Sunday, January 24, 2010

Composition

Air is mainly composed of nitrogen, oxygen, and argon, which together constitute the "major gases" of the atmosphere. The remaining gases often are referred to as "trace gases,"


Composition of Earth's atmosphere as at Dec. 1987. The lower pie represents the trace gases which together compose 0.038% of the atmosphere. Values normalized for illustration.

among which are the greenhouse gases such as water vapor, carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, and ozone. Filtered air includes trace amounts of many other chemical compounds. Many natural substances may be present in tiny amounts in an unfiltered air sample, including dust, pollen and spores, sea spray, volcanic ash, and meteoroids. Various industrial pollutants also may be present, such as chlorine (elementary or in compounds), fluorine (in compounds), elemental mercury, and sulfur (in compounds such as sulfur dioxide [SO2])


Mean atmospheric water vapor
Composition of dry atmosphere, by volume[2]
ppmv: parts per million by volume (note: volume fraction is equal to mole fraction for ideal gas only, see Gas volume#Partial volume)
Gas Volume
Nitrogen (N2) 780,840 ppmv (78.084%)
Oxygen (O2) 209,460 ppmv (20.946%)
Argon (Ar) 9,340 ppmv (0.9340%)
Carbon dioxide (CO2) 387 ppmv (0.0387%)
Neon (Ne) 18.18 ppmv (0.001818%)
Helium (He) 5.24 ppmv (0.000524%)
Methane (CH4) 1.79 ppmv (0.000179%)
Krypton (Kr) 1.14 ppmv (0.000114%)
Hydrogen (H2) 0.55 ppmv (0.000055%)
Nitrous oxide (N2O) 0.3 ppmv (0.00003%)
Xenon (Xe) 0.09 ppmv (9x10−6%)
Ozone (O3) 0.0 to 0.07 ppmv (0% to 7x10−6%)
Nitrogen dioxide (NO2) 0.02 ppmv (2x10−6%)
Iodine (I) 0.01 ppmv (1x10−6%)
Carbon monoxide (CO) 0.1 ppmv
Ammonia (NH3) trace
Not included in above dry atmosphere:
Water vapor (H2O) ~0.40% over full atmosphere, typically 1%-4% at surface

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