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Geolens

Realm

Atmosphere

Understand the changing atmosphere

Investigate how sunlight, air pressure and circulation shape weather and the world’s broad climate patterns.

Orange and blue atmospheric layers above Earth's curved horizon, with a crescent Moon in the black sky.
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Earth's atmosphere seen edge-on from the ISS on 6 December 2021. Its coloured bands reveal a thin envelope above the surface.
Orange and blue atmospheric layers above Earth's curved horizon, with a crescent Moon in the black sky.
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Atmosphere

Atmosphere as a thin film

Atmospheric layers are distinguished mainly by how temperature changes with altitude.

NASA CERES map of net radiation averaged over 2000–2015, with a −200 to +200 W m⁻² colour scale.
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Atmosphere

Earth’s energy budget

Earth reflects some incoming sunlight and absorbs the rest.

Parallel rows of clouds extend from sea ice across open water in the Bering Sea.
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Atmosphere

Thermal circulation

Unequal heating can create pressure differences and a circulation.

An orange windsock extends above a field beside the path to Green Lane Farm.
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Atmosphere

Wind, PGF and Coriolis

Air accelerates in response to pressure differences.

GOES-East satellite view of the Americas with tropical cloud bands and midlatitude weather systems.
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Atmosphere

Three-cell circulation

Unequal solar heating and Earth’s rotation organise broad atmospheric circulation.

A low shelf cloud sweeps over buildings at Brock University in Ontario.
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Atmosphere

Fronts as wedges

A weather front separates air masses with different temperature and density.

A broad spiral of white clouds over the Pacific northeast of Japan.
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Atmosphere

Cyclone and anticyclone

Around a low-pressure system, air tends to converge near the surface; around a high it tends to diverge.

Grassland with scattered acacia trees in Serengeti National Park, Tanzania.
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Atmosphere

Climate types

Compare the world’s climate families through long-term temperature and rainfall patterns.

Hawaiian islands with greener windward slopes, drier leeward slopes and silvery sunglint on the Pacific.
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Atmosphere

Rain shadow

Rising air expands and cools.