Talk:Atmosphere of Earth

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 7 January 2019 and 9 April 2019. Further details are available on the course page. Peer reviewers: GERVAIM.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 14:56, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 19 February 2022

Citation needed requires source addition for the main section: https://www.nationalgeographic.org/encyclopedia/atmosphere/. 2001:4452:490:6900:15FD:E0D6:766:B51B (talk) 00:00, 20 February 2022 (UTC)

 Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. Dawnseeker2000 00:47, 20 February 2022 (UTC)

Mass percentages

Recently I wanted the mass of nitrogen in a certain mass of air, so I went to Air, which redirects to this article, to get the answer. But the article doesn't have it. It gives the molar percentages: 78.08% N₂, 20.95% O₂, 0.93% A, and 0.04% CO₂. That means, multiplying by the molecular or atomic weights, that in 100 moles of air, there is:

78.08×28.014=2187  g N2
20.95×31.998=670.4 g O2
 0.93×39.95 = 37   g A
 0.04×44.009=  1.8 g CO2

for a total of 2897 g. This gives

2187 /2897 = 75.51% N2
670.4/2897 = 23.14% O2
   37/2897 = 1.28% A
  1.8/2897 = 0.06% CO2

Is that a routine calculation so that we can put those mass percentages into the article? That would help people like me who need the mass fraction. Or is it "original research"? I think any chemical engineer would agree that this is not research, let alone original, but rather a trivial routine calculation. Eric Kvaalen (talk) 18:25, 15 October 2022 (UTC)

I'm the one who reverted the edit. The general principle in Wikipedia is that everything in the articles must come from a citation. If the article doesn't say what you write, you cannot include it. He's taking a source with one piece of information, coupling it with information from somewhere else unspecified, doing calculations on it, and putting numbers into the article which ARE NOT given in the source cited. That's WP:OR or WP:SYNTH. There is a policy WP:CALC which allows making routine calculations. It specifies: Basic arithmetic, such as adding numbers, converting units, or calculating a person's age, is almost always permissible.. That's different than merging multiple sources, none of which specify the numbers he enters into the article. As an engineer, I can probably reverse-engineer his calculations to verify their accuracy, but the point is policy prohibits this. This is a long-term conflict I have with this editor - it seems that's most of what he does, fiddle with numbers and come up with conclusions which are not present in the cited material. He has made arithmetic errors in the past, producing numbers which are garbage - not only is it a waste of time to be checking them and trying to figure out where his errors are introduced, they are (again) prohibited by policy. Tarl N. (discuss) 22:49, 17 October 2022 (UTC)

It's true that Tarl has reverted many of my edits over the past five years. The other day on my talk page I said that I think he's persecuting me, and he replied "Yes, indeed" and gave the same sort of justification as he has here. I do remember making a sign error once on a Talk page when I was in a hurry, but I don't think I made any other mistakes. Our disagreements concern what constitutes routine math and whether one can put obviously true statements into an article without an explicit reference. This article, on air, is a case in point. I would still like the opinion of others on this question of whether we can calculate the mass percentages of the components of air and put them into this article. Eric Kvaalen (talk) 05:12, 19 October 2022 (UTC)

For the record, my Yes, indeed was intended to mean "Yes, indeed, I assume you think I'm persecuting you."

• For this particular issue, there are a variety of dispute resolution mechanisms, which you should already know about given how long you have been doing this (see WP:DR). The main ones are WP:DRN and WP:3O, the former being a formal noticeboard and will get higher visibility.
• If you think my conduct is unacceptable, the proper venue is WP:ANI (sometimes known as dramaboard). Discussion in that venue is directed at getting editors banned. If you think that's the appropriate remedy, go there. Just read WP:BOOMERANG first.

For other editors, allow me to amplify my comments on making calculations and putting results into a Wikipedia article:

• Every change made is reviewed by other editors. Often by many other editors.
• If you make changes which are not easily traceable to specific text in a cited reference, that makes life difficult for reviewers. IT WASTES THEIR TIME.
• The policy in WP:CALC is very simple, only three lines long, and not particularly ambiguous.
• When making such calculations, to be able to verify them, the reviewer must know the source of ALL numbers, AND the precision of each, to determine whether the precision provided is meaningful (see MOS:UNCERTAINTY). The numbers were given to four decimals - is the result really precise to one part in 10,000? That level of complication is why WP:OR and WP:SYNTH essentially prohibit making complicated calculations and stuffing them into articles.
• The change above referred to by the OP suffered from not only these problems, but also didn't even make a pretence of providing a citation - it simply dumped raw numbers into the text without any citation. Such text is subject to being deleted without question, since it doesn't meet WP:V.

