Breathe in, breathe out. Like all nervous flyers, you struggle to remain calm while you catapult upward and eastward over the Atlantic as your flight gains altitude. Enjoy a cigarette and relax now that the no-smoking sign is turned off. The stewardess will be here soon to serve you a cocktail which you can sip while you peer out the window at that enormous wing and wonder how anything as big as this can fly. What if we hit a storm? Are storms really getting worse? How much pollution is this thing spitting out? You wonder how many web surfers have these same questions as you take a sip and try not to think about it, but your mind cannot dive into any rabbit hole that doesn’t bring you out thinking about how dependent you are on the state of things outside of this aluminum tube. “Fill me in on atmospheric science,” you think.
But what do those people looking for atmospheric information on the internet want to know about air? The fact is, most things about your life from the air you breathe to the weather outside the plane, not to mention the smooth nature of that bourbon you’re sipping, are all profoundly tied to the fuzz hanging around our planet called the atmosphere. Rather important, that fuzz is – so much so that several entire fields of science are dedicated to what it does to the earth, what the earth does to it, how we humans affect it, how we don’t affect it, and how often it’s likely to kick us in the pants.
We all realize the importance of weather forecasting. Where would we be without news and web reports telling us how risky getting on this plane today is going to be, how damp we’ll get on the trip to the airport, and most importantly, the eye candy which delivers the information to us while smiling through big red lips above a tight sweater? But weather forecasting is only one segment of meteorology, which itself is only one of the fields of science dealing with the atmosphere.
Atmospheric science is an umbrella term (Wow! I feel drier already) which covers an entire range of sciences. The next big-hitter in the lineup of disciplines is climatology, which deals more with changes and trends in the atmosphere – those produced naturally and those caused by the airplane exhaust, among other things. While that may seem to make it a science of a lesser stripe in terms of our immediate concerns, consider the fact that climate change a’la “Global Warming” is precisely the bone over which public figures such as Al Gore are growling; Google alone has well over 5 million pages indexed for “Al Gore”. Global warming’s perceived condition affects public policies such as taxation rates, development of products like the red lipstick that meteorologist was wearing, and the fuel prices that made this airplane ride a lot more expensive. So it pays to be informed of the science involved so we know if we’re having sunshine blown up our skirts.
Other lofty studies of the atmospheric variety include aeronomy, the science of the upper atmosphere, and planetary science, which includes the study of the atmospheres of other planets in our solar system. Ozone depletion falls within the purview of aeronomists, who informed us that we blew a hole in the sky over the south pole with hairspray like the kind the aforementioned meteorologist uses. Their findings affect how much you pay for sunblock, as well as provide opportunities for imaginative writers to explore a future of underground civilization in Australia and nearby irradiated nations. Stay tuned online for similarly fascinating finds from Venus.
Barry is a meteorologist who writes atmospheric science articles for distribution and on his own website. Would your website, blog or forum readers like to read about these subjects? Have a look for his other, more detailed, articles either on EzineArticles.com or his site.
Several additional links to articles are provided in one convenient webpage at http://www.stuffintheair.com/webpage-weather-links.html – Enjoy.
Author: Barry Lough
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
Provided by: Humorous photo captions
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