The Earth from the Air: Yann Arthus-Bertrand

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Earth from the Air is a popular collection of environmental photographs taken from the air by Yann Arthus-Bertrand. They have been published in a number of books together with text describing environmental concerns related to the photographs. At the same time that it revolves around the sun, Earth rotates on its own axis. Rotation is when an object, such as a planet, turns around an invisible line running down its center. Earth’s axis is vertical, running from the North Pole to the South Pole. Earth makes one complete rotation about every 24 hours. Earth rotates unevenly, spinning faster at the Equator than at the poles. At the Equator, Earth rotates at about 1,670 kilometers per hour (1,040 miles per hour), while at 45° north, for example, (the approximate latitude of Green Bay, Wisconsin, United States) Earth rotates at 1,180 kilometers per hour (733 miles per hour). is below 100km (62mi; 330,000ft), the Kármán line. By international convention, this marks the beginning of space where human travelers are considered astronauts. Main article: Earth's internal heat budget A map of heat flow from Earth's interior to the surface of Earth's crust, mostly along the oceanic ridges Yann Arthus-Bertrand travelled to Kenya to study the Lions. It was then that he became interested in photography.

The relative concentration of gases remains constant until about 10,000m (33,000ft). [17] Stratification Earth's atmosphere. Lower four layers of the atmosphere in three dimensions as seen diagonally from above the exobase. Layers drawn to scale, objects within the layers are not to scale. Aurorae shown here at the bottom of the thermosphere can actually form at any altitude in this atmospheric layer. Find sources: "Earth from the Air"– news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR ( April 2023) ( Learn how and when to remove this template message) The atmosphere has a layered structure. From the ground toward the sky, the layers are the troposphere, stratosphere, mesosphere, thermosphere, and exosphere. Up to 75 percent of the total mass of the atmosphere is in the troposphere, where most weather occurs. The boundaries between the layers are not clearly defined, and change depending on latitude and season. Argon makes up about 1% of the atmosphere and comes mostly from the decay of potassium in the Earth’s crust. It is an inert gas, which means that it does not react with other chemicals.

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Three-fourths of all air resides in the troposphere, the lowest layer of the Earth’s atmosphere. Air is a mixture of gases, most of which are naturally occurring. Air also contains a significant amount of human-made air pollutants, including some that are not safe to breathe and some that warm our planet’s climate. The troposphere also contains water in all three phases (liquid, solid, and gas) as well as solid particles called aerosols. J. Schopf: Earth's Earliest Biosphere: Its Origin and Evolution. Princeton University Press, Princeton, N.J., 1983 Main article: Hydrosphere A view of Earth with its global ocean and cloud cover, which dominate Earth's surface and hydrosphere; at Earth's polar regions, its hydrosphere forms larger areas of ice cover.

By astronomical convention, the four seasons can be determined by the solstices—the points in the orbit of maximum axial tilt toward or away from the Sun—and the equinoxes, when Earth's rotational axis is aligned with its orbital axis. In the Northern Hemisphere, winter solstice currently occurs around 21 December; summer solstice is near 21 June, spring equinox is around 20 March and autumnal equinox is about 22 or 23 September. In the Southern Hemisphere, the situation is reversed, with the summer and winter solstices exchanged and the spring and autumnal equinox dates swapped. [165] Earth's rotation period relative to the Sun—its mean solar day—is 86,400 seconds of mean solar time ( 86,400.0025 SI seconds). [153] Because Earth's solar day is now slightly longer than it was during the 19th century due to tidal deceleration, each day varies between 0 and 2 ms longer than the mean solar day. [154] [155]Earth orbits the Sun, making Earth the third-closest planet to the Sun and part of the inner Solar System. Earth's average orbital distance is about 150millionkm (93millionmi), which is the basis for the Astronomical Unit and is equal to roughly 8.3 light minutes or 380 times Earth's distance to the Moon. Nitrogen oxides are air pollutants that contribute to the formation of ozone. They also create nitric acid when they mix with water droplets in the air, which is part of acid rain. Each journey around the sun, a trip of about 940 million kilometers (584 million miles), is called a revolution. A year on Earth is the time it takes to complete one revolution, about 365.25 days. Earth orbits the sun at a speedy rate of about 30 kilometers per second (18.5 miles per second). Trenberth, Kevin E.; Smith, Lesley (1970-01-01). "The Mass of the Atmosphere: A Constraint on Global Analyses". Journal of Climate. 18 (6): 864. Bibcode: 2005JCli...18..864T. CiteSeerX 10.1.1.727.6573. doi: 10.1175/JCLI-3299.1. S2CID 16754900.

