Earth atmosphere collapse puzzles scientists

A recent contraction of the thermosphere was the most intense in 43 years


An upper layer of Earth's atmosphere recently collapsed in an unexpectedly large contraction, the sheer size of which has scientists scratching their heads, NASA announced Thursday.

The layer of gas called the thermosphere is now rebounding again. This type of collapse is not rare, but its magnitude shocked scientists.

"This is the biggest contraction of the thermosphere in at least 43 years," said John Emmert of the Naval Research Lab, lead author of a paper announcing the finding in the June 19 issue of the journal Geophysical Research Letters. "It's a Space Age record."

more
www.msnbc.msn.com...

Mod Note (This Appears On Every New Thread/Post Reply Page):
Please make sure every post matters.
Refrain from 1-line or very-minimal responses.
Edit-down your quoted posts to the important part.
Don't use "txting" shorthand in posts.
Use snippets and links for external content.
Provide meaningful comments for links, pictures, and videos.


Mod Note: Starting A New thread

[edit on 16/7/2010 by Mirthful Me]

reply to post by Pauligirl
Maybe it has something to do with the recent Gamma ray burst,..
Quick turn on the Phage light..

reply to post by Pauligirl


We must think alike !! I posted the same thread at almost the same time.

I'll star and flag you because this is really worth a thread !!

(or two)

It's those damn kids with their damn blue spiral machines. They wait until
dark, and the neighbors are all asleep, and then fire up them damn infernal
gizmos in their backyard and wake everybody up.

It's not like it was when I was a boy. We didn't have no
electro-magnetic-whatever-thing-a-ma-jigs...we had bubbles...bubbles
and bubble-gum. Them spirals is the devil's work I tell ya...idle hands do
no good I say...

GLOBAL WARMING

thats the answer for everything science related that people love to use nowadays

its just amazing ... and if nobody said it already, they will blame global warming soon!

Here's a link to a NASA press release:


"A Puzzling Collapse of Earth's Upper Atmosphere "
science.nasa.gov...

NASA scientists puzzled...wow what a shock.

reply to post by Pauligirl


Great find Pauligirl, S&F and thanks I like to here reports on this type of stuff.
2nd

[edit on 7/16/10 by Ophiuchus 13]

this is not rare, it has happened before and it will happen again. these event can't be identical every time so its only right that it fluctuates. news like this shouldn't be news. unless we are going to die indefinitely, these people at nasa need to keep these useless crumbs to themselves. if they want to make it worth our time, they would tell us the truth. screw these researchers.

I wilfed off the link and found this, which you could stack on top of the recent one going down into the ocean depths!!

This is the link to the original

I cannot load it on to ATS as it is too big!!



What intrigues me about the subject matter of the post is that it appears to have taken nearly 2 years before they have told us about this.

[edit on 16/7/2010 by PuterMan]

reply to post by PuterMan


That's a really cool diagram/picture/graph thing, whatever you want to call it.

Thanks for sharing.

Oh that crazy Thermosphere, its always up to something! One moment its retracting, the next its inflating. Hmm it kinda sounds like the world economy, perhaps we can find the cause for this collapse on Wallstreet!

Wow.

Turns out that damm Chicken Little was right all along.

double post

[edit on 16-7-2010 by JohnySeagull]

I bet it has something to do with this:

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/2ae0d4f35a26.jpg[/atsimg]

Astronomers call the cloud we're running into now the Local Interstellar Cloud or "Local Fluff" for short. It's about 30 light years wide and contains a wispy mixture of hydrogen and helium atoms at a temperature of 6000 C.

The existential mystery of the Fluff has to do with its surroundings. About 10 million years ago, a cluster of supernovas exploded nearby, creating a giant bubble of million-degree gas. The Fluff is completely surrounded by this high-pressure supernova exhaust and should be crushed or dispersed by it.

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/ea9b3f623a00.jpg[/atsimg]

and

The fact that the Fluff is strongly magnetized means that other clouds in the galactic neighborhood could be, too. Eventually, the solar system will run into some of them, and their strong magnetic fields could compress the heliosphere even more than it is compressed now.

Additional compression could allow more cosmic rays to reach the inner solar system, possibly affecting terrestrial climate and the ability of astronauts to travel safely through space.

On the other hand, astronauts wouldn't have to travel so far because interstellar space would be closer than ever. These events would play out on time scales of tens to hundreds of thousands of years, which is how long it takes for the solar system to move from one cloud to the next.

and lastly:

"There could be interesting times ahead!"

says Opher.

from NASA






[edit on 16-7-2010 by donhuangenaro]

reply to post by rival

You just made my day man!! ROTFL
Must be them dang kids!! XD

a big solar flare would definitely make sense to me. not that i know much about it. phage patrol indeed. and it may be that we have to worry more about global warming soon. what with all the methane escaping the gulf. that stuffs much more of a greenhouse gas than carbon, right? i never bought into the carbon tax BS, but in my mind, solar flares + large amounts of greenhouse gasses cant be a great thing. even if it just effects where and how we can grow food it would still at least be a cluster [snip]. not to mention all the people that live where its really hot already



Removed censor circumvention

[edit on 16/7/10 by masqua]

[edit on 7/16/2010 by SkullKid797]

Originally posted by Lil Drummerboy
reply to post by Pauligirl

 

Maybe it has something to do with the recent Gamma ray burst,..
Quick turn on the Phage light..

pffft phage light?? no thanks

second line

I found this part really interesting:

Emmert suggests carbon dioxide (CO2) in the thermosphere might play a role in explaining the atmospheric collapse.
This gas acts as a coolant, shedding heat via infrared radiation. It is widely-known that CO2 levels have been increasing in Earth's atmosphere. Extra CO2 in the thermosphere could have magnified the cooling action of solar minimum.

So extra CO2 magnifies the cooling effect of the solar minimum?

This would seem to contradict the theory that CO2 causes global warming


I know this is in the thermosphere but surely a cooling there will affect the rest of the climate?