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Sam Houston State University (SHSU)
Industry: Education
Number of terms: 13055
Number of blossaries: 0
Company Profile:
Founded in 1879 and named after Texas' greatest hero General Sam Houston, Sam Houston State University is public shcool within the Texas state university system and located in Huntsville, Texas. It's a multicultural institution that offers 79 bachelorette degree programs, 54 masters and five ...
Laboratory technique used to measure the amount of light that is absorbed.
Industry:Chemistry; Weather
Light that spans the spectrum with wavelengths of 10 nm to 290 nm. These wavelengths of ultraviolet light are extremely dangerous to human and animal tissue and is totally absorbed in the stratosphere by ozone and molecular oxygen.
Industry:Chemistry; Weather
Living or acting in the absence of oxygen. Cellular respiration in the absence of oxygen.
Industry:Chemistry; Weather
Long wavelength solar radiation from the sun bounces off the Earth's surface or atmospheric gases as it is reflected back into the troposphere. In addition, shorter wavelengths of light are absorbed by the earth's surface and re-radiated to space in the IR. Thermal IR, and all IR, is invisible to the eye but can be felt with the skin.
Industry:Chemistry; Weather
Low altitude gray colored clouds composed of water droplets that have a patchy appearance. Each cloud patch consists of a rounded mass. This cloud has a somewhat uniform base and normally covers the entire sky. Between the patches blue sky can be seen.
Industry:Chemistry; Weather
Measurement unit for determining the total amount of ozone present in a vertical column of air above the surface of the earth. An air layer at atmospheric pressure of 1013 hPa and temperature of 298 K which measures 1 mm in thickness and is equivalent to 100 dobson units.
Industry:Chemistry; Weather
Mercury is a toxic heavy metal released into the atmosphere, most significantly, through the burning of coal in coal-fired power plants and from Hg-cell chloralkali plants where Hg acts as a flowing electrode used to reduce Na<sup>+</sup> to Na<sup>0</sup> in an amalgam. While levels of mercury in the atmosphere aren't directly toxic, mercury deposition into lakes and rivers leads to elevated levels of mercury in these organisms, which can eventually be transmitted to humans through the eating of fish and other organisms which bioaccumulate Hg and other toxic heavy metals. Long range transport has moved this element---released in combustion processes---to all of the continents on the planet. Mercury is methylated biochemically in the biosphere into a much more toxic form, methyl mercury, CH<sub>3</sub>HgX, where X can be variously -CH<sub>3</sub>, -OH, or -Cl or other halogens.
Industry:Chemistry; Weather
Microporus silicate or aluminosilicate structured minerals that can act as an absorbing filter or sieve on a molecular level. Mainly used by the petroleum industry for the cracking of petroleum or use as a filter against various compounds.
Industry:Chemistry; Weather
Molecular oxygen in the stratosphere is broken into a pair of oxygen radicals by light with a wavelength of 240 nanometers or less. If one of these O radicals encounters an oxygen molecule, it can bond to produce ozone. This reaction is only stable if another molecule is present to absorb the excess energy released as the oxygen radical and molecule bond. This is a called a three body reaction, and the third body exhibits its removal of the excess energy by whizzing off at a higher energy and thereby increasing the temperature of the atmosphere where this reaction occurs.
Industry:Chemistry; Weather
N<sub>2</sub>, a colorless, tasteless, odorless gas which makes up 78. 1% of the atmosphere. Atmospheric nitrogen is converted by nitrogen fixation and nitrification into compounds used by plants and animals. In the far upper atmosphere, N<sub>2</sub> is broken down when large numbers of energetic secondary electrons are produced and available to react with the N<sub>2</sub>. This leads to the eventual production of NO in that part of the atmosphere and is not--by definition--anthropogenic in nature.
Industry:Chemistry; Weather