Regards, Tarl N. (discuss) 21:07, 19 October 2022 (UTC)

Conversions from mole % to mass % are routine. Period. My heart is warmed knowing that Tarl might be able to do such a complicated calculation. I know my middle school kids were doing them, so gosh, a real engineer doing them would be something! I see absolutely nothing wrong with conversions of that nature. There is a slight difference in the atomic weights of the elements as generally recognized and their values for the gases in Earth's atmosphere (isotopic ratios aren't quite the same), but the difference is slight. More interesting, as of July 8, 2024 the article claims the atmosphere is 0.03% CO2. The Mauna Loa value surpassed 0.035 (mean) before 1990, and by 2000 CE was nearly 0.037. Now, I'm no engineer, but I think 0.037 (or it's current value of ~0.042) doesn't round to 0.03. But maybe I should check with an expert like Tarl or find a specific citation that 424 ppm (current non-adjusted [sic] value ) rounds to 0.04%98.17.181.251 (talk) 18:26, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 9 March 2023

Add an "a" to the first picture's caption "(the Moon is visible as a crescent in the far background).[1]" Tricky879 (talk) 03:40, 9 March 2023 (UTC)

 Done Lightoil (talk) 03:59, 9 March 2023 (UTC)

Why do we keep the same article on both Air and the atmosphere?

This is equivalent to redirecting "Life" to "Metabolism". Hist4ian (talk) 22:56, 11 March 2023 (UTC)

We don't. Since at least 2006, Air hasn't had it's own article, and has simply been a redirect to this article. --OuroborosCobra (talk) 18:27, 12 March 2023 (UTC)

Why should we keep doing this? Air is a different thing then the atmosphere. Sure the atmosphere might be made of air, but its like if Wood was a redirect to Tree. 2007Gtbot (talk) 19:02, 2 May 2023 (UTC)

I agree that air makes up the atmosphere. I suspect it's more equivalent to molecules making up a tree, but that doesn't matter.

I'm not sure what is quite the difference when used in language. I think "atmosphere" is normally used when referring to air in the context of the full atmosphere. I think an "atmosphere" probably requires a planet or body of mass to form the air into some sort of structure, but I'm not sure about that.

Meanwhile, I think we use "air" more in the context of human-scale and be referring to more localised properties of the air. We might refer to polluted air or polluted atmosphere, but polluted air probably refers to a localised pollution, where as polluted atmosphere is referring to a larger scale characteristic.

The above discussion is to try and help think what would be different on a "Air" vs "Atmosphere" wiki page. It is just a start. Until we can define would be different, how we would separate content, then it would seem that separate pages are not warranted? DecFinney (talk) 09:03, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

Does "Air" really only relate to the atmosphere on Earth? I've not thought about it before, but I would have thought one could refer to the air on Mars, for instance. In which Air is more related to the "Atmosphere" page than the "Atmosphere of Earth" page. DecFinney (talk) 09:08, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

there are several threads on this below which should perhaps be merged. DecFinney (talk) 09:10, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 18 March 2023

Was just perusing this entry when I noticed that in the second sentence it says "The atmosphere of Earth creates pressure, absorbs most metroids and ultraviolet solar radiation, [...]"

Metroids?

I tried to fix it but I'm still really new to wikipedia and I'm honestly not sure what it was before. I tried looking in the revisions history but didn't see any obvious troll edits. 2600:100F:A104:F7B3:9D08:4B19:9B:1844 (talk) 06:17, 19 March 2023 (UTC)

Fixed. It was probably an epic typo, but quite the funny one. It was most likely meteoroids. --OuroborosCobra (talk) 14:43, 20 March 2023 (UTC)

Collapsed table

The table at Atmosphere of Earth#Tabulated properties is collapsed by default, which looks enigmatic. And the show link is in the Bulk modulus heading cell, so it's not obvious that this link applies to the whole table. Most Wikipedia editors probably know about it but many readers would not.

