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The Sahara Desert in North Africa is the largest hot desert in the world and is one of the hottest, driest and sunniest places on Earth. Located just south of the Sahara is a narrow semi-desert steppe (a semi-arid region) called the Sahel , while Africa's most southern areas contain both savanna plains , and its central portion, including the ...
One classical thermal escape mechanism is Jeans escape, [1] named after British astronomer Sir James Jeans, who first described this process of atmospheric loss. [2] In a quantity of gas, the average velocity of any one molecule is measured by the gas's temperature, but the velocities of individual molecules change as they collide with one another, gaining and losing kinetic energy.
Earth cutaway from core to exosphere Geothermal drill machine in Wisconsin, USA. Temperature within Earth increases with depth. Highly viscous or partially molten rock at temperatures between 650 and 1,200 °C (1,200 and 2,200 °F) are found at the margins of tectonic plates, increasing the geothermal gradient in the vicinity, but only the outer core is postulated to exist in a molten or fluid ...
The atmosphere of Earth is composed of a layer of gas mixture that surrounds the Earth's planetary surface (both lands and oceans), known collectively as air, with variable quantities of suspended aerosols and particulates (which create weather features such as clouds and hazes), all retained by Earth's gravity.
Earth's energy budget (or Earth's energy balance) is the balance between the energy that Earth receives from the Sun and the energy the Earth loses back into outer space. Smaller energy sources, such as Earth's internal heat, are taken into consideration, but make a tiny contribution compared to solar energy.
Lastly, the temperature and altitude of the absorbing gas also affect its absorption of longwave radiation. [citation needed] OLR is affected by Earth's surface skin temperature (i.e, the temperature of the top layer of the surface), skin surface emissivity, atmospheric temperature, water vapor profile, and cloud cover. [9]
The world's first known building to utilize geothermal energy as its primary heat source was the Hot Lake Hotel in Union County, Oregon, beginning in 1907. [8] A geothermal well was used to heat greenhouses in Boise in 1926, and geysers were used to heat greenhouses in Iceland and Tuscany at about the same time. [ 9 ]
The first exoplanet whose atmospheric composition was determined is HD 209458b, a gas giant with a close orbit around a star in the constellation Pegasus. Its atmosphere is heated to temperatures over 1,000 K, and is steadily escaping into space. Hydrogen, oxygen, carbon and sulfur have been detected in the planet's inflated atmosphere. [8]