The Earth’s escape velocity is about 11 km/s, and the speed of sound is 300 m/s. As the Earth’s surface temperature rises, it essentially wants to shed more heat into space, while water vapor builds up and acts as an absorbent. If the atmosphere contains too much greenhouse gases, the Earth becomes a hotter greenhouse, holding onto too much heat at night instead of letting it escape. Greenhouse gas molecules trap some of the heat, while the rest escapes into space.
The Earth’s surface absorbs just under half of the sun’s energy, while the atmosphere absorbs 23%, and the rest is reflected back into space. Natural processes ensure that greenhouse gas levels are high primarily because humans have released them into the air by burning fossil fuels. The gases absorb solar energy and keep heat close to Earth’s surface, rather than letting it escape into space. About half of the Sun’s heat energy reaches Earth’s surface, while about a third of the Sun’s energy is reflected back into space. The rest of the Sun’s energy is absorbed by water vapor.
The runaway greenhouse effect is often formulated with water vapor as the condensable species. The water vapor reaches the stratosphere and escapes into space. However, greenhouse gases in the Earth’s atmosphere trap some of this reflected energy, preventing it from entirely escaping into space. This further warms the atmosphere, resulting in the greenhouse effect.
In 2022, U.S. GHG emissions were 3.0 lower than in 1990, with an average annual decline of 0.1. When greenhouse gases absorb radiation emitted by Earth’s surface, they prevent that radiation from escaping into space, causing surface temperatures to rise.
📹 Why the Atmosphere Does Not Fly off into Space
We think that air will rush to fill a vacuum, so why doesn’t the atmosphere fly off into space? It makes a lot more sense if you think …
What happens to gases released in space?
The release of air into the vacuum of space would result in the formation of a large blob, which would subsequently dissipate into the surrounding vacuum. In the case of Apollo 13, the oxygen tank ruptured, resulting in the release of a cloud of gas with an estimated radius of twenty miles.
How much gas escapes into space?
Planets lose their atmospheres daily, with around 90 tonnes of hydrogen and helium escaping from Earth in the direction of space. Mars has a less dense atmosphere than Earth, and some gaseous exoplanets orbit close to their star, burning up their atmosphere and allowing overheated molecules to escape gravity. David Ehrenreich’s laboratory at the University of Geneva has developed p-winds, a computer tool that models atmospheric escape for exoplanets, written in Python.
This open-source tool is accessible to the scientific community. Hubble and other space telescopes are essential for studying exoplanetary atmospheric escape, as they allow hydrogen to be seen in the ultraviolet spectrum, which is filtered by Earth’s atmosphere. This phenomenon requires observation from outer space.
Do greenhouse gases escape into space?
The Greenhouse Effect occurs when solar energy absorbed at Earth’s surface is radiated back into the atmosphere as heat. Greenhouse gases, which are more complex than other gas molecules, absorb heat and radiate it back to the Earth’s surface, another greenhouse gas molecule, or out to space. There are several types of greenhouse gases, including carbon dioxide, water vapor, methane, and nitrous oxide.
These molecules, made of three or more atoms, vibrate when they absorb heat, releasing radiation that is likely to be absorbed by another greenhouse gas molecule. This process keeps heat near the Earth’s surface. Most of the gas in the atmosphere is nitrogen and oxygen, which cannot absorb heat and contribute to the greenhouse effect.
Carbon dioxide, made of one carbon atom and two oxygen atoms, makes up a small fraction of the atmosphere but has a large effect on climate. The concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has increased since 2015, reaching over 400 ppm. Methane, a powerful greenhouse gas, absorbs far more heat than carbon dioxide and is found in small quantities but has a significant impact on warming.
Can CO2 be lost to space?
Scientists understand climate change through geologic data, such as ancient ice sheets and fossils, and the greenhouse effect. As sunlight filters into the atmosphere, greenhouse gases absorb and re-emit heat, causing less CO2 and colder temperatures at the surface. This climate change is self-reinforcing, as ice blankets reflect more sunlight back into space, countering the current melting of sea ice.
Today’s CO2 levels are not unique, as they have been higher and lower in the past. Concerns about climate change stem from the unprecedented pace of change due to fossil fuel burning and the relatively stable climate our societies have designed for the last few thousand years.
How much energy is lost to space?
