Atmosphere Grade 11 Notes Pdf Download UPDATED

The greenhouse effect works much the same way on Earth. Gases in the atmosphere, such as carbon dioxide, trap heat similar to the glass roof of a greenhouse. These heat-trapping gases are called greenhouse gases.

During the day, the Sun shines through the atmosphere. Earth's surface warms up in the sunlight. At night, Earth's surface cools, releasing heat back into the air. But some of the heat is trapped by the greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. That's what keeps our Earth a warm and cozy 58 degrees Fahrenheit (14 degrees Celsius), on average.

Atmosphere Grade 11 Notes Pdf Download

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NASA has observed increases in the amount of carbon dioxide and some other greenhouse gases in our atmosphere. Too much of these greenhouse gases can cause Earth's atmosphere to trap more and more heat. This causes Earth to warm up.

Burning fossil fuels releases sulfur and nitrogen oxides into the atmosphere. Acid rain forms when sulfur dioxide and nitrogen dioxide mix with water droplets in the atmosphere to make sulfuric acid and nitric acid. Winds can carry these pollutants for thousands of miles, until they fall to the Earth's surface as acid rain, which damages the leaves of vegetation, increases the acidity of soils and water, and is linked to over 500 deaths each year. Buildings and other structures are also impacted by acid rain, which causes an estimated five billion dollars of property damage each year. Acid rain dissolves mortar between bricks, causes stone foundations to become unstable, and is destroying ancient buildings and statues carved from marble and limestone.

Greenhouse gas pollution is causing climate change. As a result, ecosystems are changing faster than plants and animals can adapt, and many species are going extinct. Marine ecosystems are vulnerable to ocean acidification caused when carbon dioxide emitted into the atmosphere is dissolved in seawater. Ocean acidification makes it difficult for many marine species to grow shells and skeletons.

The spheres are the four subsystems that make up the planet Earth. They are called spheres because they are round, just like the Earth. The four spheres are the geosphere (all the rock on Earth), hydrosphere (all the water on Earth), atmosphere (all the gases surrounding Earth), and biosphere (all the living things on Earth).

Another example of how the spheres affect each other is through erosion. Erosion happens in the desert when wind (atmosphere) shapes the sand in the geosphere. Water (hydrosphere) can also shape land, such as in the formation of the Grand Canyon.

Humans have a huge impact on all spheres. Negative impacts, such as burning fossil fuels, pollute the atmosphere. Piling up our waste in landfills affects the geosphere. Pumping waste into the oceans harms the hydrosphere. And overfishing and habitat destruction can reduce the diversity of living things in the biosphere.

Erosion creates mushroom rocks when wind carries sand close to the ground. This is another example of how the atmosphere affects the geosphere. Sand carried by wind carves the bottom of the rock more than the top.

Sources of Acid Rain

Acid rain is caused by a chemical reaction that begins when compounds like sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides are released into the air. These substances can rise very high into the atmosphere, where they mix and react with water, oxygen, and other chemicals to form more acidic pollutants, known as acid rain. Sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides dissolve very easily in water and can be carried very far by the wind. As a result, the two compounds can travel long distances where they become part of the rain, sleet, snow, and fog that we experience on certain days.

Human activities are the main cause of acid rain. Over the past few decades, humans have released so many different chemicals into the air that they have changed the mix of gases in the atmosphere. Power plants release the majority of sulfur dioxide and much of the nitrogen oxides when they burn fossil fuels, such as coal, to produce electricity. In addition, the exhaust from cars, trucks, and buses releases nitrogen oxides and sulfur dioxide into the air. These pollutants cause acid rain.

Like Earth, Mars has seasons, polar ice caps, volcanoes, canyons, and weather. It has a very thin atmosphere made mostly of carbon dioxide, nitrogen, and argon. People would not be able to breathe the air on Mars.

At the end of this atmosphere lesson plan, students will be able to recognize that a limited number of many known elements comprise the largest portion of the atmosphere, identify the composition of the atmosphere, identify the layers of Earth's atmosphere, demonstrate how the Sun's energy impacts weather and atmospheric movement, and identify the 4 main cloud types. Each lesson is designed using the 5E method of instruction to ensure maximum comprehension by the students.

