. Compendium of meteorology. Meteorology. 294 THE UPPER ATMOSPHERE by Haurwitz [28], that solar variability may affect the ozone layer directly and our weather indirectly. Solar variability in the visible is at best very small, while in the ultraviolet it appears, from various phenomena in the upper atmosphere, to be large. The ozone layer is a strong absorber of solar ultraviolet radiation and is situated at a level in the atmosphere where there is still appreciable mass. This interesting question, then, lends added importance to the whole problem of the size and distribution of radiative cha
. Compendium of meteorology. Meteorology. 294 THE UPPER ATMOSPHERE by Haurwitz [28], that solar variability may affect the ozone layer directly and our weather indirectly. Solar variability in the visible is at best very small, while in the ultraviolet it appears, from various phenomena in the upper atmosphere, to be large. The ozone layer is a strong absorber of solar ultraviolet radiation and is situated at a level in the atmosphere where there is still appreciable mass. This interesting question, then, lends added importance to the whole problem of the size and distribution of radiative changes in the ozone layer. HEATING OF THE OZONE LAYER Several different radiative processes serve to heat the ozone layer. Most of these processes involve the absorption, by some constituent of the atmosphere, of energy from the direct solar beam. The lower part of the ozone layer, however, is also heated by absorption of infrared radiation from the earth's surface and from the troposphere and by ozone absorption of solar energy reflected and scattered from the troposphere. The next section, on cooling of the ozone layer, deals with the absorption characteristics of atmospheric gases in the infrared. The general information pertinent to the question of heating due to infrared absorption is available there. In this section, only general considera- tions relative to the question of absorption in the ultra- violet and visible are included. In a later section some numerical results from computations will be presented. Ozone Absorption. Ozone is the most important con- stituent of the ozone layer from the point of view of absorption of solar energy. Particularly, the Hartley bands (2000-3200 A) absorb strongly and are respon- sible for the sharp cut-off of the solar spectrum near 3000 A. SOLAR BEAM. Fig. 1.—Solar beam passing through the ozone layer when the sun is at the zenith angle Z. In Fig. 1, let a parallel beam of radiation from the sun be incident at the top of the ozone lay
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