...There is a wide misconception that aerosols are bad for the environment and contribute to the depletion of the ozone. Aerosol (derived more or less from “air-solid”) is technically just the suspension of fine particles, such as solids or liquid droplets, in a gas. As such, clouds, smog, smoke, air born dust, etc. are all aerosols. About 90% of all aerosols are naturally produced . They can either be directly emitted into the atmosphere (primary aerosol like dust, sea salt and black carbon), or they can be formed in the atmosphere by condensation (secondary inorganic aerosol such as sulfates, nitrates and ammonium). Aerosols are argued to be cooling the surface of the earth. This is relevant because the effects of aerosols may have beneficial or possibly dire consequences. Aerosols play a large role in cooling the surface of the earth, counteracting global warming, medicine, and therefore nothing should be done to eliminate them. Many types of aerosols have a cooling effect on the Earth, such as the aerosols produced from the burning of fossil fuels. The aerosols produced from this are known to partially counteract global warming caused by various greenhouse gases. In order to say that aerosols cool the earth, we have to explore the different theories on how they are said to do so. According to Jeffrey T. Kiehl in "Solving the Aerosol Puzzle" the burning of fossil fuels and biomass (in natural and man-made fires) leads to the production of substantial amounts of aerosols in the...
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...One hot summer morning a little Cloud rose out of the sea and floated lightly and happily across the blue sky. Far below lay the earth, dry, from drought. The little Cloud could see the poor people of the earth working and suffering in the hot fields, while the cloud floated on the morning breeze, without a care. "Oh, if I could only help the poor people down there!" she thought. "If I could but make their work easier! And as the day passed, and the Cloud became larger, this wish to do something for the people of earth was ever greater in her heart. On earth it grew hotter and hotter; the sun burned down so fiercely that the people were fainting in its rays; it seemed as if they must die of heat, and yet they were obliged to go on with their work, for they were very poor. Sometimes they stood and looked up at the Cloud, as if they were praying, and saying, "Ah, if you could help us!" "I will help you; I will!" said the Cloud. And she began to sink softly down toward the earth. The thought made her suddenly marvelously big and strong and powerful. Never had she dreamed that she could be so big. Like a mighty angel of blessing she stood above the earth, and lifted her head and spread her wings far over the fields and woods. She was so great, so majestic, that men and animals were awestruck at the sight; the trees and the grasses bowed before her; yet all the earth creatures felt that she meant them well. "Yes, I will help you," cried the Cloud once more. "Take me to yourselves;...
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...average or most common conditions. What is oceanography? Also called oceanology or marine science. It is a branch of earth science, it is the study of the deep sea and shallow costal oceans. What is hydrology? The study of movement, distribution and quality of water on earth and other planets. What is metrology? The study of weather. What is demography? Statistical study of human populations and sub-populations. What is geomorphology? The study of the surface of a planet and those processes responsible for forming it. Four types of precipitation: Rain, snow sleet and hail. Synoptic chart Shows weather events occurring at one time throughout a large area such as a country or region. Hectopascals: Unit of measurement of atmospheric pressure. What is microclimate: Local atmospheric zone where the climate differs from the surrounding areas. Ozone layers: Layer of earth’s atmosphere containing relatively high concentrations of ozone. The Troposphere The Stratosphere The Mesosphere The Thermosphere The exosphere. What is atmosphere The atmosphere is a layer of gases, which surrounds the entire Earth. It consists mainly of Nitrogen, Oxygen, as well as a few other gaseous elements. The purpose of this "layer" around the Earth is to prevent excessive amounts of radiation from reaching the Earth, thereby allowing we, as animals/planets, to survive What are isobars? Isobars are lines on a weather map that indicate...
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...Australia and New Zealand into the Pacific. I do not know exactly where we were but it was already night when I positioned myself at the docking compartment window. I think it was the one facing more starboard. I always get myself mixed up when I go into that module; I can never easily find the hatch again. It is completely night. There are thunderstorms across Africa and lightning is everywhere; bright flashes are going cloud to cloud illuminating the clouds as it arcs from one to the other. It is a private fireworks show. The storm is large and very spread out and at any moment you see 4 or 5 flashes occurring at one time, each one only lasting a moment. The colors range from something orange-ish to blue-white. Some are more like balls of light while others have that characteristic streak shape that you can observe on Earth. It goes on for several minutes. Occasionally a city goes by with lights shining brightly against the backdrop of flashing pulses of light. The cities come in all shapes, sizes and colors and light patterns. Some cities have clouds over them and all that can be seen is a haze of light. For the cities with clear skies, street patterns are apparent...
