Earth From Space
As beautiful as earth is from ground it actually has more stunning vistas from international space station. They are around 120 artificial satellites in space starting from 100 to 25,000 miles from ground. There are many different types of Artificial Satellites, each having a distinct job. Some Artificial Satellites help to predict the weather, while others gather information about our universe for NASA and other organizations. Satellites can see things beyond human vision; they transform the invisible things to naked eye to visible vision. These transformed visible images will show how the sunlight, moisture, land and atmosphere react to make life on earth. These insights help scientists to relate between planet and life. So, What exactly make life? What are the essential ingredients, which made life possible on this planet? Why does sand storms at Sahara dessert affect amazon rain forest 5000 miles away? The video” Earth from Space” helps public understand the affects of forces on this planet.
Starting with Sun, located at 93 million miles away earth warms the every inch on earth. Everything on earth is lived because of earth. One of the newer satellites by NASA called Suomi National Polar-orbiting launched in 2011. It orbits 500 miles from ground. It enables us to see more substances. For instance, the whole spectrum is as long as the distance from New York to Los Angeles. The visible region to human eye would be around the size of a dime. The series sensor on the Suomi NPP detects the infrared and Ultra Violet waves on the spectrum. The series data shows the entire planet in the form of heat to the accuracy of half a degree. At the poles the sunlight strikes at very oblique angle. This makes a little lig...
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...atmosphere pressure shows that wind of the polar jet and the water from the Antarctic circumpolar current creates an impenetrable barrier which puts it away from rest of the world with its exceptionally coldness. Antarctica in summer is around in one and half times as America but in winter it grows as big as whole Africa. This vast increase of ice has a massive impact on life on this planet.
Weddell Sea located in the west of the Antarctica. The surface of the oceans freezes once it surpasses its threshold of 29 degrees. As the ice in created in microscopic level it releases brine into the solution leaving with tiny holes in the ice and points ends. As winter grips the formation of the ice speeds up and more brine is accumulated on the surface. Each year around 200 Billion tons of ice is created in Weddell Sea alone. The fate of the brine is unknown to the date.
The ice caps are the most extreme climates on earth. They are located at the north and south poles. These poles are
Mikhail Veritsky from Yale University set out to discover if an increase in Carbon Dioxide, a manmade greenhouse gas, would lead to the depletion of the Antarctic ice sheet. To predict this they create a numerical experiment using an atmospheric general circulation model connected to a 3D ice-sheet model. They found that even doubling the Carbon Dioxide concentration did not show any significant changes in the ice sheet. This implies that an Antarctic collapse of ice as a consequence of increased greenhouse gases is unlikely (Verbitsky & Saltzman, 1995).
It is without a doubt that the most fascinating thing about space is the possibility of life elsewhere beside Earth. It is estimated that the Milky Way Galaxy itself contains about 300 billion stars. Each star contains planets and some planets might even have moons. With these findings, the question is no longer whether life exists elsewhere. The probability that Earth is the only place where life exists in the universe is far too slim. NASA has identified many planets that have similar conditions to Earth but most of these planets are hundreds of light years away so traveling there to find out if there’s any living organism is not easy. Luckily, scientific evidences have pointed out that one of the moons of Jupiter, Europa, could be one of the places where life can exist. If the theories proposed by astronomers about Europa are true, life on Europa might not even be entirely different than life near the bottom of Earth’s oceans.
The freshwater from the glaciers would run eventually to the sea, causing sea levels to rise, and also reducing the levels of salt found in the sea. This is in fact disastrous for thermohaline circulation, which carries warm currents to Svalbard from The Gulf Stream, and takes cold water back around to e warmed again. The cold water travels back along the surface of the ocean bed around America, because it has sunk near Svalbard. It sinks due to the levels of salt here. The addition of salt makes the water heavy, dropping to the bottom. When the added glacier water reduces the salt levels, it would, in effect stop thermohaline circulation completely. This would mean that, eventually, warm places would get even warmer, without the cooling sea water, and Svalbard would get even colder, without Gulf Stream water warming the East side of the islands.
Many scientist believe that the current warming trend is significant because, much of it has been caused by human activities. Satellites orbiting the earth and other technological equipment enables scientists to see and collect various information about our planets climate. Scientists have studied this collected information and has revealed the many changes of our planet and how these changes are effecting our climate, a few of them are:
Furthermore, the Ancient Greeks had a crazy belief that what we know as the equator, was actually a ring of fire, where the further south you traveled the warmer the weather would become. How would this explain Antarctica’s dry ice and chilling climate?