The Earth absorbs 51 units of incoming solar radiation at its surface and 19 units by the atmosphere and clouds. The remaining infrared radiation from the surface and atmosphere is lost to space, thereby ensuring a balanced radiation balance.
How much heat escapes into space?
The Natural Greenhouse Effect is a phenomenon where atmospheric gases, such as oxygen and nitrogen, are transparent to incoming sunlight and outgoing thermal infrared. However, trace gases like water vapor, carbon dioxide, and methane are opaque to many wavelengths of thermal infrared energy. The Earth’s surface radiates about 17% of incoming solar energy as thermal infrared, with only about 12% of this energy directly escaping to space. The remaining 5-6 percent is transferred to the atmosphere when greenhouse gas molecules absorb thermal infrared energy radiated by the surface.
The atmosphere radiates the equivalent of 59 of incoming sunlight back to space as thermal infrared energy. The remaining energy is transferred from the Earth’s surface through evaporation, convection, and thermal infrared radiation. When greenhouse gas molecules absorb thermal infrared energy, their temperature rises, and they radiate an increased amount of thermal infrared energy in all directions. At an altitude of approximately 5-6 kilometers, the concentration of greenhouse gases in the overlying atmosphere is so small that heat can radiate freely to space.
How much CO2 goes into space?
Rockets emit a significant amount of CO2 per launch, with a proportion of 200-300T. SpaceX will pause Falcon 9 launches after an anomaly. The SDA has awarded $1. 9M for deorbit studies, with six companies completing the studies this year to explore cost-effective contingency options for future satellite disposal needs. The European Space Policy Institute has analyzed 15 instruments created since the turn of the millennium to demonstrate momentum in the international space sustainability movement.
How much heat is lost in space?
In space, there is no insulate, meaning you will eventually freeze to death. However, the loss of 100 watts of heat is not significant compared to the mass of your body. The body’s circulatory system, which lacks oxygen due to the lack of air, cycles past your lungs and continues to circulate oxygen-deprived blood. When you lose consciousness, your think-box shuts down to conserve energy, and you may lose consciousness within 15 seconds of leaving the airlock.
If a good space Samaritan pulls you back to safety within a minute or two, you should be okay. However, you may experience ebullism, flash-frozen skin, and a nasty sunburn from raw unfiltered UV radiation. Despite these challenges, you are still survivable, albeit slightly uncomfortable.
Why can’t we release CO2 into space?
Carbon dioxide, with its components of oxygen and carbon atoms, is more tightly bound to the atmosphere due to the Hydrostatic Equilibrium, a mechanism that keeps the atmosphere and greenhouse gases (GHGs) in place. This equilibrium is not fully applicable to water vapor, which undergoes phase changes and becomes dissociated if it reaches too high, preventing it from being more evenly distributed vertically.
Research has not been conducted to assess the efficacy of triggering a change in GHG chemical composition to render them inert or less impactful. However, trapping compounds and changing composition are two different concepts.
Do we lose gas to space?
Earth loses hundreds of tons of its atmosphere daily, particularly oxygen, due to the northern lights. Scientists understand atmospheric escape during high-energy bursts on the night side, but also during the aurora on Earth’s day side. Researchers with the Visualizing Ion Outflow via Neutral Atom Sensing-2 (VISIONS-2) mission used sounding rockets to map oxygen outflow during a potentially short-lived aurora.
The rockets were staged in Ny-Ålesund, Svalbard, Norway, and waited for the aurora on December 7, 2018. The researchers aimed to understand the locations and strength of gas fountains shooting out of Earth’s atmosphere, as no two outflow events are identical.
Does all heat escape into space?
The amount of heat re-radiated from Earth’s surface is influenced by various factors, including the amount of solar radiation absorbed at that location. Some heat is lost back to space, but most is reabsorbed and re-radiated in the atmosphere multiple times by greenhouse gases and clouds, known as the greenhouse effect. Earth system models represent essential processes and interactions related to the re-radiation of heat. The concentration of greenhouse gases and the coverage and distribution of clouds can have opposite influences on Earth’s climate.
Thin, high clouds absorb outgoing heat, resulting in less heat returning back to space and contributing to the greenhouse effect. In contrast, thick, low clouds, such as stratus clouds, are highly reflective and closer to the Earth’s surface, contributing less to the greenhouse effect.
