A GIANT UMBRELLA OVER THE EARTH

You have probably heard people talk about a "hole" in our ozone layer. Damage to our Earth's giant protective umbrella is more severe in the South Pole, but, even there, no actual "hole" exists. And only a slight thinning occurs over the rest of the world. So no matter where you stand, you won't find a true "hole". About 20 kilometres thick, this giant umbrella is made up of a layer of ozone gas. This gas is found some 15 to 35 kilometres above the Earth's surface in the upper atmosphere or "stratosphere". Like a good pair of sunglasses, the ozone layer acts like a natural filter, blocking out most of the sun's harmful UV (ultraviolet) rays. Without the ozone layer, more people would get sunburns, skin cancer and cataracts. Plants and animals would also be affected. So we can think of the ozone layer as our planet's own protective sunscreen.

Troposphere
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Atmosphere diagram showing the troposphere and other layers. The layers are not to scale.

Temperature and pressure against altitude from the NRLMSISE-00 standard atmosphere model

View of Earth's troposphere from an airplane. The troposphere is the lowest portion of Earth's atmosphere. It contains approximately 75% of the atmosphere's mass and almost all of its water vapor and aerosols. The average depth of the troposphere is about 11 km (7 miles) in the middle latitudes. It is deeper in the tropical regions (up to 20 km (12 miles)) and shallower near the poles

(about 7 km (4 miles) in summer, indistinct in winter). The lowest part of the troposphere, where friction with the Earth's surface influences air flow, is the planetary boundary layer. This layer is typically a few hundred meters to 2 km (1.2 miles) deep depending on the landform and time of day. The border between the troposphere and stratosphere, called the tropopause, is a temperature inversion.[1] The word troposphere derives from the Greek "tropos" for "turning" or "mixing," reflecting the fact that turbulent mixing plays an important role in the troposphere's structure and behavior. Most of the phenomena we associate with day-to-day weather occur in the troposphere.[1]

Contents
[hide]

1 Pressure and temperature structure o 1.1 Composition o 1.2 Pressure o 1.3 Temperature o 1.4 Tropopause 2 Atmospheric circulation 3 See also 4 References 5 External links

[edit] Pressure and temperature structure

[edit] Composition
The chemical composition of the troposphere is essentially uniform, with the notable exception of water vapor. The source of water vapor is at the surface through the processes of evaporation and transpiration. Furthermore the temperature of the troposphere decreases with height, and saturation vapor pressure decreases strongly with temperature, so the amount of water vapor that can exist in the atmosphere decreases strongly with height. Thus the proportion of water vapor is normally greatest near the surface and decreases with height.

[edit] Pressure
The pressure of the atmosphere is maximum at the surface and decreases with higher altitude. This is because the atmosphere is very nearly in hydrostatic equilibrium, so that the pressure is equal to the weight of air above a given point. The change in pressure with height therefore can be equated to the density with this hydrostatic equation:[2]

where:

gn stands for the standard gravity stands for density z stands for height p stands for pressure R stands for the gas constant T stands for temperature in kelvins m stands for the molar mass

Since temperature in principle also depends on altitude, one needs a second equation to determine the pressure as a function of height, as discussed in the next section.

[edit] Temperature
Main article: Lapse rate

The temperature of the troposphere generally decreases with altitude. The rate at which the temperature decreases, dT / dz, is called the lapse rate. The reason for this decrease is as follows. When the air is stirred by convection, and a parcel of air rises, it expands, because the pressure is lower at higher altitudes. As the air parcel expands, it pushes on the air around it, doing work; but generally it does not gain heat in exchange from its environment, because its thermal conductivity is low (such a process is called adiabatic). Since the parcel does work and gains no heat, it loses energy, and so its temperature decreases. (The reverse, of course, will be true for a sinking parcel of air.) [1] Since the heat exchanged dQ is related to the entropy change dS by dQ=T dS, the equation governing the temperature as a function of height for a thoroughly mixed atmosphere is

where S is the entropy. The rate at which temperature decreases with height under such conditions is called the adiabatic lapse rate. For dry air, which is approximately an ideal gas, we can proceed further. The adiabatic equation for an ideal gas is [3]

where is the heat capacity ratio (=7/5, for air). Combining with the equation for the pressure, one arrives at the dry adiabatic lapse rate,[4]

If the air contains water vapor, then cooling of the air can cause the water to condense, and the behavior is no longer that of an ideal gas. If the air is at the saturated vapor pressure, then the rate at which temperature drops with height is called the saturated adiabatic lapse rate. More generally, the actual rate at which the temperature drops with altitude is called the environmental lapse rate. In the troposphere, the average environmental lapse rate is a drop of about 6.5 C for every 1 km (1000 meters) increase in height. [1] Depending on the weather conditions, one may find that the environmental lapse rate (the actual rate at which temperature drops with height, dT / dz) is not equal to the adiabatic lapse rate (or correspondingly, that ). If the upper air is warmer than predicted by the adiabatic lapse rate (dS / dz > 0), then when a parcel of air rises and expands, it will arrive at the new height at a lower temperature than its surroundings. In this case, the air parcel is denser than its surroundings, so it sinks back to its original height, and the air is stable against being stirred. Such a situation is called temperature inversion, and can lead to the trapping of air pollution in basins such as that of Los Angeles. If, on the contrary, the upper air is cooler than predicted by the adiabatic lapse rate, then when the air parcel rises to its new height it will have a higher temperature and a lower density than its surroundings, and will float. Such a process can happen spontaneously, and under such conditions, the air will be stirred by spontaneous convection currents.[1][2] Temperatures decrease at middle latitudes from an average of 15C at sea level to about -55C at the beginning of the tropopause. At the poles, the troposphere is thinner and the temperature only decreases to -45C, while at the equator the temperature at the top of the troposphere can reach -75C.[citation needed]

Fig. Temperature and pressure against altitude from the NRLMSISE-00 standard atmosphere model

Fig.

