Meteorology

• Aristotle 340B.C. Meteorologica• Meteoros “things high in the air”• This document was an attempt to

summarize everything known about atmospheric phenomena

• Philosophical and speculative… ‘reasoned discussion’

• NOT an observational science!

Qualifications to Teach Meteorology

• Agricultural meteorology• Aviation Meteorology / Family Tradition- Daddy, Uncles all aviators…(I was never allowed to call thunderstorms ‘thunderheads’… they were

Cumulo-Nimbus) • -         9 official hours flight instruction (2X additional UN-official hours)• -         MANY hours right seat on aerial photography missions (I never started a good log book and

eventually lost track)• -         Uncle a REAL Meteorologist… Labrador, Bermuda, NORAD…. “glorified sequence readers”• Teaching Assistant: Undergraduate Climatology at OSU• Graduate Class in Climatology• Major Professor, Climatologist… ‘Field Problem’ climate forcing of landslide event• 5 Years Global Climate Change Research• -         Doctoral research C budget estimations for FSU• -         Post-Doc with member of IPCC (Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change)• -         Tropical forest biomass modeling• -         Familiarity with construction, parameterization and evaluation of GCM’s (General Circulation

Models)• Weather Geek

How big is the Universe?Hubble Deep Field View

http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/newsdesk/archive/releases/2004/07/image/a

The Hubble Telescope was pointed at a ‘dark’ part of the sky

Located in the constellation Fornax, the region is so empty that only a handful of stars within the Milky

Way galaxy can be seen in the image.http://micro.magnet.fsu.edu/primer/java/scienceopticsu/powersof10/

The Great galaxy in Andromeda… a spiral galaxy similar to our own

Our sun is but one single middle sized and middle aged star hanging out along the edge of average sized galaxy

Our Sun, the source of life on Earth is but one of millions….

X-ray image from Dec. 2002

Our Earth is planet # 3 in a system of Nine Planets

Comparative orbits of the local solar system. Between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter is a broad band of material, the asteroid belt.

Images of the ‘inner’ planets… relative sizes are shown.

The image of Venus is from a RADAR mapping mission as the Venusian surface cannot be seen through the thick atmosphere.

Comparatively, we are dealing with a very small part of a very big system…..

The atmosphere behaves like a fluid, with currents and eddies.

The driving force behind all weather is an imbalance of solar NRG.

Weather is a product of these atmospheric movements.

The driving force for weather and oceanic currents is a thermal imbalance… it is hot (due to near vertical insolation) between the tropics … and cold due to reduced insolation (high angle, or in the shadows)… this thermal imbalance drives all weather, which is simply seeking a balance…

The Atmosphere of the Earth is only about 20 miles thick.

Were the Planet the size of a peach the lower atmosphere (3 miles) would be thinner than the ‘fuzz’ of that peach.

The size of a beach ball… the atmosphere is the thickness of a piece of paper

The Earth's atmosphere is 77% nitrogen, 21% oxygen, with traces of argon, carbon dioxide and water.

The lower atmosphere is where life is possible and where weather occurs.

At 18,000 ft we are above ½ the molecules in the air

Mt. Everest (29,000 ft) is above 70% of all the molecules in the air

Air …• Air density 1.2 kg/cubic meter• The weight of the air on the planet 5.16 1018 tons

(5600 trillion tons)

• 14.7 pounds/square inch• 1013 millibars (average air pressure)• 1013 hectopascals (hPa)• 760 mm Hg

Nitrogen Cycle

The source for our atmosphere (?) (80% water vapor, 10% carbon dioxide and small % Nitrogen along with sulfur dioxide)

So how does volcanic ‘out gassing’ … water vapor and carbon dioxide create an atmosphere that is 78% N?

Photo-Disassociation: separation of water into hydrogen and oxygen gasses in the presence of sunlight.

(H floats off into space Oxygen stays near the surface)

Carbon gets soaked up in the oceans (currently, the reservoir of carbon dioxide in the ocean is estimated to be 50X as great as in the atmosphere)… this C was stored in carbonate rocks? Limestone Marl etc? This leaves the ‘trace’ Nitrogen behind as the dominate gas?

Nitrogen is currently cycled through biological organisms

This all seems VERY tenuous!!

Carbon Storage in the carbonate rocks of the Bahamas Bank

The Carbon Cycle

The ‘Greenhouse effect’… the atmosphere is transparent to incoming shortwave (visible) radiation. Visible light is converted to thermal NRG. Various components of the atmosphere (H2O, CO2, CH4) prevent the reflection of thermal NRG… trapping the heat.

Is there ever any potential problem with linear extrapolation?

Atmospheric Oxygen

The first and most deadly of toxic gasses!

Early on there was very little free oxygen in the atmosphere… it was a toxic gas to virtually everything that had gotten a start on the planet.

It is the ‘toxic’ byproduct of respiration of a certain group of organisms… plants ‘passing gas’

Oxygen

Changes in Atmospheric Oxygen? Triassic ‘Red Beds’

Found all around the globe… bright Red rock layers… oxygen trapped in iron oxides?

During this time did Earth resemble Mars?

Ozone… the good ; the bad; and the ugly?

Ozone amounts from the Atmospheric Observatory at the South Pole… the loss of ‘good ozone’….

The identical compound… ozone, near the surface is considered a serious air pollutant….

Thermal profile of the atmosphere:

Another way of visualizing the atmospheric profile.

Another ‘layer’.. The charged particle (ion) layer in the atmosphere

A solar flare sends streams of charged particles streaming through space … these charged particles are captured in the magnetic field of the earth and the resulting display of ion discharge in the upper atmosphere are the aurora

While highly variable, the general location of the visible aurora is indicated by the ring of fire on this image.

The relationship between Meteorology and Climatology

• Weather… the conditions in the atmosphere at any given time.

• Climate… the ‘average conditions’ in the atmosphere over a given period of time

• Standard climatic averages based on 30 years of observations

Meso Scale climatic cycles… ENSO

Hydrosphere:

71 Percent of the Earth's surface is covered with water. Earth is the only planet on which water can exist in liquid form on the surface.

Water in the atmosphere…

• Only on earth (at least in our planetary system) can water exist in all three phases IN the atmosphere.

• Solid (ice), liquid (rain drops) and gas (water vapor) are present in the atmosphere at all times.

• Variable from 0-4%