For the purposes of this interrogation , I ’m move to assume that “ truly transparent ” means that air and its element are no longer able to absorb and re - radiate incident radiation sickness , which in visible light seems to be our definition of transparency . To make thing much more fun , let ’s make this reliable over all wavelengths .
In this situation most phenomena associated with incident light and other forms of radiation ’s interactions with the atmosphere cease . Rayleigh scattering no longer reach the sky blue ; instead , it is black as nighttime all the metre . The moon would be seeable at all times . Because of the lack of Rayleigh scattering , there would also be no diffuse solar radiation ( at least from the aura ) , and the sun would be the same color no matter what its emplacement on the horizon ( unlike now , when the colour of the sun to an observer depends on the distance through the atmosphere that the light blow over through ) . shadow would be sharp due to the deficiency of diffuse radiation and any light not like a shot incident from the sunlight would come from refract light off of objects on the ground or lechatelierite in the gentle wind .
address of light incident from the sun , a want of an atmosphere also mean a lack of deflection . If in this earth ( wo)man require to do some stargazing , he would have as clear of a sky as Hubble does – at least , as long as there are no cloud .
The overall effect , visually , is the same as if we were look out from a place where there is no atmosphere . Where have we done that before ?
The composition of the Earth ’s atmosphere and the statistical distribution of element would be unlike . There would be changes in overall opus due to the changes in temperature slope ( see below ) . Since the atmosphere would not be able of absorbing incident irradiation , the ionosphere as we know it would not exist . Tritium would still be make – assuming that the aura could still intercept subatomic particle even if it could not absorb radiated zip – but at the same clock time the ionization of the upper layers of the ambiance would not come . In this type of world , wireless propagation due to refraction from the atmosphere would not fall out ; the first aspiring HAMs of the world would have to rely on either tropospheric phenomenon triggered by clouds , line of lot , or satellites .
More significantly for life-time , since the Earth would no longer have the protection of the ozone layer the amount of incident UV radiation as a proportion of full radiotherapy would be drastically gamey . Life has found ways to protect itself from high levels of incident radiation sickness , let in melanin production and multiple copies of genomes . It seems potential that any course of works or animal life history that existed would also have this case of adaptation along with other types of seaworthiness - heighten trait such as those get wind in radiation - tolerant extremophiles .
Most significantly , however , the effect of do the atmosphere all vapourous would fundamentally change the type of the Earth ’s atmosphere and the temperature visibility of the atmosphere by removing the atmospherical components from the solar energy counterbalance . Let me explain :
In our current situation , the temperature of the aura variegate with height because a good portion of sunstroke – about 25 % – is absorbed by the standard pressure at varying degree ( about 6 % is reflected by the atmosphere , 45 % draw by the ground , and 5 % reflected by the ground ) . Suddenly , the only seed of warmth for the atmosphere is the ground through convection , which is then itself transferred to the rest of the atmospheric state by thermal . I ca n’t even commence to comprehend what this would do to weather systems , except probably strongly promote systems of very high and very crushed pressure with attendant hurriedness expectations ( as far as I can tell , clouds would be unaffected except that they might ironically be the only author of disjointed light ) .
The net result of the change in heat transferral to the atmosphere make the temperature slope near linearly decreasing with height ( assuming that no unpassable stratum shape ) . The composition of the gas would change as sublimation or condensation point are reach . At the upper level of the ambiance we might see carbon dioxide crystal ; at the very bottom , thing would be much hotter – not least because of what would also be happening to the ground .
I ’m no climatologist / geologist / atmospherical scientist , but what I do know is that pretend the ambience crystal clear would greatly increase the incident radiation to the footing . Since all warmth transfer formerly charm by the atmosphere would take property at the surface , incident radiation there would be higher , but temperature … not so much ( see below ) . Temperature differences due to occlusion of the sun or differences in heat capacity would labor particularly violent air current on a regular basis ; mean about the “ ocean breeze ” consequence , multiplied by several meter the temperature divergence , or the difference in temperature between shadow and illume domain .
The last effect of a gauzy atmosphere in this pillowcase would almost sure be to make thing in that air much nerveless than before , despite increase heliotherapy . Most objects on Earth human action as decorous blackbody radiator for certain wavelength , and the rate of radiative heat carry-over is nonlinear and increasing with respect to temperature ( proportional to T^4 for an idealistic blackbody ) . So re - radioactivity to space would be up – and the footing a draw brighter . However , overall temperatures would be blue in the ambiance and on the surface because full heat transfer to the Earth itself would be lower , given that the air is neither there to suck the incident radiation or the Earth ’s re - radiation into outer space . But that ’s expected , though , since what making the atmosphere gossamer in effect does is dispatch the nursery effect . The fair temperature of the Earth will drop by at least about 10 degrees C , probably more .
So , what might the world look like ? The earth would be a much codler , violently windy place , with sinister sky and ground alternately blindingly lit or in inky-black duskiness . In a more likely scenario , runaway albedo effect on top of the already existing drop in temperature might stimulate the Earth to become a snowball since the albedo of ice would be that much more pregnant in a world where heat absorption from actinotherapy incident on the surface is that important . In a few places open fluent water system might live due to geothermal sources of heat .
Surprisingly enough , there are theories of abiogenesis that posit the formation of life-time in ice from constituent molecules , ammonia water , and nitrile , or some other cocktail of factor , so it ’s not too much to suggest that life could have make in this type of environment . However , overall the amount of total biomass that the planet would be able-bodied to support would have been little from the starting time , and phylogeny correspondingly slower – not to observe the fact that metabolic cognitive process ( and thus replication ) is much slower at depleted temperature .
Perhaps today we might only still be a humans of primitive copier or prokaryotes , still choke through the equivalent weight of our earthly concern ’s first billion geezerhood of evolution , having not progressed even to the enfeeblement of our early oceans ’ chemotrophic sources of electron acceptor . Or perhaps the earthly concern might have radically change due to some unknown cataclysm – perhaps a meteor ’s flung particulates finally sealing the lot of the few sources of open water result … or shower heating plant - absorb black ash on the open sparkler , decreasing albedo , warming the climate and giving life a fighting chance .
Image : Shutterstock / Artem Loskutnikov
This postwas republished with permission fromJosh Velson , a chemical substance technology adviser for bio and petrochemicals . It originallyappeared on Quora .
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