📹 The basic physics of global warming
The explains what is called the enhanced greenhouse effect. The explanation that is popularly given of the greenhouse effect is …
What I can’t get my head around, is that with the weak partial vacuum I create with my lungs, I can draw in these same air molecules against the force of gravity: and I can also slip a beverage up through a straw with little effort; but somehow the extreme and vitally complete vacuum of space doesn’t do the same? When I am faced with this observation, which is easily demonstrated, I have no counter argument. Am I missing something here? Please help me understand the flaw in this reasoning. As you can see, I’m searching youtube and website for an answer to it :\\
Nice. Atmosphere has to push into space, but cant because of GRAVITY. Stand on a high mountain and fire a rifle straight up, will it make it to space and escape earth ? Nope. Why would air. Helium can escape so don’t waste it on balloons . We are going to need all we have of this non-renewable resource.
What is gravity? How is gravity created, and generated? If we are a little speck within the vacuum of the negative pressurised system of space, and gravity is a weak force, how does this gravity overpower the natural inclination of our high pressurised system entering the negative pressurised system which we commonly call space.
Do you think earth is in a vacuum like bubble. If the gasses surround earth wouldn’t that create it. Also gasses that are heavier carnt escape the outer layer so they build up and create the gravity or pressure. If you had I higher air content wouldn’t that change the gravity and make things lighter and also deep diving with helium to breath in under water is that not wats up there??? Can we breath up there because we can do it in the see without air to breath just other gases like helium. They talk funny as well so it’s defo helium they breath in doing deep underwater diving jobs that take days underwater to do. Any info bk appreciated
I believe there is a gas that is much lighter than air and space is full of it and hence the heavier molecules fall to the bottom. This is what is preventing us falling into the sun since these gas molecules are supercharged near the sun and flow away. Causing a push on the planets and hence the larger planets are pushed furthest away. This also causes the turning motion as we fall through space in a pool of gas. It is not gravity that causes the motion but buoyancy and the weight / pressure above you.
How do our philosophers explain the fact of our not noticing anything of the assumed rotation of the earth? or why, with this rotation, all things are not toppling over one another? They explain it by the laws of communicated motion. Very well ! I will again turn their weapon against themselves. A motion may be communicated to solid bodies; but to such, however, as have no connection in their parts, can only be communicated when they are enclosed in a solid body ! But we know of no body the parts of which have much less connection with each other than is the case with the air. The air-layer next to the earth, really dragged along by the communi cated motion, would not be able to communicate its motion to the layers above it, for the simple reason that it stands in no connection with them. These upper layers must therefore remain in their place, or (which would signify the same thing) would apparently flow westward with the same rapidity with which the earth is said to rotate to the east. Now, since a point on the equator (if the earth rotates on its axis in a day) must move eastward at the rate of 1,250 feet a second, the air would similarly move 1,250 feet westward in a second, which would more than ten times surpass the velocity of the most fearful hurricane.It is not myself, however, who am the first to conceive the necessity of this current of the air westward. All philosophers of the present time have admitted the necessity, but have been unable to find any proofs of its exist ence.
Same reason earth isn’t Frozen solid … We live inside a planet.. The sun is earth’s core. Keeps outside from freezing inside. Surface of earth looks like the moons surface The minus 300 temps warm up as they enter earth’s crust and exit into south pole at minus 150 …at coldest time. Newton explained, to go up, you have to go down . Go up to South pole…go down the hole to go up to surface.
I always thought it was so funny that we just so happen to be on the one planet that is just the perfect distance and axis and rotation and magnetic field and life forms and when you cook food it tastes even better. And the fact there are so many different creatures and life forms and consciousness. And self-aware humans and even sunsets and sunrises, and then we have the infinite almost lifeless space around us and is just constantly expanding faster and faster and further into an infinite expanse. And we seem to be the only ones. I mean, if we find fossils on Mars, then damn. But it seems as if We are all We have. And we lose sight of that all the time.
I was going to ask whether, in net terms, the earth is gaining or losing atmosphere, but then I thought sod it, it’ll be quicker to look up Wikipedia. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmospheric_escape This doesn’t answer my question in so many words, but I think the gist of it is ‘losing, but very slowly’. For now.
