AHSAN DILEEP ROLL NO:2 S3 MBA

About
The troposphere has a direct contact with the Earth's

surface. It is sensitive to processes occurring At this level, the evaporation of oceans, photosynthesis in plants, respiration of living creatures and human activities occurs. The troposphere is protected from the hard ultraviolet radiation of the Sun by the higher layers of the atmosphere, namely by the stratospheric ozone layer. This protection makes life possible on Earth.

Trace gases
These are the gases seen higher up in the atmosphere.
These gases that play an important role on the

chemical composition of the troposphere And these are present in very small amounts. The most important among these gases are water vapour and carbon dioxide.

Table showing Trace gases

H2O CO2
CH4

water vapour carbon dioxide

methane

0.0001 - 0.01 360 ppm

1.7 ppm

N2O
CO O3 SO4

dinitrogen oxide
carbon monoxide ozone sulphate

310 ppb
50-500 ppb 10-80 ppb 20 ppt - 2 ppb

NO2
OH

nitrogen dioxide
hydroxyl radical

1 ppt - 10 ppb
0.01-0.1 ppt

 The basic principles of the water cycle are well known:

Evaporation of liquid water at the surface, condensation, cloud formation, and rainfall. The average residence time of water vapour in the atmosphere is of ten days, which is very short. This causes the large differences in the amounts of water vapour (and so rainfall) occurring between different places on Earth. It plays a large role in the oxidation of several atmospheric compounds.

 Carbon dioxide (CO2) has a very long life span in the

atmosphere . Its mixing ratio is almost homogeneous in the troposphere and the stratosphere. The presence of carbon dioxide is strongly linked to life on Earth. CO2 is actually necessary for plant growth, since the carbon in plants and animals originates exclusively from atmospheric CO2. The main source of atmospheric CO2 is the microbial degradation of organic material, human activities also influence the concentration of carbon dioxide. CO2 is also not chemically active.

FACTS.
The driving forces behind this chemistry is solar

radiation, in particular in the near ultra-violet (UV-A and UV-B) and to a lower extent also in the visible range. Solar radiation can indeed "break up" (dissociate) chemical molecules. The troposphere is protected from the hardest ultraviolet radiation by the stratospheric ozone layer. In spite of this efficient filtering of harmful UV radiation, solar radiation still can break up, for example, ozone and nitrogen dioxide molecules in the troposphere.

 These dissociation processes initiate a complex series

of chemical reactions, leading for example to the production of radicals like the hydroxyl radical (OH). This radical plays a determining role, since it is responsible for the oxidation of many gases emitted at the Earth's surface that would otherwise accumulate in the troposphere. One says that the hydroxyl radical is the "cleansing agent" of the atmosphere.