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  • Essay / A Study of the Surface Health of the Earth's Atmosphere

    Table of ContentsThe Earth's Atmospheric and Surface Heat: What a Treat! Is it worth tweeting? Hypothesis: Materials: Procedure: Discussion: Conclusion: The atmospheric and surface heat of the Earth: what a treat! Is this worth tweeting? The purpose of the laboratory is to discover, compare and analyze various factors of Earth's temperature, including but not limited to: latitude (directly proportional to the amount of direct sunlight striking the Earth's surface) , proximity to the ocean (coastal or inland areas), color and/or chemical composition of the surface (reflective/absorbent properties) and whether the surface is water or sand (oceans or continents). This was achieved by carrying out several experiments testing each of these components of Earth's temperature. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay Hypothesis: If two different substances from two different locations are chosen at random, then it is extremely likely that their temperatures will be different, due to a multitude of factors, including juxtaposition to the ocean, the amount of direct sunlight (latitude), whether over the ocean or land (heating or cooling) and the heat albedo of certain surfaces. Materials: An abundance of sand (of similar temperatures, but some light and some dark, the vast majority being light sand) An abundance of water (of similar temperatures) 5 heat sources (4 lamps and 1 hot plate) 11 thermometers A spherical object (into which thermometers can be stuck) 4 small, open-top containers of equal volume, mass and thermal conductivity (ideally bowls or some sort of aluminum pan) 1 ring stand and 1 base of ring stand 1 clip for the ring stand 1 test tube stand 2 caps of modeling clay 5 flat, temperate surfaces on which to conduct the experiment 5 timers or stopwatches 5 calculators 5 pencils and 5 pieces of paper Procedure: The laboratory included five parts, with each experiment carried out by a small group of students, who gathered the materials, put on all the necessary safety equipment (i.e. heat protection gloves) and carried out the experiment, carefully recording detailed results and drawing intelligent conclusions. In the first experiment, students placed a spherical object meant to represent the Earth and held it in front of a lamp, taping thermometers to each pole and the equator. These students tested the characteristic of latitude, also known as the amount of direct sunlight, and determined that this characteristic is one of the defining characteristics of a place's temperature and, by extension, climate . In the second experiment, students heated two test tubes, one filled with water and the other with sand, recording the rate at which each cooled. These students tested a surface's ability to retain heat, otherwise known as absorption properties, and determined that water, with its high specific heat, retains more heat than water, making its temperature much more difficult to modify, unlike earth, represented by sand. In the third experiment, students filled two pans, one with water and one with sand, recording the rate at which each heated. These students tested, like the previous experiment, the ability of a surface to change temperature, directly linked to the high specific heat ofwater. In the fourth experiment, students filled two pans, one with dry, unsaturated sand and the other with wet, saturated sand, recording the rate at which each heated. These students tested the effect on the rate of warming of areas near the oceans, and it was found that inland areas warmed much faster than coastal areas, again due to high specific heat water. In the fifth and final experiment, students filled two pans, one with light sand and one with dark sand, recording the rate at which each heated. These students tested the characteristic reflective properties of surfaces in reference to the amount of heat they absorb, and found that areas with a strong tendency to reflect light, such as ice and snow, warm up at a much faster rate. slower than a surface with a strong tendency to absorb light, such as asphalt. There are many factors that affect the temperature of a planet. Percentage of heat reflected by the planet (albedo), extent of the greenhouse effect on that particular planet (insulation;), amount of direct sunlight (taking into account orbital eccentricity), amount of radiation given by conduction /efficiency or amount of ozone, thickness of the planet's atmosphere, absence of atmosphere (if there is no atmosphere, then nothing stops all the heat from hitting the surface and leaving too quickly, like the Moon, which receives a third more heat than the Earth during the day, but loses it all during the night, while the Earth, thanks to the greenhouse effect, retains a significant part of the heat that how much it receives), the effectiveness of winds that circulate heat, and the moderation of temperature extremes (both depending on the thickness