The teacher will help to clear any misconceptions about the atmosphere. A major misconception is that students may think that air has no weight, and also believe that air is not the same everywhere, but we as teachers must explain that air is just a combination of a set of gases.

This student-centered station lab is set up so students can begin to explore the atmosphere. Four of the stations are considered input stations where students are learning new information about the atmosphere and four of the stations are output stations where students will be demonstrating their mastery of the input stations. Each of the stations is differentiated to challenge students using a different learning style. You can read more about how I set up the station labs here.

Students will be working in pairs to better understand the atmosphere. In this station, students try to identify the layers of Earth's atmosphere. Students will follow the steps and record their observations on their lab sheet.

At this station, students will be watching a short video explaining the atmosphere. Students will then answer questions related to the video and record their answers on their lab station sheet. For example: What are some characteristics of the troposphere? What layer of the atmosphere do many commercial airlines fly in? Why? Describe the ionosphere. Where is it? What is unique about it?

The research station will allow students to explore interactive web pages that will help them to understand clouds and the atmosphere. Students will be instructed to complete a few tasks and record answers on their lab sheets.

The assess it station is where students will go to prove mastery over the concepts they learned in the lab. The questions are set up in a standardized format with multiple choice answers. Some questions include: Which is the most abundant element in earth's atmosphere? Which statement is not true? What event might happen next? Which layer of the earth's atmosphere does the International Space Station orbit in?

Students who can answer open-ended questions about the lab truly understand the concepts that are being taught. At this station, the students will be answering three task cards: Compare and contrast the troposphere and the thermosphere. What are some of the differences between cumulus and stratus clouds? Describe the chemical composition of the Earth's atmosphere? Which elements are abundant? Which are not?

The explanation activities will become much more engaging for the class once they have completed the exploration station lab. During the explanation piece, the teacher will be clearing up any misconceptions about atmosphere with an interactive PowerPoint, anchor charts, and notes. The atmosphere lesson includes a PowerPoint with activities scattered throughout to keep the students engaged.

The students will also be interacting with their journals while taking notes from the PowerPoint. If you have students that need modified notes, the 5E lessons come equipped to help give every student access to the lesson.

Wildfires are greatly affected by atmospheric motion and the properties of the atmosphere that affect its motion. Most commonly considered in evaluating fire danger are surface winds with their attendant temperatures and humidities, as experienced in everyday living. Less obvious, but equally important, are vertical motions that influence wildfire in many ways. Atmospheric stability may either encourage or suppress vertical air motion. The heat of fire itself generates vertical motion, at least near the surface, but the convective circulation thus established is affected directly by the stability of the air. In turn, the indraft into the fire at low levels is affected, and this has a marked effect on fire intensity.

Also, in many indirect ways, atmospheric stability will affect fire behavior. For example, winds tend to be turbulent and gusty when the atmosphere is unstable, and this type of airflow causes fires to behave erratically. Thunderstorms with strong updrafts and downdrafts develop when the atmosphere is unstable and contains sufficient moisture. Their lightning may set wildfires, and their distinctive winds can have adverse effects on fire behavior.

Atmospheric stability was defined in chapter 1 as the resistance of the atmosphere to vertical motion. This definition and its explanation were based on the parcel method of analysis appropriate to a vertical temperature and moisture sounding through the troposphere.

This method employs some assumptions: (1) The sounding applies to an atmosphere at rest; (2) a small parcel of air in the sampled atmosphere, if caused to rise, does not exchange mass or heat across its boundary; and (3) rise of the parcel does not set its environment in motion. We learned that lifting under these conditions is adiabatic lifting.

The adiabatic process is reversible. Just as air expands and cools when it is lifted, so is it equally compressed and warmed as it is lowered. Hence, adiabatic processes and stability determinations for either upward or downward moving air parcels make use of the appropriate dry- or moist-adiabatic lapse rates. The temperature structure of the atmosphere is always complex. As mentioned above, the moist-adiabatic lapse rate is variable-not constant as is the dry-adiabatic rate. e24fc04721