"July 15, 2010: NASA-funded researchers are monitoring a big event in our planet's atmosphere. High above Earth's surface where the atmosphere meets space, a rarefied layer of gas called "the thermosphere" recently collapsed and now is rebounding again.
"This is the biggest contraction of the thermosphere in at least 43 years," says John Emmert of the Naval Research Lab, lead author of a paper announcing the finding in the June 19th issue of the Geophysical Research Letters (GRL). "It's a Space Age record.""
That's fascinating, thanks for posting. Do you know if this has any implications for climatology?
ReplyDeleteI guess the effect on the climate can be due to the CO2 extraction. In the movie (http://www.ucar.edu/news/releases/2006/thermospherevisuals.shtml), it also mentions that CO2 warms the lower atmosphere, but cools the upper atmosphere.
ReplyDeleteDo you think the contraction of the thermosphere would make the CO2's effect bigger?
Since it adsorbs higher energy photons from the sun, I do wonder if any thing extra gets through when it contracts. I really have no idea though. When it contracts, does it increase in density or does the air move to a lower portion of the atmosphere? I'm mostly just throwing out questions, I don't know anything about this.
ReplyDeleteThat's a good question. I think the density of the thermosphere increases at solar maximum, which has the highest energy photons, but still it makes sense if the air also moves a lil bit to lower parts. I think I like to do a study on it to see how it really is =)
ReplyDeleteLast night at Chimes Trivia, there was a question about what was the highest layer of the atmosphere. I was glad I had just read this blog so I could be sure of the answer. ;)
ReplyDelete