Reference Terms
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Earth's atmosphere
Earth's atmosphere is a layer of gases surrounding the planet Earth and retained by the Earth's gravity. It contains roughly 78% nitrogen and 21% oxygen 0.97% argon and carbon dioxide 0.04% trace amounts of other gases, and water vapor. This mixture of gases is commonly known as air. The atmosphere protects life on Earth by absorbing ultraviolet solar radiation and reducing temperature extremes between day and night.
The atmosphere has no abrupt cut-off. It slowly becomes thinner and fades away into space. There is no definite boundary between the atmosphere and outer space. Three-quarters of the atmosphere's mass is within 11 km of the planetary surface..
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Earth & Climate News
June 9, 2025
June 9, 2025 — For millions of years, large herbivores like mastodons and giant deer shaped the Earth's ecosystems, which astonishingly stayed stable despite extinctions and upheavals. A new study reveals that only twice in 60 million years did environmental ...
June 8, 2025 — Beneath Earth s surface, nearly 3,000 kilometers down, lies a mysterious layer where seismic waves speed up inexplicably. For decades, scientists puzzled over this D" layer. Now, groundbreaking ...
June 8, 2025 — In a world where over a billion smartphones are produced yearly, a team of researchers is flipping the script on electronic waste. Instead of tossing out older phones, they ve demonstrated a groundbreaking approach: turning outdated smartphones into ...
June 7, 2025 — Scientists have built a lab model that visually tracks how microscopic contact points between fault surfaces evolve during earthquake cycles, revealing the hidden mechanics behind both the slow ...
June 6, 2025 — Frogs, salamanders, and other amphibians are not just battling habitat loss and pollution they're now also contending with increasingly brutal heat waves and droughts. A sweeping 40-year study shows a direct link between the rise in extreme weather ...
June 3, 2025 — Researchers found telehealth visits can improve care for cats with feline ...
June 3, 2025 — New research demonstrates that with collaboration between stakeholders, Australia can fully decarbonize its domestic and energy export economies by 2060 -- a feat requiring $6.2 trillion USD and ...
June 3, 2025 — To satisfy the seafood needs of billions of people, offering them access to a more biodiverse array of fish creates opportunities to mix-and-match species to obtain better nutrition from smaller ...
June 3, 2025 — A new study found exposure to specific tiny particles in air pollution during pregnancy are associated with increased risk of various negative birth ...
June 3, 2025 — A new study details processes that keep pollutants aloft despite a drop in ...
June 3, 2025 — Researchers asked patients, some of whom had experienced lower back pain for up to 40 years, if being in nature helped them coped better with their lower back pain. They found that people able to ...
June 3, 2025 — Collapse of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet could be triggered with very little ocean warming above present-day, leading to a devastating four meters of global sea level rise to play out over hundreds ...
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June 3, 2025 — A new study has finally confirmed the theory that the cause of extraordinary global tremors in September -- October 2023 was indeed two mega tsunamis in Greenland that became trapped standing waves. ...
June 3, 2025 — Environmental DNA from the air, captured with simple air filters, can track everything from illegal drugs to the wildlife it was originally designed to ...
June 2, 2025 — Electronics often get thrown away after use because recycling them requires extensive work for little payoff. Researchers have now found a way to change the ...
June 2, 2025 — New research adds to our understanding of how rapidly rising sea levels due to climate change foreshadow the end of the Great Barrier Reef as we know it. The findings suggest the reef can withstand ...
June 2, 2025 — Global warming is continuously advancing. How quickly this will happen can now be predicted more accurately than ever before, thanks to a method ...
June 2, 2025 — Flooding in coastal communities is happening far more often than previously thought, according to a new study. The study also found major flaws with the widely used approach of using marine water ...
June 2, 2025 — Some microbes living on sand grains use up all the oxygen around them. Their neighbors, left without oxygen, make the best of it: They use nitrate in the surrounding water for denitrification -- a ...
June 2, 2025 — Researchers have developed a deep learning model called LSTM-SAM that predicts extreme water levels from tropical cyclones more efficiently and accurately, especially in data-scarce coastal regions, ...
June 2, 2025 — California Central Valley, which is known for the agriculture that produces much of the nation's fruits, vegetables and nuts, is a major contributor to a growing dust problem that has profound ...
June 2, 2025 — New research shows that the presence of solar panels in Colorado's grasslands may reduce water stress, improve soil moisture levels and -- particularly during dry years -- increase plant growth by ...