So for these two reasons I don't think the table should be collapsed by default. Andrewa (talk) 04:33, 15 April 2023 (UTC)

Time flies, it's been a week and no comment so I have uncollapsed the table as proposed. Andrewa (talk) 20:18, 23 April 2023 (UTC)

@Andrewa Sorry for your inconvenience.

I am apologetic. Shibodh Singh (talk) 15:28, 31 May 2023 (UTC)

We are a team. No apology required. Andrewa (talk) 01:17, 2 June 2023 (UTC)

And Shibodh_Singh (new but recently very active editor) has now thanked me for the edit (thank you)... any other comments? I think we can move on. Andrewa (talk) 20:24, 21 May 2023 (UTC)

@Andrewa Sorry for late reply. Shibodh Singh (talk) 15:26, 31 May 2023 (UTC)

Again, no apology required. We are volunteers. There are no agreed objectives that good faith editors need to meet. Andrewa (talk) 01:18, 2 June 2023 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 16 April 2023

"add some more detailed information about the presure of the air" 123iphonex (talk) 20:50, 16 April 2023 (UTC)

 Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. JTP ^{(talk • contribs)} 21:54, 16 April 2023 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 5 May 2023: URL changed for source 39

The url of source 39 has changed from

http://www.centennialofflight.gov/essay/Theories_of_Flight/atmosphere/TH1G1.htm

to

https://www.centennialofflight.net/essay/Theories_of_Flight/atmosphere/TH1G1.htm

the .gov address is no longer reachable EntropyExplorer (talk) 14:26, 5 May 2023 (UTC)

 Done Callmemirela 🍁 14:53, 5 May 2023 (UTC)

Split Air into its own page

Air should not be a redirect to this page. The atmosphere of Earth is merely just made of air (among other things). Also, not all air is even in the atmosphere of Earth. 2007Gtbot (talk) 03:41, 28 July 2023 (UTC)

You could propose to split the topic, suggesting specific sections or content for each page. Or you could draft a new page with new content if you have new sources to reference. But better would be to make this page clearer and more complete. In general we have too many small pages. Johnjbarton (talk) 13:53, 28 July 2023 (UTC)

Why are Air and Earth's Atmosphere considered the same?

Moved from Wikipedia:Village pump (miscellaneous)

Why is air considered to be no different than the atmosphere when the atmosphere is simply just made of air? Why do they share a page? 2007GabrielT (talk) 17:33, 30 September 2023 (UTC)

This isn't really a VPM question, but I'll try to answer it anyways. @2007GabrielT: Air redirects to Atmosphere of Earth, because, as you say, the content of the atmosphere is air. The atmosphere of Earth is the layer of gases, known collectively as air, Edward-Woodrow • talk 17:43, 30 September 2023 (UTC

When I saw this I was at first a bit surprised, but then I realised that the modern accepted definition of air is simply the stuff that makes up the atmosphere, so the redirect makes sense. There are plenty of links to other topics, such as Air (classical element) and Air (music) at Air (disambiguation) which is linked from Atmosphere of Earth. Phil Bridger (talk) 19:38, 30 September 2023 (UTC)

If you use "air" outside of Earth's general atmosphere, how would you be able to define its chemical composition? Vacosea (talk) 11:10, 6 June 2024 (UTC)

Geography

why the atmosphere can only found around the earth 41.116.251.208 (talk) 13:21, 4 February 2024 (UTC)

See Atmosphere for other planets. Johnjbarton (talk) 16:47, 4 February 2024 (UTC)

Graphic for the molecular composition wrong and not properly cited.

The graphic showing the relative concentrations of gasses in the atmosphere has a significant x axis error and is likely not from a legitimate scientific source. The concentration of O appears to start increasing at about 100 km above the surface, however the ozone layer, which is where O is most concentrated, is localized to the stratosphere as indicated by the text in the article. Humanscribblebot (talk) 05:07, 20 February 2024 (UTC)

I changed the caption to match the Commons file description. The mode cited only works above 85km per the web site linked in the new caption.

With an SVG editor the image could be corrected to omit the lines below 85km.

Is this edit sufficient? Verifying the numerical values would not be trivial. The UK site gives a table or file of values but they are not normalized to volume fraction. Johnjbarton (talk) 17:07, 20 February 2024 (UTC)

Wiki Education assignment: English Composition 1102 085

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 4 March 2024 and 2 May 2024. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Jgleana (article contribs).