What hilarious is to think GRAVITY is strong enough to hold back air from escaping into space yet in a car tire if you get a hole it leaks. I do t get it. So a car tire at sea level it still escapes. But at 120k ft gravity holds back the air. It keeps air in the higher you go the thinner the air but there is air to a point. They even biuilt the Sandusky air chamber it’s 6-7ft thick to keep air out. It can crush a oil tanker like a beer can A ballon can just fly away. Gravity is only a theory while Density can be proven and it has. If Sir Issac Newton seen the Apple fall and hit water he noticed that hey it fell through the air but water it floated. Why. Gravity strong enough to pull down but water it stops. Yet a rock sinks. A boat floats. A submarine can float and go to depths to 1000’s of ft why? Density I was a Round earth 🌏. Untill a buddy finally wore me down I looked for a few minutes and being a pilot I found the AIR ROUTES FROM JAPAN TO LAX. Or Australia to Mexico they can stop at US but in a flat earth map the routes come near the US but on globe it’s way off. Here is some of the many documents I have from NASA and other agencies on flat earth non rotating earth. Listen to Mark Sargent and Dave Weiss. These 2 guys for last 5-7 years been proving flat earth. They were so much for Round earth but was shown info that made them THINK, Why is it so hard to not think and just criticize others. What happened to seeing for yourself I bought a telescope went to the pier looking towards Catalina island and.
We don’t observed the 4th dimension of space time bending anywhere in nature. Observation is paramount to this claim because it’s the first step in the scientific method. Without observation you have no effect, if you have no effect you can’t have a hypothesis, if you have no hypothesis then you don’t have an experiment, if you don’t have experiments then you don’t have a scientific theory. Everything you claimed in the article can, at best, be lumped in with Narnia. Just fiction.
I wrk with vacuums on a daily basis. A vacuum needs a solid barrier to be a perfect vacuum. If space is a vacuum it would not be able to stay a vacuum under the conditions that NASA claims. One must understand how vacuums work. This example of why our atmosphere does not fly off into space is absurd. Gravity has nothing to do with a vacuum. When I pull a vacuum on pipes the pipes must be sealed or else atmosphere rushes in. If gravity has a pulling effect then it would also pull space towards earth, the case is not so. Anyone who deals with vacuums understands the basics. The atmosphere and space does not have a symbiotic relationship.
Mick mate i dont think this article you made proves anything tangible. How can it be real if we cant even see molecules let alone measure them? They are the smallest things in the universe and are ‘allegedly’ made of empty space if you trust the textbooks which are revised every year and sold for good money. How can particles be made of empty space, let alone cling to other particles made of more empty space? I understand the logic in your article, however I think it is made upon the assumption that molecules are real. Looking forward to your response. Cheers
This is good overall, but filled with minor errors. 1. The greenhouse effect depends on absorption and emission, not scattering. 2. The adiabatic lapse rate is 9.77 K/km. 6.5 is the environmental lapse rate, which is less than adiabatic because of the effect of water vapor. 3. Carbon dioxide accounts for about 20% of Earth’s greenhouse effect, not 5% (Schmidt et al. 2010).
Hello Paulcockshott,informative article as always.I wanted to ask a few questions that have been nagging my mind and I been meaning to ask you your thoughts on this.If you don’t mind these are a couple of questions I would like if you could answer. 1.What is your thought on quantum computing and do you think it could improve future socialist planning?And if so how and in what ways? 2.What is your thought on Technocracy Inc and Jacque Fresco as it respects to their economic futurist ideas?Ive always seen them as the utopian socialist of the 20th and 21st century who similarly to the 19th century ones lack the scientific basis and knowledge of how to truly change society and move in in the direction of a better world through class struggle but who through their imagitive thinking may have at least created some core concepts we could implement in future socialist and perhaps full communist societies.That in respects to the Technocrats idea of creating a energy based currency after an advanced automated need based economy has been implemented,and Jacque Fresco Resource Based Economy concept.With an Energy Based Economy giving its citizens a basic energy certificate which offers each person a set energy certificate which is owned by the person and or household and gives that person a set amount of energy points he may use for purchase mostly based on need and energy availability accounting,the purchases are like your labor voucher idea in that it expires after a set time,in TI case after 1 year and restarts again the next or after all energy points have all been used,I could see something like a blend of labor voucher and energy certificates being used in a second stage communist society or a first stage communist one(more likely the latter) were you can work and receive pay for your work through the labor credit you earn from work and at the same time that which is produced by automated work is given by a set limited rate to all citizens through these energy certificates were the fruits of the collective products of society are distributed to each citizen on a fixed rate as a guarantee of being a member of society,an advanced socialist version of UBI so to speak.