| Topic: |
Science > Physics |
| User: |
"Sam Wormley" |
| Date: |
24 Jul 2003 10:50:33 PM |
| Object: |
Why is the tropopause getting higher? |
Ref: http://physicsweb.org/article/news/7/7/18
Scientists have shown that human activity is having an impact on the
height of the tropopause - the boundary between the troposphere (the
lowest layer of the atmosphere) and the stratosphere. The height of the
tropopause increased by about 200 metres between 1979 and 1999, and
Benjamin Santer of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in the US
and colleagues in Germany, the UK and the US have used computer models to
show that about 80% of this increase was directly caused by human
activity (B Santer et al. 2003 Science 301 479).
See: http://physicsweb.org/article/news/7/7/18
.
|
|
| User: "Bill Vajk" |
|
| Title: Re: Why is the tropopause getting higher? |
24 Jul 2003 11:00:35 PM |
|
|
Sam Wormley wrote:
Ref: http://physicsweb.org/article/news/7/7/18
Scientists have shown that human activity is having an impact on the
height of the tropopause - the boundary between the troposphere (the
lowest layer of the atmosphere) and the stratosphere. The height of the
tropopause increased by about 200 metres between 1979 and 1999, and
Benjamin Santer of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in the US
and colleagues in Germany, the UK and the US have used computer models to
show that about 80% of this increase was directly caused by human
activity (B Santer et al. 2003 Science 301 479).
See: http://physicsweb.org/article/news/7/7/18
It would be interesting to know how much accuracy of
the measurement improved in the same time period.
.
|
|
|
| User: "Edward Green" |
|
| Title: Re: Why is the tropopause getting higher? |
25 Jul 2003 04:20:29 AM |
|
|
Bill Vajk <bill9north@hotmailDITCHTHIS.com> wrote in message news:<3F20A9EA.5060203@hotmailDITCHTHIS.com>...
Sam Wormley wrote:
Ref: http://physicsweb.org/article/news/7/7/18
Scientists have shown that human activity is having an impact on the
height of the tropopause - the boundary between the troposphere (the
lowest layer of the atmosphere) and the stratosphere. The height of the
tropopause increased by about 200 metres between 1979 and 1999, and
Benjamin Santer of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in the US
and colleagues in Germany, the UK and the US have used computer models to
show that about 80% of this increase was directly caused by human
activity (B Santer et al. 2003 Science 301 479).
See: http://physicsweb.org/article/news/7/7/18
It would be interesting to know how much accuracy of
the measurement improved in the same time period.
Right. Or a host of other things -- unknowable -- like how the height
of the troposphere has varied over the last several centuries. Or
some knowable things, like the _height_ of the troposphere, forget
about this supposed 200 meter variation.
I found the following:
"The height of the tropopause depends on the location, notably the
latitude, as shown in the figure on the right (which shows annual mean
conditions). It also depends on the season (1, 2). Thus, it is about
16 km high over Australia at year-end, and between 12 - 16 km at
midyear, being lower at the higher latitudes. At latitudes above 60° ,
the tropopause is less than 9 -10 km above sea level; the lowest is
less than 8 km high, above Antarctica and above Siberia and northern
Canada in winter. The highest average tropopause is over the oceanic
warm pool of the western equatorial Pacific, about 17.5 km high, and
over Southeast Asia, during the summer monsoon, the tropopause
occasionally peaks above 18 km."
http://www-das.uwyo.edu/~geerts/cwx/notes/chap01/tropo.html
So we are talking about a supposed 200 meter variation in a phenomenon
which shows 5+ km seasonal and locational variations.
.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Related Articles |
|
|