— Assignment last updated by Jgleana (talk) 16:24, 4 April 2024 (UTC)

Original research footnote.

There was a long footnote in the introduction. The footnote cross analyzes sources, implying by its text that some sources are incorrect, eg "total compositions...that exceed 100%". Such analysis should be itself cited in a reliable reference. The total composition might exceed or miss 100% for many reasons; if this is notable it should be discussed in the article and possibly mentioned in the intro. Alternatively the different sources could be cited and compared with neutral language. Again this comparison belongs in the article proper, not hidden in a footnote. Impugning sources does not belong in footnotes.

I checked the values in the intro against the first ref and used it. We could discuss choosing different one but honestly any one of these values is just fine.

There are important issues in the historic trends in atmospheric composition which can be addressed directly. A simple statement of the major components in the intro is a baseline for such discussion.

Here is the text of the footnote.

• Two recent reliable sources cited here have total atmospheric compositions, including trace molecules, that exceed 100%. They are Allen's Astrophysical Quantities (2000, 100.001241343%) and CRC Handbook of Chemistry and Physics (2016–2017, 100.004667%), which cites Allen's Astrophysical Quantities. Both are used as references in this article. Both exceed 100% because their CO₂ values were increased to 345 ppmv, without changing their other constituents to compensate. This is made worse by the April 2019 CO₂ value, which is 413.32 ppmv. Although minor, the January 2019 value for CH₄ is 1866.1 ppbv (parts per billion). Two older reliable sources have dry atmospheric compositions, including trace molecules, that total less than 100%: U.S. Standard Atmosphere, 1976 (99.9997147%); and Astrophysical Quantities (1976, 99.9999357%).}}

References

Johnjbarton (talk) 02:03, 19 June 2024 (UTC)

Table "Major constituents of air, by mole fraction" improperly referenced.

The table "Major constituents of air, by mole fraction" is not verifiable. The reference given is not something that another editor or a reader can use to verify the content. Rather it amounts to an essay on sources related to composition. The relative values and merits of atmospheric references may or may not be a notable topic, but the table needs a verifiable source. For the purposes of this table, the fact that the total is off by 0.001241343% is completely irrelevant.

The reference at the top reads:

• Two recent reliable sources cited here have total atmospheric compositions, including trace molecules, that exceed 100%. They are Allen's Astrophysical Quantities (2000, 100.001241343%) and CRC Handbook of Chemistry and Physics (2016–2017, 100.004667%), which cites Allen's Astrophysical Quantities. Both are used as references in this article. Both exceed 100% because their CO₂ values were increased to 345 ppmv, without changing their other constituents to compensate. This is made worse by the April 2019 CO₂ value, which is 413.32 ppmv. Although minor, the January 2019 value for CH₄ is 1866.1 ppbv (parts per billion). Two older reliable sources have dry atmospheric compositions, including trace molecules, that total less than 100%: U.S. Standard Atmosphere, 1976 (99.9997147%); and Astrophysical Quantities (1976, 99.9999357%).

References

Johnjbarton (talk) 03:36, 19 June 2024 (UTC)

Collision with Theia stated as a fact

The first atmosphere section under the evolution heading should be phrased in such a way that makes it clear that the collision with Theia is an hypothesis. 49.180.221.74 (talk) 23:33, 2 September 2024 (UTC)

"NASA" should be interlinked

Hey, I am just an amateur wikipedia editor but it seems to me that the mention of NASA in the section "Images from space" should come with a link to the article on NASA. This is the only time NASA is mentioned in the page, there is an external link there but of course we can't just mention NASA without explaining what it is. 132.76.10.42 (talk) 15:10, 12 November 2024 (UTC)

I did more than link NASA. I removed the entire section as it is a violation of WP:GALLERY. There are a good amount of pictures of Earth's atmosphere from space as well as a good cross section of it, so I did not see a purpose of keeping it. _ZZ^Z'S 15:17, 12 November 2024 (UTC)

Error in second paragraph

The second reference on the reference list does not feature any exact figures for the height of the breathable air layer; even though it is mentioned and cited at the end of the second paragraph.

"Within the atmosphere, air suitable for use in photosynthesis by terrestrial plants and respiration of terrestrial animals is found only within 12 kilometres (7.5 mi) from the ground." Externalise (talk) 10:49, 26 December 2024 (UTC)