Abstract
For his presidential address before the Royal Meteorological Society, on February 15, Prof. S. Chapman took as his subject, “Atoms, Molecules and the Atmosphere”. While the molecular constitution of air can be ignored in considering most meteorological problems of the lower atmosphere, it is of great importance for the phenomena of the upper atmosphere. The remarkable advances made in recent years in our knowledge of the intimate constitution of matter bear closely on many problems of upper-atmospheric physics. For this reason a broad summary of modern views on atomic and molecular structure was given, bearing on their states of excitation, ionisation, and dissociation, on the spectra that they emit, and on the effects of impacts between particles of various kinds, electrons, atoms, molecules and ions. Brief mention was made of some atmospheric phenomena in which such considerations are of importance?the spectra of the aurora, and of absorption bands produced by oxygen, ozone, and water; the dissociation of oxygen in the upper atmosphere; and the ionisation of the upper air.
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Atoms, Molecules and the Atmosphere. Nature 131, 271 (1933). https://doi.org/10.1038/131271c0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/131271c0