General Description: Earth may be the most unique of all planets because of the life forms we know exist here and the way they utilize the Suns energy. The Earth is composed of a great amount of water, mostly in the form of oceans, which make up most of its surface. It also contains various gases, of which make it possible for us humans to exist and is a system that exists between plants and animals here.
Earth’s climate is determined by the physics and chemistry of its atmosphere. Earth’s atmosphere consists of four layers; troposphere which is closest to earth, stratosphere, mesosphere, and thermosphere. Hardy says, “During the past 100 years we humans, as a result of burning coal, oil, and gas and clearing forests, have greatly changed the chemical composition of the thin atmospheric layer.” There is more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere due to burning fossil fuels. The atmosphere is made up of many gases such as nitrogen, oxygen, and argon. It also consists of trace gases such as carbon dioxide, methane, carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides, chlorofluorocarbons and, ozone. The trace gases have the greatest effect on our climate (Hardy 5). Up to a certain level, these gases help to keep the planet warm by absorbing certain infrared wavelengths, so that there can be life on the planet. Thus, they trap heat in the troposphere and stop it from escaping to space (Hardy 7). Therefore, the greater amount of greenhouse gases, the more heat trapped in the atmosphere. Earth’s temperature is increasing due to increased levels of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide released into the air from burning fossil fuels. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) 2001 report projects “global average surface temperature increases ranging from 1.4 to 5.8 degrees
Achenback, Joel., Heide, Schultz. “Signs From Earth: The Heat Is On.” National Geographic. National Geographic Society. n. d. n. pag. Web. 28 November 2015.
This subcategory focuses on studying ocean and atmosphere interaction, and in turn how it affects and shapes our world. One main reason it is important is , because it is essential to Earth’s climate and weather. The ocean is crucial to heating the planet along with causing changes in the weather. When ocean water evaporates, it makes the air warmer and humid, which in turn causes rain and storms. Along with this, ocean currents act as transport vessels for warm water. They distribute the warm water from the equator up and outward to the poles. This keeps the equator and other areas from having extreme
The book begins with the explanation of what makes the earth warmer. David explains that people first have to understand what has made earth increase its temperature for the past two centuries. The first part of the book explains how the sun radiates energy that hits the surface of the earth and warms it up enough for people to survive and not freeze. Next, the energy on earth is reflected back into space. Unfortunately, some of the radiated energy cannot leave earth because the green gases produced on earth trap it. These green gases are produced every second on earth. For instance, every time people use their TV, plug their cell phone to charge, or turn the lights on somewhere on the planet there is a power plant burning coal. This plant then produces green gases, by burning the coal, that are then absorbed by plants and trees on earth. The green gases that are not absorbed by plants and trees trap some of the sunlight and reflect it back to earth warming it up, this process is known as the greenhouse effect. Unfortunately, after the industrial revolution people on planet earth produce more green gases than nature can take and this leads to earth getting warmer. Nature is trying to fight a losing
have the capability to let you talk with someone across the nation or let you
How life originated on earth is a question that people have wondered for ages. One possibility that answer this brilliant question is the panspermia theory, which suggests that life on earth originated thanks to the contribution of cosmic beings that come from any point in the universe. This hypothesis does not speak of organisms ranging in meteorites moving through the universe to the Earth to conquer it, but it speaks of complex chemical substances which had been formed earlier from the origins of the universe, which reached the earth at any given time.
The thermohaline circulation cycle (THC) delivers heat to the North Atlantic. In the winter the heat from the water is released into the eastward moving air masses like the Gulf Stream, thereby warming much of western and northern Europe. Cooling in the North Atlantic increases the density of the 'upper ocean water' to the point at which it becomes so dense that it sinks to the bottom and flows south towards the Antarctic, forming the 'lower limb' of this conveyor belt of North Atlantic Deep Water (NADW) (1583 Broecker).
Global warming is an increase in the earth's temperature due to fossil fuels, industry, and agricultural processes caused by human, natural, and other gas emissions. This results in an increased evacuation of greenhouse gases. “Short-wave solar radiation sinks into the Earth's atmosphere and warms its surface while long-wave infrared radiation emitted by earth's surface is absorbed, and then re-emitted by trace gases.” (2)