Transcript Lecture - Building The Pride

Meteorology
• Aristotle 340B.C. Meteorologica
• Meteoros “things high in the air”
• This document was an attempt to
summarize everything known about
atmospheric phenomena
• Philosophical and speculative… ‘reasoned
discussion’
• NOT an observational science!
Qualifications to Teach
Meteorology
• Agricultural meteorology
• Aviation Meteorology / Family Tradition
- Daddy, Uncles all aviators…(I was never allowed to call thunderstorms ‘thunderheads’… they
were Cumulo-Nimbus)
• 9 official hours flight instruction (2X additional UN-official hours)
• MANY hours right seat on aerial photography missions (I never started a good log
book and eventually lost track)
• Uncle a REAL Meteorologist… Labrador, Bermuda, NORAD…. “glorified sequence
readers”
• Teaching Assistant: Undergraduate Climatology at OSU
• Graduate Class in Climatology
• Major Professor, Climatologist… ‘Field Problem’ climate forcing of landslide event
• 5 Years Global Climate Change Research
• Doctoral research C budget estimations for FSU
• Post-Doc with member of IPCC (Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change)
• Tropical forest biomass modeling
• Familiarity with construction, parameterization and evaluation of GCM’s (General
Circulation Models)
• Weather Geek
How big is the Universe?
Hubble Deep Field View
http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/newsdesk/
archive/releases/2004/07/image/a
The Hubble Telescope was pointed at
a ‘dark’ part of the sky
Located in the constellation Fornax,
the region is so empty that only a
handful of stars within the Milky Way
galaxy can be seen in the image.
http://micro.magnet.fsu.edu/primer/java/scienc
eopticsu/powersof10/
The Great galaxy in Andromeda… a spiral galaxy similar to our own
Our sun is but one single middle sized and middle aged star
hanging out along the edge of average sized galaxy
Our Sun, the source of life on Earth is but one of millions….
X-ray image
from Dec. 2002
Our Earth is planet # 3 in a system of Nine Planets
Comparative orbits of the local solar system.
Between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter is a broad
band of material, the asteroid belt.
Images of the ‘inner’ planets… relative sizes are shown.
The image of Venus is from a RADAR mapping mission as
the Venusian surface cannot be seen through the thick
atmosphere.
Comparatively, we are dealing with a very small part of a very
big system…..
The
atmosphere
behaves like a
fluid, with
currents and
eddies.
The driving
force behind
all weather is
an imbalance
of solar NRG.
Weather is a
product of
these
atmospheric
movements.
The driving force for weather and oceanic currents is a thermal imbalance… it is
hot (due to near vertical insolation) between the tropics … and cold due to
reduced insolation (high angle, or in the shadows)… this thermal imbalance drives
all weather, which is simply seeking a balance…
The Atmosphere of the
Earth is only about 20
miles thick.
Were the Planet the size
of a peach the lower
atmosphere (3 miles)
would be thinner than the
‘fuzz’ of that peach.
The size of a beach ball…
the atmosphere is the
thickness of a piece of
paper
The Earth's atmosphere is
77% nitrogen, 21%
oxygen, with traces of
argon, carbon dioxide and
water.
The lower atmosphere is where life is possible and where weather
occurs.
At 18,000 ft we are above ½ the molecules in the air
Mt. Everest (29,000 ft) is above 70% of all the molecules in the air
Air …
• Air density 1.2 kg/cubic meter
• The weight of the air on the planet 5.16 1018 tons
(5600 trillion tons)
•
•
•
•
14.7 pounds/square inch
1013 millibars (average air pressure)
1013 hectopascals (hPa)
760 mm Hg
Nitrogen Cycle
The source for our atmosphere (?) (80% water vapor, 10% carbon
dioxide and small % Nitrogen along with sulfur dioxide)
So how does volcanic ‘out gassing’ … water vapor and carbon
dioxide create an atmosphere that is 78% N?
Photo-Disassociation: separation of water into hydrogen and oxygen gasse
in the presence of sunlight.
(H floats off into space Oxygen stays near the surface)
Carbon gets soaked up in the oceans (currently, the reservoir of carbon
dioxide in the ocean is estimated to be 50X as great as in the
atmosphere)… this C was stored in carbonate rocks? Limestone Marl
etc? This leaves the ‘trace’ Nitrogen behind as the dominate gas?
Nitrogen is currently cycled through biological organisms
This all seems VERY tenuous!!
Carbon
Storage in
the
carbonate
rocks of the
Bahamas
Bank
The Carbon Cycle
The ‘Greenhouse effect’… the atmosphere is transparent to incoming shortwave
(visible) radiation. Visible light is converted to thermal NRG. Various components of
the atmosphere (H2O, CO2, CH4) prevent the reflection of thermal NRG… trapping
the heat.
Is there ever any potential
problem with linear
extrapolation?
Atmospheric Oxygen
The first and most deadly of toxic gasses!
Early on there was very little free oxygen in the atmosphere… it was a
toxic gas to virtually everything that had gotten a start on the planet.
It is the ‘toxic’ byproduct of respiration of a certain group of
organisms… plants ‘passing gas’
Oxygen
Changes in Atmospheric Oxygen?
Triassic ‘Red Beds’
Found all around the
globe… bright Red rock
layers… oxygen trapped in
iron oxides?
During this time did
Earth resemble
Mars?
Ozone… the good ; the bad; and the
ugly?
Ozone amounts from the
Atmospheric Observatory at the
South Pole… the loss of ‘good
ozone’….
The identical compound… ozone, near the surface is considered a serious air
pollutant….
Thermal profile of the
atmosphere:
Another way
of visualizing
the
atmospheric
profile.
Another ‘layer’.. The charged particle (ion) layer in the atmosphere
A solar flare
sends streams
of charged
particles
streaming
through space
… these
charged
particles are
captured in
the magnetic
field of the
earth and the
resulting
display of ion
discharge in
the upper
atmosphere
are the aurora
While highly
variable, the
general
location of the
visible aurora
is indicated by
the ring of fire
on this image.
The relationship between
Meteorology and Climatology
• Weather… the conditions in the atmosphere
at any given time.
• Climate… the ‘average conditions’ in the
atmosphere over a given period of time
• Standard climatic averages based on 30
years of observations
Meso Scale climatic cycles… ENSO
Hydrosphere:
71 Percent of the Earth's surface is covered with water.
Earth is the only planet on which water can exist in liquid
form on the surface.
Water in the atmosphere…
• Only on earth (at least in our planetary
system) can water exist in all three phases
IN the atmosphere.
• Solid (ice), liquid (rain drops) and gas
(water vapor) are present in the atmosphere
at all times.
• Variable from 0-4%