A new study shows that climate change has caused the earth’s atmosphere and oceans to expand, and this could impact the global health.
According to the National Center for Atmospheric Research, the atmospheric layer at its lowest point, the troposphere (or the low level), has increased by approximately 174 feet each decade, between 2001 and 2020.
Although it is not yet clear how an increasing tropopause could impact planet’s climate and weather, Live Science says that planes may fly higher in order to avoid turbulence.
According to a statement the expansion of troposphere depends on warming temperatures. This is why it is so important.
A new study has found that climate change is making the Earth’s atmosphere swell.
Based on temperature and season, the upper troposphere region, also known as the Tropopause, becomes smaller.
Between 2001 and 2020, the troposphere grew by averaging 174 feet each decade. Intensification was approximately 164 feet every decade between 1980-2000
The release said that this was an unambiguous indication of changing atmospheric structure. Bill Randel, co-author and scientist at Boulder’s National Center for Atmospheric Research, wrote the statement.
“These results, together with other evidence of climate changes, provide independent confirmation that greenhouse gasses are altering the atmosphere.”
To arrive at their conclusions, the researchers looked at weather balloon data in the Northern Hemisphere over the last 40 years.
The Tropopause is the lower region of the troposphere that shrinks with increasing temperatures.
As temperatures rise due to increased greenhouse gas emissions, there is more heat trapped in the atmosphere, and the troposphere expands.
It is happening faster than ever before. In the decade 1980-2000, expansion averaged 164 feet.
Because it extends approximately 5 to 10 miles from the surface of Earth at the poles, the troposphere is vital.
There were a couple of natural events in the 1980s and the large El Niño effect of 1997 and 1998 that caused a ‘global warming hiatus,’ but human activity is responsible for 80 percent of the increase in the atmosphere.
Researchers note that the stratosphere is losing its ozone, as a consequence of climate change.
Randel explained that Randel’s study captured two crucial ways humans have been changing the atmosphere.
“The rise of the tropopause is affected more by the emissions of greenhouse gases, even though societies have successfully stabilized conditions in the stratosphere through the limitation of ozone-destroying chemical.”
In November, a separate study suggested that Earth’s ‘vital signs’ have taken a turn for the worse, as greenhouse gas emissions, particularly methane, continue to rise.
Science Advances has published this study in its earlier issue.
The greenhouse gas emissions of methane, especially (pictured in orange), continue to rise.
Although it is not yet clear how an increasing tropopause could impact planet’s climate and weather, there are some possibilities that planes will fly higher to avoid any turbulence.
Researchers analyzed meteorological data from the Northern Hemisphere over the last 40 years.