Lecture 1

WEATHER, CLIMATE AND THE ATMOSPHERE

Introduction
Weather influences our everyday activities, our jobs, and our health and our comfort. Many of us pay little attention to the weather unless we are inconvenienced by it. Nevertheless, there are few other aspects of the physical environment that affects our lives more than the phenomena we collectively call the weather. Weather clearly influences our lives a great deal. Yet it is also important to realize that people influence the atmosphere and its behaviour as well.

What is Weather?
Weather is the current atmospheric conditions, including temperature, rainfall, wind, and humidity at a given place. Weather is what's happening right now or is likely to happen tomorrow or in the very near future.

You can tell how hot it is by taking a temperature reading.

What is Climate? (I)

Climate, on the other hand, is the general weather conditions over a long period of time.

For example, on any given day in June, we expect it to be rainy in Axim, Western Region and sunny and hot in Tamale, Northern Region.

What is Climate? (II)

Climate is sometimes referred to as "average" weather for a given area. Most National Weather Services use data such as temperature highs and lows and precipitation rates for the past thirty years to compile an area's "average" weather. However, some atmospheric scientists think that you need more than "average" weather to accurately portray an area's climatic character - variations, patterns, and extremes must also be included. Thus, climate is the sum of all statistical weather information that helps describe a place or region. The term also applies to large-scale weather patterns in time or space such as an 'Ice Age' climate or a 'tropical' climate.

Weather vrs Climate

Some meteorologists say that "climate is what you expect and weather is what you get." According to one middle school student, "weather tells you what to wear

each day, but the climate helps you figure out what should be in your closet

Climate Variability

Although an area's climate is always changing, the changes do not usually occur on a time scale that's immediately obvious to us.

The temperature of the air The humidity of the air The type and amount of cloudiness The type and amount of precipitation Air pressure Wind (speed and direction)

While we know how the weather changes from day to day, subtle climate changes are not as readily detectable.

Weather patterns and climate types take similar elements into account, the most important of which are:

Relationship between Weather and Climate

Although weather and climate are different, they are very much interrelated. A change in one weather element often produces changes in the others - and in the region's climate.

For example, if the average temperature over a region increases significantly, it can affect the amount of cloudiness as well as the type and amount of precipitation that occur.
If these changes occur over long periods of time, the average climate values for these elements will also be affected.

THE EARTHS ATMOSPHERE

It's a thin layer of gases surrounding our planet. Many of the planets in this solar system have atmospheres, but none that we know of has an atmosphere quite like ours - one that can support life. The atmosphere is held to the planet by the force of gravity, which also determines what gases are present in it. The Earth's primitive atmosphere was much different from today's and consisted primarily of ammonia, methane, and trace amounts of carbon dioxide and water vapor. There was little, if any, free oxygen present.

Earth System Concept

The Earth System operates within four spheres

The Earths Systems

Atmosphere - thin layer of gases surrounding the earth; held by gravity; mixture of N, O, Ar, CO2 Lithosphere - earths crust & portion of mantel; sometimes thought of as the entire solid planet Hydrosphere - water in all parts; liquid, solid, & gaseous form; two forms - fresh and salt. The Earth is sometimes called the blue planet Biosphere - intricate web that connects all organisms with their physical environment; physical and chemical factors make the context of life; continually changing.

Examination of the Atmosphere

The atmosphere is structured. Three criteria to examine atmosphere Composition Temperature (Structure) Function

Composition of the Atmosphere

Pressure/Altitude I
Altitude (km) 0 5.6 16.2 31.2 48.1 65.1 79.2 Percent sea level pressure 100 50 10 1 0.1 0.01 0.001

100

0.00003

The atmosphere decrease in concentration, and hence pressure, as you rise above the surface of the earth.

Pressure/Altitude (II)
The earth's outermost atmosphere, the part above a few hundred kilometers, is a region of extremely low density. Near sea level, the number of atoms and molecules in a cubic centimeter of air is about 2x1019; near 600 km it is only about 2x107, which is the sea level value divided by a million million. At sea level, an atom or molecule can be expected, on the average, to move about 7x10-6 cm before colliding with another particle; at the 600 km level this distance, called the "mean free path," is about 10 km.

Near sea level, an atom or molecule, on the average, undergoes about 7x109 such collisions each second; near 600 km, this number is about 1 each minute.

Atmospheric Pressure Changes

90% of atmospheres mass is within 15 km of the surface (the Troposphere)

Temperature/Altitude
Not only does the pressure change with altitude, but temperature does as well. Originally, scientists thought that temperature decreased continuously with increasing height until reaching absolute zero (-273.16C). This decrease of temperature with increasing altitude is known as the normal lapse rate and is approximately 6.5C/1000 m (3.5F/1000').

