Learning about Earth's atmosphere

Dear Juniors- In our study of the Earth's atmosphere, I want you to appreciate how your chemistry learning is applied in the real world.  As we study the dynamics of the atmosphere, we need to understand the complex chemistry of the gases involved and how their specific properties determine how they affect us down here on Earth.  Nitrogen gas, N2, is a nice, stable fairly inert gas that makes up 78% of the gas in the air, where methane, CH4, makes up only 0.00017% of the air we breathe, but has a massive impact on Earth's temperature.  Further, it is easy to forget that water, H2O, is a gas as well as a liquid, and that water vapor is one of the most potent greenhouse gases, holding a lot of heat into the Earth's atmospheric envelope.  Beyond just the chemical properties of these gases are the interactions between them and with incoming solar radiation, which can be observed in the complicated chemistry of stratospheric ozone which we will look at shortly.  Wow, chemistry is really important and cool too!


please read these pages-  Reading Assignment on Atmospheric Composition

Atmospheric motions study guide

Oxygen Isotopes and Climate- Paleoclimatology

Dear Seniors- Please read the article at the Earth Observatory
Paleoclimatology: the Oxygen Balance
as part of our Marine Sediment learning.  Due Monday 11/18

Keystone Pipeline

Keystone Pipeline article- Harvard Magazine 
Keystone Pipeline in Texas Please read these articles

Dear Sophomores- The two most immediate and controversial environmental issues in America today are the issue of fracking and the Keystone Pipeline.  While we are studying geology and resource extraction, I think it is really important for us to pause and seriously consider these two issues, become knowledgeable and discuss.  In the last presidential election, the Keystone Pipeline came up as an important "litmus test" for President Obama by environmentalists, and I am sure that it will come up again.  The truth is we cannot have a cheap, plentiful supply of oil and gas without causing tremendous harm to our environment and our atmosphere.  At the end of the day, we either have to accept these realities or make a wholesale shift to green technologies that will either run on a different energy source altogether, or will make super high efficiency advances to reduce the petrol used.  In this exercise, I want us to learn about these issues, discuss them and you decide how you feel about this issue.   Is it worth it to fire up your Mustang V-8, or are you willing to drive an Urbee that gets 200 mpg and looks like a rolling jelly bean?

Yale 360 Phosphorus Article   Please read this article for your "Peak Phosphorus" assignment.

Dear Juniors- As we learn about anthropogenic eutrophication, it is really important that we understand the driving forces behind this pollution and the sources of the nutrients that are accumulating in the Chesapeake Bay.  Ultimately it is everyday human activities that are causing the problem of nutrient pollution, things like: eating, farming, driving cars, growing a garden or lawn, and even going to the bathroom.  This is why this problem is so widespread and so insidious, you have to eat, you have to move, to have to live!  Phosphorous and nitrogen are part of our lives.  Personally, I think the solution is to live more carefully and more aware of what we are doing and how we are doing it, so that we make as small an impact as possible.  For example, gardening with very limited inputs of fertilizer, or using cover crops to fix nitrogen, not a product from a bag.  Trying to purchase products that are phosphate free, or choosing organic products that were hopefully made fertile with compost and not 10-10-10.  Other things we can do as a society, is to demand clean water technologies, to demand that industry not dump waste into our rivers and bay, and to push for cleaner industry and cars.  Yes, these things cost more money, but in the end, isn't a clean, healthy environment worth it?

MES II Excel Practice

Miss Colden's Flounder data

The Ocean is Broken

As we sit in our classrooms, dry and safe on land, it is hard to imagine what the ocean is like, especially if you have never been out to sea.  I wish that I could take a field trip to the Gulf Stream so you could  experience the bluest blue you could ever see, and the feeling of total isolation from land.  It is hard to understate how much we take the oceans for granted.  Earth's oceans moderate our climate, they literally create a homeostasis through the slow churn of deep ocean currents moving heat around the planet, downwelling cold, briny polar water and upwelling later as nutrient rich soup at the equator.  This process in turn fuels the productivity from the tiniest plankton to mighty blue whales and the majestic albatross that wander endlessly over the ocean expanse.  It is magic, and it is messed up.  Read the attached article by a long distance sailor who has traversed the Pacific many times.  How would you feel if you walked outside and did not see or hear any birds or squirrels, saw rubbish everywhere and drove to school continually swerving to miss piles of trash and debris in the road?  It is easy to forget the ocean, being a landlubber, when you are vaguely aware of its existence. let's try to heighten our awareness of all of our globe this year.

Mr. Hudson's Excel data sheet