Earth science
Atmosphere and weather
Layers, wind, clouds, fronts.
Basics
Atmospheric layers
Troposphere: weather, temperature falls with height. Stratosphere: ozone, temperature rises. Mesosphere: falls again. Thermosphere: thin, hot. Weather lives in the troposphere.
Wind
The pressure-gradient force pushes air toward low pressure. Coriolis deflects to the right in the north, left in the south. Friction matters near the ground.
Fronts and clouds
Cold air undercutting: cold front (narrow, intense rain). Warm air overrunning: warm front (broad, lighter rain). Cumulus grows vertically; stratus spreads. Dew point is the saturation temperature.
Formulas
Hydrostatic balance
Pressure falls with height. Basis of weather maps and altimeters.
Symbols
-
Ppressure -
zheight
Dry adiabatic lapse rate
Unsaturated rising air cools by expansion. The moist lapse rate is smaller.
Ideal gas (air)
Links pressure, density, and temperature. At a given P, warmer air is less dense.
Symbols
-
R_specificspecific gas constant for dry air
Key table
| Tropopause | mid-latitudes about 10–12 km |
|---|---|
| Composition | N₂ ~78%, O₂ ~21%, Ar ~0.9%, CO₂ trace and rising |
In this field
Rocks and plate tectonics
Rock cycle, earthquakes, volcanoes, plate boundaries.
Oceans, climate, time
Currents, carbon, climate vs weather, relative and absolute age.
Minerals and water
Minerals and Mohs, water cycle, groundwater, soil.
Hazards and resources
Volcanoes, slides, storms; fuels and ores.
Geologic time and carbon
Relative and absolute ages, the carbon cycle.
Weathering, soil, and the water cycle
Weathering, erosion, soil profiles, and the water cycle.
Earth’s magnetic field
The dynamo, the dipole, inclination and declination, paleomagnetism and seafloor stripes.
Glaciers and sea level
Glacier budget, isostasy, sea level, and glacial deposits.
Groundwater
Porosity, permeability, water table, Darcy, aquifers and aquitards.
Seismic waves
P, S, and surface waves, travel-time curves, magnitude, and Earth’s interior sketch.