of the atmosphere), are all crucial factors in a planet's temperature. The temperature of the Earth, after all these facets, looking at the big picture, is called the Goldilocks effect, neither too hot, like Venus, nor too cold, like Mars. Using the infrared map, the hottest temperatures are on the equator (0 degrees latitude), because it is the place on Earth that receives sunlight most directly (the equator is a slight bulge of Earth). The coldest temperatures are in the middle of the South Pole, in Antarctica. Both poles are very cold, because they receive much less solar radiation than the rest of the Earth, and what's more, the ice's shiny white surface reflects much of the sunlight that reaches the polar regions. However, the South Pole/Antarctica is colder than the North Pole because the South Pole's thick ice sheet raises it more than a mile and a half above sea level and, below, a continent. Altitude affects temperature, making surrounding areas colder (this is why mountains have snow and are extremely cold). Additionally, the Arctic Ocean around and in the North Pole traps heat in the atmosphere in summer and warms it in winter. This logical conclusion is supported by the first laboratory experiment (Latitude-North Pole in Bogota), which revealed that latitude does indeed affect temperature, and more specifically that the equators had the highest temperature and the poles had the highest temperature. the lowest, with the The South Pole presents a progressive difference in a lower temperature. Not all places on earth at the same latitude necessarily have the same temperatures, as shown (on the infrared map) how western Mexico and Baja California have a higher temperature than land. haseast, at the same latitude. Although the amount of direct sunlight received is directly proportional to decreasing latitude, not all land at the same latitude has the same temperatures. This is revealed in the fourth and fifth laboratory experiments (heating dry sand vs heating wet sand-Myrtle Beach and heating sands of different colors-Kalahari Desert, respectively), which revealed that wet sand (representing the area coastal) (coastal regions) warmed much more slowly than dry sand (representing inland regions), again due to the high specific heat of water. An example of this on the infrared map is northern Australia, where inland areas had a higher temperature than coastal areas. The experiments also revealed that light sand (representing surfaces such as snow that reflect a lot of light) heats at a much slower rate than dark sand (representing any surfaces that do not reflect much light) because sand clear reflects the vast majority of light during use. the dark sand absorbed the vast majority of the light, heating the dark sand. An example of this on the infrared map is how the poles (especially Antarctica, see the first paragraph of the discussion) are much, much colder than a region like the Arabian Peninsula. Although the difference in latitude plays a major role, it does not explain the huge temperature difference. This is due to the reflective properties, or lack thereof, of the surfaces of the aforementioned land areas. Thanks to the infrared map, continents and oceans heat and cool differently. Continents warm more quickly (because their composition of minerals, metals, etc. have a lower specific heat than ocean water) and cool more quickly (because water retains more heat, it takes more energy to raise it by one degree in temperature, and to decrease it by one degree of temperature). The continents are both warmer in summer and cooler in winter than the oceans. For example, on the infrared map, lands west of Mexico and Baja California, North Africa and the Sahara, the Arabian Peninsula, India and northern Australia are warmer than the surrounding oceans, as the colorful legend indicates. This deduction was supported by the second and third laboratory experiments (Cooling of water and sand-Bahamas, and Heating of water and sand-Tahiti, respectively), which revealed that water, due to of its high/low specific heats, heats and cools more slowly than sand (with water accurately representing oceans and sand representing continents). The experiments, taken together, revealed that there are very many factors in the temperature of an area (as outlined succinctly in the previous purpose, hypothesis, procedure, and discussion section). Specifically, the rate of change statistics for different substances under different conditions proved very intriguing. For the first experiment, the rate of change was 25% for the North and South Poles, and 133% for the equator, proving that latitude does indeed affect Earth's temperature in the same way as we move away from it. from the equator, the colder it is, in general. , due to the amount of direct sunlight. For the second experiment, the rate of change was -2.92°F/12 minutes for sand and -2.33°F/12 minutes for water, and in the third experiment, 0.67° C/minute for sand and 0.5°C/minute. minute for water, proving that the continents and oceans.