Lightning Benefits

After a thunderstorm occurs and it is good to walk outdoor, take a deep breath. The atmosphere will scent very fresh and clean, with possibly an earthy perfume made by the discharge of oils of pine trees and different plants. Both rain and lightning facilitate to clear the atmosphere from dust, pollens, and pollutants. A arc of lightning makes these through blending those specks; the larger mass is more tending to go down to the ground.

Heat and pressure of lightning too converts nitrogen and different gases in the atmosphere into usable compounds such as  nitrogen oxides (NO and NO2) and nitric acid (HNO3). These compounds work as a earthy fertilizer to assist plants make vital proteins.

Additional interesting side effect of lightning’s enormous heat and pressure is the fusion of sand and other minerals in the ground into fulgurites, generally called petrified lightning. The word fulgurite comes from the Latin for “bright, glowing burn”-essentially, a description of lightning. Fulgurites created by cloud-to-ground lightning strikes are long, hard, shiny objects that look similar bent tubes. Made in an instant, they turn that fleeting flash of lightning into a lasting record of natural history-fossils of prehistoric weather events. Their pattern and size change, depending upon the potency of the lightning strikes and the mineral contents of the ground

Why the earths climate change an important issue?

Around the world, climate change is posing potentially catastrophic and long term changes to the environment. The sea levels are rising and the Artic sea ice is melting. More intense Hurricanes are approaching our coasts lines, and more glaciers are retreating from the mountain valleys they once filled. Warmer temperatures are have led to more rainfalls in some areas. This can cause flooding. Higher temperatures cause droughts in some areas of the world, causing a decline in crop productivity, which may lead to food shortage. Heat waves have become common, and more living species are becoming endangered.

What is global warming

What is global warming?

Global warming is the process when the earth heats up, and the temperature rises. This happens when there is an increase in the production of gases like carbon dioxide, water vapour, nitrous oxide, and methane, which are known as green house gases. These green house gases trap heat and light from the sun in the earth’s atmosphere, and this in turn, increases the temperature, and causes global warming .did you know? That since the beginning of the 20^th century, the average temperature of the earth has risen by 0.8 degree Celsius? Global warming hurts people, animals and plants. In fact many cannot take the change, so they die out.

Average Temperature

Despite the enormous variation in climates and regional temperature around the world, scientists use an average temperature from the entire surface of the earth to measure atmospheric changes as a whole. The overall average temperature of the earth has been risen over the past century. The average temperature of the earth today is about 15 degrees, while during the ice Ages of the past, it has gone as low as 11 degree Celsius.

Effects of Continental drift

Currents in the mantle move magma towards the surface. That is the sea floor. Where the sea floor, or oceanic crust expands new crust is continuously formed by magma and marine sediments. Thus oceans like Atlantic have a ridge in the middle. The mid-Atlantic ridge is infact the longest mountain range in the world and moves America away from Europe and Africa by about 2cm. 1inch a year.

Subduction

Diving plates when oceanic and continental crusts crash, the softer and thinner oceanic crust bends downwards in what is called subduction, while the continental crust forms a range like the Andes and the rocky mountains. The subduction movements may cause deep earth quakes. The material of the oceanic crust melts and breaks down in the viscous mantle.

Continental Drift

The movements of the plates in the crust make the continents move in past times continents have been located in other parts of the earth, sometimes far apart, sometimes close together and sometimes even colliding, all as a result of currents in the Mantle. This theory was formed by German climatologist, Alfred wegener in the beginning of this century.

His strongest evidence was that the coastlines of Africa and South America nearly fit together and that the same kind of fossils were found in each. However this theory was not generally accepted until the 1960's. 

1,Permian/Triassic 230 million years ago

2,Jurassic/Cretaceous 140 million years ago

3,Tertiary 65 million years ago

4,Quaternary Present Day

In the Permian and Triassic Era, about 230 million years ago, all the continents moved towards each other and formed a super continent which Wegener named 'Pangaea'. Later by the time of Dinosaurs, about 140 million years ago, the super continent split up into what was to become todays continents. The south Atlantic opened up, While India, Which infact is a continent of its own moved northwards and collided with Asia forming the Himalayas, Australia and the Antartic were attached for a longer time.

Structure of Earth

Built up in layers. The main part of the earth is fluid Mantle, consisting of silicates. In volcanic eruptions this viscous material is recognized as Magma. The core is mainly made up of iron, and despite the higher temperature (about 5000 degree Celsius) it is solid due to the high pressure about 3-5 million atmospheres. The surface layer is called Crust and is only some 5-15 km, 3-9 miles thick. It consists of rigid plates that move because of the currents in the mantle.