In this figure, the environmental lapse rate can be seen graphically as the decrease in temperature with increasing height.

The normal lapse rate is observed until the tropopause is reached.

Temperature/Altitude in Different Geographic Regions

Composition

Homosphere composition
Why so much Nitrogen?
It is volatile in most forms
Eg. Ammonia gas

It is unreactive with most solid earth material It is stable in sunlight.

Homosphere Composition
Why so much Oxygen?
Produced by photosynthesis.

Homosphere Composition
Why so much Argon?
It slowly degasses from rocks It is unreactive so stays in the atmosphere
Argon is a noble gas

Homosphere Composition
Why so little carbon dioxide?
Original atmosphere was probably about 25% CO2 It dissolves in water It is used by plants in photosynthesis

Thermal Structure of the Atmosphere

Troposphere
The bottom layer, where temperature decreases with altitude, is known as the troposphere (from the Greek for "turning layer"). The troposphere is approximately 12 kilometers thick, but there are slight variations. If the temperature increases with increasing altitude in the troposphere, then a temperature inversion exists. All the weather that we are primarily interested in, occurs in the troposphere.

The top of the troposphere is marked by the tropopause.

Stratosphere
Above the tropopause lies the stratosphere. It gets it's name from the Greek meaning "stratified layer." The layer is stratified with the denser, cooler air below the warmer, lighter air. This leads to an increase in temperature with height.

Since the stratosphere isn't turbulent this is where most planes like to fly. The temperature increases with height until it reaches about 10C at an altitude of 48 km. The primary reason that there is a temperature increase with altitude is that most of the ozone is contained in the stratosphere.

Ultraviolet light interacting with the ozone causes the temperature increase. The boundary between the stratosphere and the next layer is called the stratopause.

Mesosphere & Thermosphere

Above the stratopause, the temperature again decreases with altitude. This layer is called the mesosphere, or "middle layer." The temperature drops to ~-90C near the top of the mesosphere where the mesopause is located.

Above the mesopause is the thermosphere, or "warm layer." In the thermosphere the temperature does increase with height (to >1000C), but as we have already seen, the number of molecules present are so few that even thought they are very energetic, they have such a low density, that temperature as we call it means very little.

Exosphere
Above the thermosphere lies the exosphere ("outer layer"). The boundary between the two is very diffuse. Molecules in the exosphere have enough kinetic energy to escape the earth's gravity and thus fly off into space. This is where helium "disappears." The outer part of the mesosphere and the thermosphere are sometimes called the ionosphere since most of the molecules and atoms are ionized by the ultraviolet light and other high energy particles at this height. The ionosphere is what radio signals bounce off.

Vertical Composition
The atmosphere also change composition with height and can be divided into two layers. The lower layer is called the homosphere and has the composition we talked about earlier. It's top is approximately the mesopause. Above the homosphere lies the heterosphere, a layer in which the gases are stratified into four shells. The lowermost shell is dominated by molecular nitrogen (N2); next, a layer of atomic oxygen (O) is encountered, followed by a layer dominated by helium atoms (He), and finally, a layer consisting of hydrogen atoms (H).

The Ionosphere
The ionosphere lies from about 80-400 km in height and is electrically charged as short wave solar radiation ionizes the gas molecules. The electrical structure of the atmosphere is not uniform and is arranged into three layers, D, E, and F. Since the production of charged particles requires solar radiation, the thickness of each layer, particularly the D and E layers, changes from night to day. The layers weaken and disappear at night and reappear during the day. The F layer is present during both day and night. This change in height of the various electrically charged layers doesn't effect the weather, but does effect radio signals. The auroras also take place in the ionosphere since this is the electrically charged layer. The aurora borealis (northern lights) and aurora australis (southern lights) is closely correlated to solar flare activity.

Ozone hole
Ozone concentration on September 7th, 2003.

Formation of Ozone
Oxygen that we breathe (and plants produce) is O2 UV radiation breaks down O2 into 2O. O bonds with other O2 to give O3.

Ozone hole
Breakdown of ozone
CFCs are broken down by strong ultraviolet radiation to create chlorine atoms. Cl acts as a catalyst to destroy O3 molecules. Chlorine is not consumed by the reaction. One Cl atom can destroy 100,000 O3 molecules.

Timescales
CFCs take about 1 year to mix in with the troposphere They take 2-5 years to mix in with the stratosphere

Why over Antarctica

Homogeneous versus Heterogeneous O3 depletion
Homogeneous depletion occurs over the ozonosphere.
There has been a 5-10% drop in O3 levels over the US.

Heterogeneous depletion occurs over Antarctica.

Atmospheric circulation over Antarctica is isolated during the winter. Cold temperatures encourage ozone depletion