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...WATER DROPLETS= Water droplets in cloud are tiny, to light to fall, 1000’s must collide to form a heavy enough drop to fall DRIZZLE= Fine water droplets, 0.040-0.5mm Diameter RAIN= Consists of falling water droplets, 0.5-5mm Diameter, larger drops, break into pieces as they fall through the air FREEZING RAIN=When raindrops are close to freezing, strike a cold object near ground, the drops freeze instantly SNOW= Water vapor crystalizes on tiny particles of dust/smoke, forms when air/water vapor is below 0 degrees ICE PELLETS (SLEET)= When snow falls through warm layers of air, partially melts, then falls through layers of air below 0 degrees, results in beads of ice, hard enough to bounce on cold ground WET SNOW= When dry snow falls through warm air, melting all snow crystals, but are still water droplets on the snow, sticky PACKED SNOW= Best for igloos HAIL= frozen raindrops move up and down in active thunderclouds, grow larger each time an updraft raises them through cold water droplets, hailstone has 20 layers of ice FROST= when air temperature is below freezing, water molecules turn directly into a solid forming frost WEATHER SYSTEMS= Important to understand weather pattern in N. America AIR MASS= Large body of air, temperature/moisture is uniform, if air above ground/ocean does not move for a day, the air is influenced by that location CONTINENTAL POLOR AIR MASS= N. Canada, air mass above ocean is cold/dry MARITIME TROPICAL AIR MASS=...
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...Comparative Essay: Original creation of the Earth PHSC 210, D03-LUO I. Introduction The old-Earth evolution and young-Earth creation debate has been one that has gone on for centuries. Each viewpoint seeks to give an answer to life’s most difficult questions or origins and how the Earth came to be what it resembles today. While the Young Earth viewpoint has remained constant and unchanged throughout the centuries the Old Earth view seems to be continually evolving as new discoveries tend to discredit previous assumptions. One certainty is that both viewpoints take a dogmatic stance against each other in regards to the interpretation of scientific evidence. The purpose of this paper is to compare old-Earth and young-Earth viewpoints on the original creation of the Earth. II. Old-Earth Secular View The old-Earth evolution viewpoint on the original creation of the Earth is the nebular hypothesis. This viewpoint gave birth to evolutionary thought concerning origins. “…the history of evolution did not begin in 1859 with Charles Darwin’s ‘Origin of Species,’ but with the publication in 1796 of Pierre Simon Laplace’s so-called nebular hypothesis” (Numbers. 1977). This viewpoint suggests “About 4.6 billion years ago our solar system formed from a cloud of gas and dust which slowly contracted under the mutual gravity of all of its particles” (The Solar Nebula. N.d.). It is believed that this cloud of gas and dust was spinning at an accelerated rate and...
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...think it is man-made but fail to understand the fascinating natural cycles of how complex the geological history of planet earth is. It is a difficult subject to take in, so the public has to rely on experts for making the information understandable. The problem with relying on a group of people to make decisions for the public is they have the ability to manipulate the data to back their point of view. It has been scientifically proven and accepted by many scientist that mini global warming and global cooling periods have been present in the earth’s history. These fascinating scientific facts of earth’s history have been totally knocked out by the massive hype that man is responsible for climate change. Overall, climate change tends to be reported as explanations about general tendencies and possible outcomes. Climate Change is a Natural Process, not Man-Made It seems like everyone in the world has an opinion about what might be causing the climate of the world to change. Recently there has been a common scientific consensus that claims to know what is causing the climate to change. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is stating carbon dioxide is causing the climate to change, the oceans are warming, and the temperature is rising faster than usual. These claims being made are not only incorrect but lack the understanding of how the earth has hosted life for billions of years. There are many different claims about climate change being a man-made challenge facing...
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...ASTRONOMY | The earth solar system was form by the disturbed, or maybe by an explosion of close by star called the supernova. The explosion or the disturbed of stars causes wave in space which caused the squeezing of gas and dust clouds. The squeezing of the clouds stared to collapse, as gravity act force dust and gas clouds together which forms the solar nebula. Soon the dust and gas become hotter and dense in the middle; later a disc of gas and dust was surrounding the explosion in the middle. As the disc became thinner, dust particles stared sticking together form clumps. Most clumps was big, other were small. Those began forming planets and moons. Near the middle also were Earth form, some particles could stand that heat. Cold particles move to the outer area of the disc, where Jupiter formed. As particles still began to form, the middle had got very hot that it became a star (sun). The Earth’s orbit is not a complete circle. The Earth orbit is elliptical, that’s causing the distance from Earth to the sun changes throughout the year. When the Earth closet to the sun on its orbit it’s about 91,445,000 miles away. But when Earth is far from the sun on its orbit it’s about 95,555,000 miles away. But the average distance from the sun to the Earth is about 92,955,807 miles away. Since the Earth’s orbit is not circle but it’s elliptical it affects us on how much of solar energy we will be getting. The planet we live on is called Earth; Earth is the third planet from...
