Читать книгу Weather For Dummies - John D. Cox - Страница 66

The atmosphere, the weather’s home, begins at the tip of your toes and extends some 80 miles up, more or less. That may sound like a pretty deep sky, but relative to the size of the Earth, its thickness is less than a rind on an orange. And the layer of atmosphere where all the weather takes place is much thinner still — only about 10 miles thick — more like the skin on a peach. Only this skimpy layer, this peach fuzz, contains enough of the ingredients in the right proportion that you and I need to breathe. Does it strike you as odd, by the way, that people so seldom give this vital substance much thought? Go figure. So what exactly is this atmosphere — this precious stuff called air?