View of Earth's troposphere from an airplane.

[edit] Tropopause
Main article: Tropopause The tropopause is the boundary region between the troposphere and the stratosphere. Measuring the temperature change with height through the troposphere and the stratosphere identifies the location of the tropopause. In the troposphere, temperature decreases with altitude. In the stratosphere, however, the temperature remains constant for a while and then increases with altitude. The region of the atmosphere where the lapse rate changes from positive (in the troposphere) to negative (in the stratosphere), is defined as the tropopause.[1] Thus, the tropopause is an inversion layer, and there is little mixing between the two layers of the atmosphere.

An idealised view of three large circulation cells.

[edit] Atmospheric circulation

Main article: Atmospheric circulation The basic structure of large-scale circulation in the troposphere remains fairly constant. There are three convection cells in each hemisphere: the Hadley cell, the Ferrel cell, and the Polar cell, which guide the prevailing winds, thereby transporting heat from the equator to the poles.[1]and it is also closest to the earth

[edit] See also

Transition altitude Tropospheric scatter

[edit] References
1. 2. 3. 4. ^ a b c d e f g Danielson, Levin, and Abrams, Meteorology, McGraw Hill, 2003 ^ a b Landau and Lifshitz, Fluid Mechanics, Pergamon, 1979 ^ Landau and Lifshitz, Statistical Physics Part 1, Pergamon, 1980 ^ Kittel and Kroemer, Thermal Physics, Freeman, 1980; chapter 6, problem 11

[edit] External links

Look up Troposphere in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

The vertical structure of the atmosphere Composition of the Atmosphere, from the University of Tennessee Physics dept. Chemical Reactions in the Atmosphere

[hide]
vde

Earth's atmosphere
Troposphere Stratosphere Mesosphere Thermosphere Exosphere Tropopause Stratopause Mesopause Thermopause / Exobase Ozone layer Turbopause Ionosphere Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troposphere"

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Tropopause
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to: navigation, search The tropopause is between the troposphere and the stratosphere. The layers are not to scale. The tropopause is between the troposphere and the stratosphere. The layers are not to scale.

The tropopause is a boundary region in the atmosphere between the troposphere and the stratosphere. Here the air ceases to cool at -50C (-58F), and the air becomes almost completely dry. The troposphere is the lowest of the Earth's atmospheric layers and is the layer in which all of what we call "weather" occurs. It begins at ground level and ranges in height from an average of 8 km (5 miles/26,400 feet) at the poles to 17 km (11 miles/58,080 feet) at the equator[1]. At the equator, the stratosphere begins at roughly 17 km (11 miles) in altitude, and it may reach as high as 50 km (31 miles) from the earth's surface. It is at its highest level over the equator and the lowest over the geographical north pole and south pole. On account of this, the coolest layer in the atmosphere lies at about 17 km over the equator. Due to the variation in starting height, the tropopause extremes are referred to as the equatorial tropopause and the polar tropopause.

Measuring the lapse rate through the troposphere and the stratosphere identifies the location of the tropopause. In the troposphere, the lapse rate is, on average, 6.5 C per kilometre. That is to say, for every kilometre in height, the temperature decreases by 6.5 degrees Celsius. In the stratosphere, however, the temperature increases with altitude. The region of the atmosphere where the lapse rate changes from positive (in the troposphere) to negative (in the stratosphere), ie, where the temperature no longer decreases with altitude but rather increases, is defined as the tropopause. This occurs at the equilibrium level (EL), a value important in atmospheric thermodynamics. The exact definition used by the World Meteorological Organization is: the lowest level at which the lapse rate decreases to 2 C/km or less, provided that the average lapse rate between this level and all higher levels within 2 km does not exceed 2 C/km. Alternatively, a dynamic definition of the tropopause is used with potential vorticity instead of vertical temperature gradient as the defining variable. There is no universally used threshold: the most common ones are: the tropopause lies at the 2 PVU or 1.5 PVU surface. PVU stands for potential vorticity unit. This threshold will be taken as a positive or negative value (e.g. 2 and -2 PVU), giving surfaces located in the northern and southern hemisphere respectively. To define a global tropopause in this way, the two surfaces arising from the positive and negative thresholds need to be joined near the equator using another type of surface such as a constant potential temperature surface. It is also possible to define the tropopause in terms of chemical composition. For example, the lower stratosphere has much higher ozone concentrations than the upper troposphere, but much lower water vapor concentrations, so appropriate cutoffs can be used. The tropopause is not a "hard" boundary. Vigorous thunderstorms, for example, particularly those of tropical origin, will overshoot into the lower stratosphere and undergo a brief (hour-order) low-frequency vertical oscillation. Such oscillation sets up a low-frequency atmospheric wave train capable of affecting both atmospheric and oceanic currents in the region. Most commercial aircraft are flown in the tropopause. [edit] See also * Maximum parcel level * Jet stream * Four engine jets service ceiling * Trijets service ceiling [hide] vde Earth's atmosphere

Troposphere Stratosphere Mesosphere Thermosphere Exosphere Tropopause Stratopause Mesopause Thermopause / Exobase Ozone layer Turbopause Ionosphere Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tropopause" Categories: Atmosphere