atmosphere

Climate Change is in the Air

2 Page. Poster describing some problems our air and climate will experience due to global warming. 2nd page includes an activity.

This activity will provide you with an introduction to a series of lessons — Survivor Earth — about water resources on Earth. You’ll investigate Earth systems by making observations in nature and identifying systems in the natural world. Ultimately, you will understand how the four spheres, or systems, on Earth — biosphere, hydrosphere, geosphere, and atmosphere — are interconnected.

Dangerous Atmosphere

How much of a danger does severe weather pose for the area where you live? You can compute the answer yourself in this exercise.

Greenhouse in a Beaker

Carbon is naturally found in the atmosphere. Carbon dioxide, or CO₂, itself is not considered a pollutant. The CO₂ being released from burning fossil fuels was part of the atmosphere hundreds of millions of years ago before being captured by plants and sea organisms.

Leaf It to Me

In the water cycle, there are two ways water moves from the ground to the atmosphere: evaporation and transpiration. During evaporation, water changes from a liquid to a gas state. Transpiration is basically evaporation of water from plant leaves. Transpiration accounts for about 10 percent of the moisture in the atmosphere — with oceans, seas, and other bodies of water providing nearly all the rest.

Mapping the Atmosphere

A map can represent data from an area on a flat surface. The part of our Earth system most frequently mapped is the atmosphere. Weather—the state of the atmosphere at a particular place and time—needs constant monitoring because it perpetually changes as weather systems evolve and move.

Awareness of what the weather is and is likely to be has numerous benefits. Weather can be hazardous, causing injuries, death, and loss of property. Weather maps are valuable analytical tools for informing people about current or future conditions.

Nitrogen Connection

All biological organisms require certain nutrients to live. Plants require carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen from air and water, as well as nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, calcium, magnesium, sulfur, iron, manganese, copper, zinc, nickel, chloride, boron, and molybdenum from soil. Animals require a few others. Conversions and transformations of nutrients in the environment result from chemical reactions, biological activity, or both.

Ocean Acidification

The ocean is a “carbon sink,” which means that it removes CO₂ (carbon dioxide) from the atmosphere. The ocean currently absorbs about one-third of the CO₂ released by the burning of fossil fuels.

However, beyond a certain level of atmospheric CO₂, the ocean can no longer act as a carbon sink without it having a negative impact on marine life. When CO₂ dissolves in seawater, it leads to decreased pH levels. The ocean becomes less alkaline. This is referred to as ocean acidification.

Tropical Atlantic Aerosols

In this 50-minute activity, you can use NASA satellite data to find out where there are the greatest concentrations of aerosols over the course of a year in the tropical Atlantic region, and where these aerosols come from.

What-a-Cycle

Water moves from Earth’s surface to the atmosphere and then returns to the surface. This process is nearly always depicted in water cycle diagrams by arrows drawn in a circular direction.

However, the actual path water may take in its cycle is far more complicated. In this activity, you will discover multiple cycles by acting as water molecules and traveling through parts of the overall water cycle. In the end, your water cycle will look nothing like the conceptual model but will represent a more realistic cycle.

Earth Science Week