory, Gaia paradigm, or the Gaia principle, proposes that living organisms interact with their inorganic surroundings on Earth to form a synergistic and self-regulating complex system that helps to maintain and perpetuate the conditions for life on the planet.
They are the atmosphere, the hydrosphere, the cryosphere, the lithosphere and the biosphere. [28]: 1451 Earth's climate system is a complex system with five interacting components: the atmosphere (air), the hydrosphere (water), the cryosphere (ice and permafrost), the lithosphere (earth's upper rocky layer) and the biosphere (living things).
A stable atmosphere makes vertical movement difficult, and small vertical disturbances dampen out and disappear. In an unstable atmosphere, vertical air movements (such as in orographic lifting , where an air mass is displaced upwards as it is blown by wind up the rising slope of a mountain range) tend to become larger, resulting in turbulent ...
The definition of life has long been a challenge for scientists and philosophers. [2] [3] [4] This is partially because life is a process, not a substance. [5] [6] [7] This is complicated by a lack of knowledge of the characteristics of living entities, if any, that may have developed outside Earth.
With a half-life of about a day at room temperature, ozone breaks down before it can mix completely with the lower levels of the atmosphere. The ozone hole is a relatively stable structure caused by a combination of pollution and antarctic wind patterns in the stratosphere.