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This is a Clilstore unit. You can link all words to dictionaries.

The atmosphere around all of us!

Now we are going to learn about the atmosphere and its layers.

A good question is what is atmosphere?

The force of gravity holds a layer of gas next to the Earth's surface. This is our atmosphere. It consists mainly of nitrogen and oxygen. It is just a  fragile skin, but life can not exist in Earth without it.

You have the layers of the atmosphere below:

Now let's start from the very beginning. 

Thermopause is the boundary between the thermosphere and the exosphere in a planetary atmosphere. 

Thermosphere is a layer of Earth's atmosphere, which is directly above the mesophere and below the exosphere. It extends from about 90 km to between 500 and 1,000 km above our planet.

Mesopause is the point of minimum temperature at the boundary between the mesosphere and the thermosphere atmospheric regions. Due to the lack of solar heating and very strong radiative cooling from carbon dioxide, the mesosphere is the coldest region on Earth with temperatures as low as -100 °C. The summer mesopause is cooler than the winter.

Mesosphere from Greek mesos means middle, so we can say that the mesosphere is the middle layer. It a layer of the atmosphere directly above the stratosphere and below the thermosphere. In the mesosphere, temperature decreases as altitude increases. This characteristic is used to define its limits: it begins at the top of the stratosphere, and ends at the mesopause, which is the coldest part of Earth's atmosphere with temperatures below −143 °C.

Stratosphere is the second major layer of Earth's atmosphere, just above the troposphere and below the mesosphere. The stratosphere is layered in temperature, with warmer layers higher and cooler layers closer to the Earth; this increase of temperature with altitude is a result of the absorption of the Sun's ultraviolet radiation by the ozone layer.

This is in contrast to the troposphere, near the Earth's surface, where temperature decreases with altitude. The border between the troposphere and stratosphere, the tropopause, marks where this temperature inversion begins. Near the equator, the lower edge of the stratosphere is as high as 20 km, around 10 km at midlatitudes, and at about 7 km at the poles. Temperatures range from an average of −51 °C near the tropopause to an average of −15 °C near the mesosphere. 

Troposphere is the lowest layer of Earth's atmosphere, and is also where nearly all weather conditions take place. It contains 75% of the atmosphere's mass and 99% of the total mass of water vapour. The average height of the troposphere is 18 km in the tropics, 17 km in the middle latitudes, and 6 km in the polar regions in winter. The total average height of the troposphere is 13 km.

Now.. Have a look at it once again.

If you can't watch the movie use the link below:

https://youtu.be/5sg9sCOXFIk

Do you know the order of layers? Check it pressing "The order of layers".

Now.. Do you now the properties of each layer? You can check it pressing "The properties".

The atmosphere contains water that evaporates from the oceans and land. When this vapor condenses it forms clouds.

We have different kinds of clouds, but we will learn about three of them:

Cumulus

fluffy white clouds seen in good weather.

Cumulus

Stratus

cloud layers that often bring rain.

Stratus

Cirrus

thin wispy clouds high in the atmosphere. If there are just a few cirrus clouds the weather is likely to be stable.

Cirrus

Cumulus and stratus are low- level clouds. That means they are low in the sky. Cirrus is a high- level cloud.

What about weather?

We call all the temperature, winds, clouds and other conditions of the atmosphere our weather.

 

 

 

Clilstore The order of the layersThe propertiesClouds

Short url:   https://clilstore.eu/cs/8489