Composition of the Atmosphere

1. Atmosphere
Composition and structure
Juan Antonio García González
University of Castilla La Mancha
Geographying in the clouds ; -)
orcid.org/0000-0001-7049-1085

2. • Air is essential to the survival of all organisms
• we live at the bottom of a huge pile of air
• Atmosphere is a mixture of different gases and it envelopes
the earth all round. It contains life-giving gases like oxygen for
humans and animals and carbon dioxide for plants

3. WEATHER AND CLIMATE
Weather is the day-to-day state of the atmosphere, and
its short-term variation in minutes to weeks. People
generally think of weather as the combination of
temperature, humidity, precipitation, cloudiness, visibility,
and wind
Climate is the weather of a place averaged over a period
of time, often 30 years. Climate information includes the
statistical weather information that tells us about the
normal weather, as well as the range of weather
extremes for a location.
https://nsidc.org/cryosphere/arctic-meteorology/climate_vs_weather.html
http://www.global-greenhouse-warming.com/climate-weather.html

4. The atmosphere is composed of gases, water vapour and dust particles
OTHER GASES

5. Ozone is another important component of the atmosphere found between 10 and 50 km
above the earth’s surface and acts as a filter and absorbs the ultra-violet rays radiating
from the sun
Carbon dioxide is meteorologically a very important gas as it is transparent to the
incoming solar radiation but opaque to the outgoing terrestrial radiation. It is largely
responsible for the green house effect

6. WATER VAPOUR
• Water vapour is also a variable gas in the atmosphere, which decreases with altitude
• Also decreases from the equator towards the poles

7. DUST PARTICLES• Atmosphere has a sufficient
capacity to keep small solid
particles, which may originate
from different sources and
include sea salts, fine soil,
smoke-soot, ash, pollen, dust and
disintegrated particles of
meteors.
• Dust particles are generally
concentrated in the lower layers
of the atmosphere
• Dust and salt particles act as
hygroscopic nuclei around which
water vapour condenses to
produce clouds
https://www.nesdis.noaa.gov/content/dirt-atmospheric-dust

8. • The atmosphere consists of
different layers with varying
density and temperature.
• Density is highest near the
surface of the earth and
decreases with increasing
altitude
• They are five different layers
depending upon the
temperature condition

9. STRUCTURE OF THE ATMOSPHERE
http://ete.cet.edu/modules/modules.html

10. Its average height is 13 km and extends roughly to a height of 8
km near the poles and about 18 km at the equator.
Thickness of the troposphere is greatest at the equator because
heat is transported to great heights by strong convectional
currents
All changes in climate and weather take place in this layer.
The temperature in this layer decreases at the rate of 1°C for
every 165m of height.
Troposphere

11. Stratosphere
• The zone separating the troposphere
from stratosphere is known as the
tropopause
• Stratosphere is found above the
tropopause and extends up to a height of
50 km.
• One important feature of the
stratosphere is that it contains the ozone
layer

12. MESOSPHERE
The ionosphere is located between 80 and 400 km
above the mesopause. It contains electrically
charged particles known as ions
IONOSPHERE
Extends up to a height of 80 km. In this layer, once
again, temperature starts decreasing with the
increase in altitude and reaches up to minus
100°C at the height of 80 km

13. ELEMENTS OF WEATHER AND CLIMATE
• Temperature
• Pressure
• Winds
• Humidity
Clouds And Precipitation

14. SOLAR RADIATION, HEAT BALANCE AND TEMPERATURE
• The earth’s surface receives
almost all of its energy from
the sun
• Most of its energy is in short
wavelengths
• The energy received by the
earth is known as incoming
solar radiation which in
short is termed as insolation
• the sun’s rays fall obliquely
at the top of the atmosphere
and the earth intercepts a
very small portion of the
sun’s energy

15. • the rotation of earth on its
axis
• the angle of inclination of the
sun’s rays
• the length of the day
• the transparency of the
atmosphere
• the configuration of land in
terms of its aspect
• The last two however, have less influence
FACTORS CAUSE VARIATIONS IN INSOLATION

17. • Very small-suspended particles in
the troposphere scatter visible
spectrum both to the space and
towards the earth surface
• This process adds colour to the sky
• The red colour of the rising and the
setting sun and the blue colour of
the sky are the result of scattering
of light within the atmosphere
https://blogs.uajy.ac.id/freshily24/2016/02/27/buah-emas-dari-bumi-di-atas-awan/

18. • The atmosphere is largely transparent to short wave solar
radiation
• The incoming solar radiation passes through the atmosphere
before striking the earth’s surface. Within the troposphere water
vapour, ozone and other gases absorb much of the near infrared
radiation

19. The fact that the earth’s axis makes an angle of 66½ with the
plane of its orbit round the sun has a greater influence on the
amount of insolation received at different latitudes

21. The insolation received at the surface varies from about 320 Watt/m2 in the tropics to
about 70 Watt/m2 in the poles. Maximum insolation is received over the subtropical
deserts, where the cloudiness is the least.

23. https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/EnergyBalance/page6.php

24. TERRESTRIAL RADIATION
The insolation received by the earth is in short waves forms and heats up its surface
The earth after being heated itself becomes a radiating body and it radiates energy to
the atmosphere in long wave form
The amount of heat received from the sun is returned to space, thereby maintaining
constant temperature at the earth’s surface and in the atmosphere

26. HEATING AND COOLING OF ATMOSPHERE
Conduction takes place
when two bodies of unequal
temperature are in contact
with one another, there is a
flow of energy from the
warmer to cooler body
Conduction is important in
heating the lower layers of
the atmosphere
The air in contact with the
land gets heated slowly and
the upper layers in contact
with the lower layers also
get heated
Conduction

27. HEATING AND COOLING OF ATMOSPHERE
The air in contact with
the earth rises vertically
on heating in the form
of currents and further
transmits the heat of
the atmosphere
Convection

28. HEATING AND COOLING OF ATMOSPHERE
The transfer of heat through horizontal movement of air is called
advection. Horizontal movement of the air is relatively more important
than the vertical movement. In middle latitudes, most of diurnal (day and
night) variation in daily weather are caused by advection alone
Advection

29. The earth as a whole does not accumulate or loose heat
It maintains its temperature
Some part of the earth has surplus radiation balance while the
other part has deficit

30. • the latitude of the place
• the altitude of the place: The rate of decrease of temperature with height
is termed as the normal lapse rate. It is 6.5°C per 1,000 m
• Distance from the sea, the air-mass circulation: Compared to land, the
sea gets heated slowly and loses heat slowly. The effect of the ocean is
well pronounced in the southern hemisphere. Here the isotherms are
more or less parallel to the latitudes and the variation in temperature is
more gradual than in the northern hemisphere
• Presence of warm and cold ocean currents
• local aspects
THE TEMPERATURE OF AIR AT ANY PLACE IS INFLUENCED BY:

31. https://www.keepcalm-o-matic.co.uk/p/keep-calm-and-weather-the-storm/

32. https://nios.ac.in/online-course-material/sr-secondary-courses/Geography-(316).aspx
https://www.pmfias.com/
https://pixabay.com/
http://www.physicalgeography.net/
THANKS TO….

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