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...INNER PLANETS DATA | MERCURY | VENUS | EARTH | MARS | 1. DIAMETER | 3,032m (4,879km) | 7,521m (12,104km) | 7,926m (12,756km) | 7,926m (12,756km) | 2. AVERAGE DISTANCE FROM THE SUN | 57.9 million kms/36 million miles | 108.2 million kms/67.2 million miles | 150 million km (93 million miles) | 228 million km (142 million miles) | 3. ROTATION PERIOD | 59 Earth Days | 0.615 Earth Years (243 days) | 23.93 Hours | 24.63 Hours | 4. ORBITAL PERIOD | 88 Earth days | 225 Earth days | 365 days | 687 Earth days | 5. SURFACE TEMPERATURE | -183 °C to 427 °C (-297 °F to 800 °F) | 880 degrees Fahrenheit, 471 degrees Celsius (730 K) | -127°F to 136°F (-88°C to 58°C; 185 K to 311 K) | -130 °C (-202 °F) | 6. NUMBER OF MOONS/THEIR NAMES | ZERO | ZERO | One moon (Earth’s moon) | Two moons(Diemos and Phobos) | 7. CHEMICAL COMPOSITION OF ATMOSPHERE/GASES | Atmosphere, or exosphere, is composed mostly of oxygen (O2), sodium (Na), hydrogen (H2), helium (He), and potassium (K). | Atmosphere is made up mostly of carbon dioxide (CO2) and nitrogen (N2), with clouds of sulfuric acid (H2SO4) droplets. | 78 % nitrogen, 21% oxygen, | Atmosphere made up mostly of carbon dioxide (CO2), nitrogen (N2) and argon (Ar) | 8. NATURE OF THE ATMOSPHERE | Very thin; Since the atmosphere is so slight, the sky would appear pitch black (except for the sun, stars, and other planets, when visible), even during the day. Also has no greenhouse effect. | Thick and toxic atmosphere, hot...
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...The Swing How do you like to go up in a swing, Up in the air so blue? Oh, I do think it the pleasantest thing Ever a child can do! Up in the air and over the wall, Till I can see so wide, River and trees and cattle and all Over the countryside-- Till I look down on the garden green, Down on the roof so brown-- Up in the air I go flying again, Up in the air and down! Robert Louis Stevenson Because I Could Not Stop for Death( personification) Top of Form Because I could not stop for Death, He kindly stopped for me; The carriage held but just ourselves And Immortality. We slowly drove, he knew no haste, And I had put away My labour, and my leisure too, For his civility. We passed the school where children played, Their lessons scarcely done; We passed the fields of gazing grain, We passed the setting sun. We paused before a house that seemed A swelling of the ground; The roof was scarcely visible, The cornice but a mound. Since then 'tis centuries; but each Feels shorter than the day I first surmised the horses' heads Were toward eternity. The poem by Emily Dickinson "Because I could not stop for Death" is know to be one of the best poems in English. Every image extends and intensifies each other. But there are some pro and cons in this poem. The poem helps us to characterize and bring death down to a more personal level. It shows a different perspective of death that the more popular views of death being brutal and...
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...Earth as a planet Rotation: Provides day & night. Turning of Earth on its axis. 1000 mph at equator. Coriolis: Causes winds to be turned or deflected from their path. Deflection to right in N. hemi. Revolution: Motion of earth along path. Creates years because it takes 365 days to make one. Inclination: The tilt of the earth’s axis. Parallelism: Tendency of earth to always stay parallel and not transform its orbit. Solstices: summer/winter june 21/22 december 21/22 when the sun position of noon sun is at its farthest position from equator 23.5 degrees N/S Equinoxes: spring/autumn march 21/22 septemeber 22/23 when the day is equal (day and night) Analemma: Shows path of noon sun angle throughout months Tropic Cancer: 23.5N Tropic Capricorn 23.5S (Farthest the sun can be away from equator that reaches 90 degrees above earth) Solar Radiation Insolation: Incoming solar radiation. Incoming is shortwave and outgoing is long wave. Duration: the longer the sun is out the more heat will be produced Intensity: angle the sun hits the earth. More intense closer to equator. Atmosphere: Constituents- Nitrogen: 78% Oxygen: 21% Carbon Monoxide: most of the remaining Selective screening: reflection- reflects radiation refraction- changes direction of radiation absorption- absorbs radiation Attenuation: absorb, reflect, refract Elements of weather and climate Temperature: degree of heat...