Because of its temperature, the atmosphere emits infrared radiation. For example, on clear nights Earth's surface cools down faster than on cloudy nights. This is because clouds (H 2O) are strong absorbers and emitters of infrared radiation. This is also why it becomes colder at night at higher elevations. Earth is an oblate spheroid. This means it is spherical in shape, but not perfectly round. It has a slightly greater radius at the Equator, the imaginary line running horizontally around the middle of the planet. In addition to bulging in the middle, Earth’s poles are slightly flattened. The geoid describes the model shape of Earth, and is used to calculate precise surface locations.Carbon monoxide in the air comes from burning fuel in vehicles, volcanoes, and forest fires. It is a poisonous gas. Large format versions of many of the photographs have also been exhibited in various cities. In London they were on display outside the Natural History Museum; and were subsequently exhibited outside City Hall for most of 2005, together with a giant world map on the ground showing where each photograph was taken. Ga (billion years) ago. [35] By 4.54 ±0.04Ga the primordial Earth had formed. [36] The bodies in the Solar System formed and evolved with the Sun. In theory, a solar nebula partitions a volume out of a molecular cloud by gravitational collapse, which begins to spin and flatten into a circumstellar disk, and then the planets grow out of that disk with the Sun. A nebula contains gas, ice grains, and dust (including primordial nuclides). According to nebular theory, planetesimals formed by accretion, with the primordial Earth being estimated as likely taking anywhere from 70 to 100 million years to form. [37] a b Anne Marie Helmenstine, PhD (June 16, 2018). "The 4 Most Abundant Gases in Earth's Atmosphere".

Ozone in the troposphere is a human-made pollutant. Ozone in the stratosphere forms the ozone layer, which is crucial for the survival of life at the Earth’s surface. David C. Catling and Kevin J. Zahnle, The Planetary Air Leak, Scientific American, May 2009, p. 26 (accessed 25 July 2012) Tyson, P.D.; Preston-Whyte, R.A. (2013). The Weather and Climate of Southern Africa (2nded.). Oxford: Oxford University Press. p.4. The most abundant naturally occurring gas is nitrogen (N 2), which makes up about 78% of air. Oxygen (O 2) is the second most abundant gas at about 21%. The inert gas argon (Ar) is the third most abundant gas at 0.93%. There are also trace amounts of carbon dioxide (CO 2), neon (Ne), helium (He), methane (CH 4), krypton (Kr), hydrogen (H 2), nitrous oxide (NO), xenon (Xe), ozone (O 3), iodine (I2), carbon monoxide (CO), and ammonia (NH 3) in the atmosphere. Water Vapor Earth's shape furthermore has local topographic variations. Though the largest local variations, like the Mariana Trench (10,925 meters or 35,843 feet below local sea level), [87] only shortens Earth's average radius by 0.17% and Mount Everest (8,848 meters or 29,029 feet above local sea level) lengthens it by only 0.14%. [n 5] [89] Since Earth's surface is farthest out from Earth's center of mass at its equatorial bulge, the summit of the volcano Chimborazo in Ecuador (6,384.4km or 3,967.1mi) is its farthest point out. [90] [91]

Earth, like most other bodies in the Solar System, formed 4.5 billion years ago from gas in the early Solar System. During the first billion years of Earth's history, the ocean formed and then life developed within it. Life spread globally and has been altering Earth's atmosphere and surface, leading to the Great Oxidation Event two billion years ago. Humans emerged 300,000 years ago in Africa and have spread across every continent on Earth with the exception of Antarctica. Humans depend on Earth's biosphere and natural resources for their survival, but have increasingly impacted the planet's environment. Humanity's current impact on Earth's climate and biosphere is unsustainable, threatening the livelihood of humans and many other forms of life, and causing widespread extinctions. [23] Etymology The geological record however shows a continuous relatively warm surface during the complete early temperature record of Earth – with the exception of one cold glacial phase about 2.4 billion years ago. In the late Archean Eon an oxygen-containing atmosphere began to develop, apparently produced by photosynthesizing cyanobacteria (see Great Oxygenation Event), which have been found as stromatolite fossils from 2.7 billion years ago. The early basic carbon isotopy ( isotope ratio proportions) strongly suggests conditions similar to the current, and that the fundamental features of the carbon cycle became established as early as 4 billion years ago.