Join-
Book Chapter |
Meteorologists collect data from multiple weather stations and instruments on Earth’s surface. The weather maps seen online and on TV are analyzed pictures that are produced after the data analyses have been completed.…
-
Book Chapter |
Even though we cannot see it, water vapor is almost always present in the air, regardless of the temperature. This means that water vapor can exist at any temperature. What about liquid water? Can water exist as a…
-
Riding the Wave of a Hurricane
Book Chapter |
Hurricanes are the most destructive storms on Earth. Hurricanes contain tremendous amounts of energy. When it appears that a hurricane is moving toward land, the National Weather Service (NWS) issues hurricane watches…
-
Book Chapter |
Without looking out the window, do you know what the weather is like right now? By not paying more attention to the weather, we not only miss many of the interesting things that go on in the atmosphere; we also might…
-
Book Chapter |
The atmosphere is made up of a variety of gases, but it is gases like water vapor and carbon dioxide, which make up a small fraction of the air, that have the biggest impact on us in terms of precipitation, pollutants,…
-
Book Chapter |
In this Activity, you will explore how gases can be dissolved in a liquid or solid, what influences how those gases are released from the liquid or solid into the atmosphere, and how that process can be used to explain…
-
El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO)
Book Chapter |
ENSO refers to the periodic “shift” in sea surface temperatures across the equatorial Pacific Ocean that affects climate in a large portion of the world. The acronym ENSO comes from two such climate shifts, one known as…
-
Book Chapter |
Although we usually cannot feel the air, there are times when the force of the air is obvious. Differences in air pressure influence the wind as well as cloud formation, and air pressure observations can help…
-
Book Chapter |
The ozone layer refers to a region of the atmosphere about 15–30 km above Earth’s surface that contains a relative abundance of ozone (but still a tiny amount compared to the rest of the air). Ozone is a molecule…
-
The Percentage of Oxygen in the Atmosphere
Book Chapter |
How do we know how much of each gas is in the atmosphere? We cannot see the individual atoms that make up the air and, even if we could, we would not be able to count all of the atoms to see which type of atom is most…
-
Air Pollution and Environmental Equity
Book Chapter |
Airborne pollutants include “criteria” pollutants, such as ozone, particulate matter, carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides, sulfur dioxide, and lead, and toxic pollutants like benzene and mercury. The Environmental…
-
Book Chapter |
At first, you may think the particles are the result of pollution. While much of the particulate matter in the atmosphere is the result of humans polluting the air, there are also natural sources of particles. Wind-…
-
Weather and the Redistribution of Thermal Energy
Book Chapter |
The weather that we observe, like the variations in temperature, humidity, wind, and precipitation, is a consequence of the atmosphere’s response to differences in its temperature. In response to these differences, the…
-
Why Is It Hotter at the Equator Than at the Poles?
Book Chapter |
For locations close to the equator, the Sun can get close to directly overhead. For locations close to the poles, the Sun never gets far above the horizon. For some days of the year, the Sun never gets above the horizon…
-
Global Warming and the Greenhouse Effect
Book Chapter |
The “greenhouse effect” refers to how certain gases in the atmosphere (like carbon dioxide and water vapor) warm due to their absorption of infrared radiation emitted by Earth, leading to the surface of Earth being…
35889 Results