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...Abstract Eight planets, fifty-eight moons, thousands of asteroids, and billions of meteoroids and comets and one dwarf planet named Pluto orbit the grand star, the Sun. Around and around they go. These planets and other object came from a huge explosion. The Big Bang Theory, which states that the universe began as a dense and hot point that was less than a fraction of an inch and has continued to evolve into what it is known as of today. The origin of the galaxy seems a mystery. But over time, the pieces of the puzzle are coming together. Scientists believe a supernova or star may have formed the universe. When the Earth first formed, it contained gasses which dissolved into the Earth’s molten planet. When this formation happened from the smaller bodies, these were called planetesimals. But not all planets are the same. The Jovian planets are shrouded by thick atmospheres that are rich in hydrogen and helium. These planets were formed away from the sun. A shooting star is what individuals think of when they see a vapor stream of dust and gas shooting across the sky. The sun helps make this spectacle possible and could be a reason why early astronomers were so curious about the skies. When an individual looks up at the night sky, he or she can get lost in the vast beauty. Who wouldn’t get mesmerized? Introduction Our solar system consists of the Sun, eight planets, the dwarf planet Pluto, fifty-eight moons, thousands of asteroids,...
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...These fascinating rings have puzzled astronomers since 1610 when Galileo Galilei discovered them. They can be seen with a very low-powered telescope. The rings measure about thirty feet in thickness. Which is not very much compared to the entire size of Saturn. They are made up of billions and billions of ice and rock chunk particles, all traveling at their own orbit around it. These rings are made up of rock pieces that also create a rainbow effect as they refract the light from the sun. These rings also increase the brightness of Saturn, making it even more visible with the unaided eye. Although, from Earth, the rings look like they are divided from each other by thin, dark regions. These regions are called the Cassini division and the Encke Division. The rings particles vary from the size of dust particles to about the size of a house. The two outer rings have a very strong magnetic field. Each of the sections of rings, travel at different speeds around Saturn. Saturn has seven different groups of rings, these groups are divided by divisions. All of the different rings are named in alphabetical order, in order from when and where they were located. The order doesn’t actually go in the actual order of the alphabet in which most people would expect it to go. It goes from the inside ring to the outside ring. The order of rings is D, C, B, then...
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...in the solar system could fit inside it. More than 1,000 Earths would fit inside Jupiter. Jupiter is like a star in composition. If Jupiter had been about 80 times more massive, it would have become a star rather than a planet. Jupiter is the fifth planet from the sun. Jupiter's average distance from the sun is 5.2 astronomical units, or AU. This distance is a little more than five times the distance from Earth to the sun. When viewed from Earth, it is usually the second brightest planet in the sky, after Venus. The planet is named after Jupiter, the king of the Roman gods. What Is Jupiter Like? Jupiter is a giant gas planet. Its atmosphere is made up of mostly hydrogen gas and helium gas, just like the sun. The planet's surface is covered in thick red, brown, yellow and white clouds. One of Jupiter's most famous features is the Great Red Spot. It is a giant spinning storm, resembling a hurricane. At its widest point, the storm is about three-and-a-half times the diameter of Earth. Jupiter is a very windy planet. Winds range from 192 mph to more than 400 mph. Jupiter has three thin rings. The rings were discovered in 1979 by NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft. Jupiter's rings are made up mostly of tiny dust particles. Jupiter rotates, or spins, faster than any other planet. One rotation equals one day. Jupiter's day is only about 10 hours long. Jupiter's orbit is elliptical, or oval-shaped. It takes 12 Earth years for Jupiter to make one revolution around the sun...
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...Energy Education Science and Technology 2007 Volume(issue) 18(2): 101-114 Solar energy potential assessment using GIS T. V. Ramachandra Centre for Ecological Sciences, Indian Institute of Science Centre for Application of Science and Technology to Rural Areas (ASTRA), Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore 560 012, India Received 07 December 2006; accepted 15 December 2006 Abstract Renewable energy resources are those having a cycling time less than 100 years and are renewed by the nature and their supply exceeds the rate of consumption. Renewable energy systems use resources that are constantly replaced in nature and are usually less polluting. In order to tap the potential of renewable energy sources, there is a need to assess the availability of resources spatially as well as temporally. Geographic Information Systems (GIS) along with Remote Sensing (RS) helps in mapping on spatial and temporal scales of the resources and demand. The spatial database of resource availability and the demand would help in the regional energy planning. This paper discusses the application of geographical information system (GIS) to map the solar potential in Karnataka state, India. Regions suitable for tapping solar energy are mapped on the basis of global solar radiation data, and this analysis provides a picture of the potential. The study identifies that Coastal parts of Karnataka with the higher global solar radiation is ideally suited for harvesting solar energy. The potential analysis...
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