Aside: Matter

 What is matter?
o Anything that has mass and takes up space
- Understand the difference between mass and weight

 What are the basic building blocks of matter?

- Atoms and subatomic particles: electrons, protons, neutrons
 What are the fundamental forms (or phases) of matter?
- Solid, liquid, gas, plasma

 Important law of science governing matter: Law of the Conservation of Mass

- Matter cannot be created or destroyed, it can only change
phase

Thin envelope of air surrounding Earth …

- “thin” is relative to the overall diameter of Earth

There is a higher percentage of the Earth’s atmosphere closest to Earth’s surface due to atmosphere up
higher crushing and compressing the atmosphere beneath it.

Earths radius = 6,370 Km

Atmospheric Particulates

- Water crystals
- Aerosols (i.e. dust, smoke, human sources [factories])

Atmospheric gasses

- Constant gasses
 The Big Three
o Nitrogen (N2)
o Oxygen (O2)
o Argon (Ar)
- Variable gasses
 Water vapor (H2O)
 Ozone (O3)
o Very small amount in the atmosphere
 At highest concentration = about 10 parts per billion
o Ground-level (tropospheric) ozone
 “bad” ozone
 From pollutants
o Stratospheric ozone (ozone layer)
  Most of the ozone in our atmosphere is at this level but
it is still a very small amount
 “good” ozone
 Earth’s “sunscreen”, filters UV radiation
 Carbon dioxide (CO2)
o Little in the atmosphere
o Important for life. – Why?
 Food for plants; photosynthesis
o Variability in concentration is a fairly recent discovery
 Charles Keeling
 Methane (CH4)
o Very little in the atmosphere
 Measured in parts per billion
o Oxidizes in the atmosphere to H2O and CO2
o Added to the atmosphere mainly by anaerobic decomposition
 Anaerobic = without oxygen
 i.e. ruminants (animal stomachs), wetlands
o Variability in concentration is a fairly recent discovery