Questions: 1. The smoke plume from the West Coast forest fires of 2020 stretches 50,000 ft up from the surface of the earth. a. Use the measurements for each level of the atmosphere shown on the y-axis in km on this NASA graph to identify which layer of the atmosphere the smoke level has reached (troposphere, stratosphere, etc.). Show your calculations to back up your conclusion. b. If the Earth's atmosphere extends 3.0 x 10^2 miles up, how many ft would the plume need to reach to leave the atmosphere?

1. The smoke plume from the West Coast forest fires of 2020 stretches 50,000 ft up from the surface of the earth.
a. Use the measurements for each level of the atmosphere shown on the y-axis in km on this NASA graph to identify which layer of the atmosphere the smoke level has reached (troposphere, stratosphere, etc.). Show your calculations to back up your conclusion.
b. If the Earth's atmosphere extends 3.0 x 10^2 miles up, how many ft would the plume need to reach to leave the atmosphere?

Transcript text: 1. The smoke plume from the West Coast forest fires of 2020 stretches $50,000 \mathrm{ft}$ up from the surface of the earth. a. Use the measurements for each level of the atmosphere shown on the $y$-axis in km on this NASA graph to identify which layer of the atmosphere the smoke level has reached (troposphere, stratosphere, etc.). Show your calculations to back up your conclusion. b. If the Earth's atmosphere extends $3.0 \times 10^{2}$ miles up, how many ft would the plume need to reach to leave the atmosphere?

Solution

Solution Steps

Step 1: Convert the Smoke Plume Height to Kilometers

The smoke plume from the West Coast forest fires of 2020 stretches 50,000 feet up from the surface of the Earth. To determine which layer of the atmosphere the smoke has reached, we first need to convert this height from feet to kilometers.

1 foot is approximately 0.0003048 kilometers. Therefore, the height in kilometers is:

\[ 50,000 \, \text{ft} \times 0.0003048 \, \text{km/ft} = 15.24 \, \text{km} \]

Step 2: Identify the Atmospheric Layer

The layers of the atmosphere are generally defined as follows:

Troposphere: 0 to 12 km
Stratosphere: 12 to 50 km
Mesosphere: 50 to 85 km
Thermosphere: 85 km and above

Given that the smoke plume reaches 15.24 km, it is within the stratosphere.

Step 3: Convert the Earth's Atmosphere Height to Feet

The Earth's atmosphere extends 300 miles up. To find out how many feet the plume would need to reach to leave the atmosphere, we convert miles to feet.

1 mile is 5,280 feet. Therefore, the height in feet is:

\[ 300 \, \text{miles} \times 5,280 \, \text{ft/mile} = 1,584,000 \, \text{ft} \]