A thin blue veil is what comes to mind when looking at the atmosphere from space.  The nearly transparent shell of gases that envelops the earth supplies the precious air that we breathe everyday.  This encircling air is an integral and essential part of the Earth that extends to several hundred kilometers above the planet's surface.  This realm of the global environment has properties that interact to form a complex structure of components that characterize our atmosphere.   The atmosphere has a mass and can be weighed by measuring its pressure.  The energy of molecular motion is manifest as heat, and is measured as temperature.  In addition to its molecular motion, which is always present, the air sometimes moves in bulk, and this motion is measured as wind. The energy required to initiate and sustain such motion is derived entirely from the sun, so that the meteorologist must  pay a great deal of attention to radiation.  Finally, the atmosphere contains water, as a gas (water vapor) or as a liquid or a solid (clouds, snow, rain, and hail).  This unit of study will focus on atmospheric changes involving temperature, wind, and cloud formation.

Why is atmospheric air variable?  The sun's heat and gases in the atmosphere create changes in temperature in response to the unequal heating and cooling within the Earth's atmospheric system.  Inquiry into temperature and  how the atmosphere responds to changes in temperature in this unit will give your students insight into the importance of variable air temperature in  naturally occurring atmospheric phenomena.

LEARN MORE ABOUT... Temperature Atmospheric Composition Atmospheric Structure LEARNING ACTIVITIES Temperature Changes in the Atmosphere What Causes Wind Cloud Formation Precipitation

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