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Questions tagged [atmospheric-science]

The study of the composition or dynamics of the gaseous layers around planets, often applied to questions on Earth's atmosphere but can be applicable to all planets & moons in the solar system.

This is a broad term that applies to the study of the atmosphere of both Earth and the other bodies in the solar system (planets and moons). This includes, among other things,

Typical methods of studying Earth's atmosphere include weather balloons and sounding rockets.

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What is the current physical theory of what causes the 'Morning Glory' roll cloud over Northern Australia?

Wikipedia shows an example Morning Glory roll cloud,$\hspace{100px}$,and briefly describes the landform and meteorological causes, but states The Morning Glory cloud is not clearly understood because their rarity means they have little significance…
user36538
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How does carbon dioxide or water vapour absorb thermal infra red radiation from the sun?

We are all told at school water vapour and carbon dioxide are the top two greenhouse gases, and that they absorb thermal infra red radiation, trap heat and warm up the Earth. My question is how do they do that? Why can't Oxygen or Nitrogen or any…
chutsu
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'Hole in the clouds' in the Sarychev Peak eruption

One of my favourite ever pictures taken from space is a picture of the 2009 eruption of Sarychev Peak (Ostrov Matua island, Japan) taken by an ISS astronaut during a lucky fly-over. Image Source: Earth Observatory Image of the Day. I heartily…
Emilio Pisanty
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Why do clouds generally look flat at the bottom?

Clouds on a still summers day generally look flat at the bottom and fluffy on top. Why? I was asked the question a couple of days ago and he ventured that it had something to do with the density gradient of air. Is he right? I suspect he is, but…
Mozibur Ullah
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What is the physical origin of scintillation?

The twinkling of stars, or scintillation, occurs because the optical path length of the atmosphere varies in both space and time due to turbulence. This means that when the wavefront from a distant star enters a telescope, it is distorted from the…
Mark Eichenlaub
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Mean optical depth in plane parallel atmospheres

I have the second edition of Houghton's "The Physics of Atmospheres". In section 2.2 he says one can do simple radiative transfer calculations in a plane parallel atmosphere by assuming that there are two fluxes, one going vertically up and one…
Donald
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Why does the location of the north magnetic pole vary faster than that of the south magnetic pole?

Noticing what Wikipedia asserts about the variation of the locations of the magnetic poles over time, e.g., 1998 $\sim$ 2000 to 2015, one would notice that the location of the north magnetic pole varies much faster than that of the south magnetic…
user89243
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Orange sky 3.7 billion years ago because there was little oxygen?

PhysOrg quotes Martin VanKranendonk of the University of New South Wales and director of the Australian Center for Astrobiology: Because the atmosphere had very little oxygen and oxygen is what makes the sky blue, its predominant color would have…
Keith McClary
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Wind speed limit

According to Wikipedia, the highest wind speed not related to tornadoes ever recorded was 408 km/h. But I am wondering, what is the maximum theoretical wind speed possible here on Earth? It clearly can not exceed an escape velocity but I suspect…
Alma Do
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Would the rate of ascent of an indestructible balloon increase as function of it's altitude?

Assume a balloon filled with Hydrogen, fitted with a perfect valve, and capable of enduring vacuum (that is to say, it would retain it's shape and so well insulated that the extremes of temperature at high altitudes and in space would have little…
Everyone
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Weight of an air column - what am I doing wrong?

We know that the density of water is 1000 $kg/m^3$ and that of air is 1.225 $kg/m^3$. If I were to calculate the pressure of air at a square at sea level of area 1 $m^2$ in newtons, I'd need the height of that column of air, which means that I'd…
cst1992
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What instruments are used to determine the degree of water in the atmosphere of Mars?

More precisely, how does one go about measuring the small amount of water vapor in what is almost a vacuum by terrestrial standards?
user56903
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What confines atmosphere around earth?

Exactly the title. There needs to be a pressure to prevent gases from perpetually expanding, right? Bear with me, I'm not a physicist or studying to be one.
user30760
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Direct Air Capture (DAC) of $CO_2$: Would a DAC mechanism run out of local $CO_2$ to convert?

Per Carbon Engineering's Website: Direct Air Capture (DAC). They claim to be able to remove 1 million tons of CO$_2$ per year with a single plant. My question is whether they needed to account for the fact that by running a DAC plant, they would…
Nikhil Murali
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Pressure variance with height of the atmosphere-conflict of answers

When we use the standard equations pertaining to the International Standard Atmosphere to calculate the pressure at 25km above sea level, the answer seems way off from the values that we get over the internet. Why so? The equation in wikipedia…
surya
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