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Atmospheric physics

Atmospheric sciences
tropical cyclones
climate change

Portal Atmospheric Sciences
Portal Weather


Additional recommended knowledge




See also: Radiation and Effect of sun angle on climate

The sun emits radiation as a variety of wavelengths. Visible light has wavelengths between 0.4 and 0.7 micrometers. Shorter wavelengths are known as the ultraviolet (UV) part of the spectrum, while longer wavelengths are grouped into the infrared portion of the spectrum. Ozone is most effective in absorbing radiation around 0.25 micrometers, where UV-c rays lie in the spectrum. This increases the temperature of the nearby stratosphere. Snow reflects 85% of UV rays, while sand reflects 12%, and water reflects only 5% of incoming UV radiation. The more glancing the angle is between the atmosphere and the sun's rays, the more likely that energy will be reflected or absorbed by the atmosphere.[1]

Cloud physics

Main article: Cloud physics


Atmospheric electricity


Main article: Atmospheric electricity

Atmospheric electricity is the regular diurnal variations of the Earth's atmospheric electromagnetic network (or, more broadly, any planet's electrical system in its layer of gases). The Earth’s surface, the ionosphere, and the atmosphere is known as the global atmospheric electrical circuit. Lightning discharges 30,000 amperes, at up to 100 million volts, and emits light, radio waves, x-rays and even gamma rays.[2] Plasma temperatures in lightning can approach 28,000 kelvins and electron densities may exceed 1024/m³.

Atmospheric tide

Main article: Atmospheric tide



ii) Atmospheric tides propagate in an atmosphere where density varies significantly with height. A consequence of this is that their amplitudes naturally increase exponentially as the tide ascends into progressively more rarefied regions of the atmosphere (for an explantion of this phenomenon, see below). In contrast, the density of the oceans varies only slighthly with depth and so there the tides do not necessarily vary in amplitude with depth.

Note that although solar heating is responsible for the largest-amplitude atmospheric tides, the gravitational fields of the Sun and Moon also raise tides in the atmosphere. As with the oceans, the lunar gravitational atmospheric tides are significantly larger than the solar gravitational atmospheric tides (in fact, the latter may be regarded as being negligible).


Centers of research


See also


This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Atmospheric_physics". A list of authors is available in Wikipedia.