Atmospheric Helium and its Escape

[Erasmus00]

Moderation note: This thread was created from posts moved from the thread Large Hadron Collider.

 

The other thing I'm exploring is adding helium to our atmosphere to reinforce the inert gas layer that, by my calculations, is MUCH thinner than it was 150 years ago. Perhaps dangerously thin. The problem is the shortage of the gas.

 

The other problem is that helium cannot be gravitationally bound by our fairly small planet and escapes into space. This is (of course) the reason that helium is in short supply.

-Will

[7DSUSYstrings]

A Hot Helium Plasma in the Galactic Center Region

 

ERASMUS,

 

What you stated about helium on our planet seems to appear an exageration. Most helium and other inert gases stay put. Naturally a small amount leaks into space, but the most is confined by the ionosphere. That upper hydrogen layer is the thickest band and its collective weight contains most other gases below it. If that were not true there would be no inert gas layer and a firey atmosphere burned out long ago.

 

Dr. C.

[Moontanman]

A Hot Helium Plasma in the Galactic Center Region

 

ERASMUS,

 

What you stated about helium on our planet seems to appear an exageration. Most helium and other inert gases stay put. Naturally a small amount leaks into space, but the most is confined by the ionosphere. That upper hydrogen layer is the thickest band and its collective weight contains most other gases below it. If that were not true there would be no inert gas layer and a firey atmosphere burned out long ago.

 

Dr. C.

 

No Dr. C. At the temperature of the Earth's atmosphere the helium atom moves faster than the Earths escape velocity, helium doesn't stay put, if it did our atmosphere would be primarily helium.

[7DSUSYstrings]

http://groups.msn.com/CLIMBINGOUTOFTHEBOX/earthscience.msnw?action=get_message&mview=0&ID_Message=35&all_topics=0

 

I disagree. 50% of the planets atmospheric mass is in the troposphere and the stratosphere contains somewhat less. Argon is the most abundant of the inert gases, but the helium still has a small list of other gases to collide with before it reaches escape. The point is not so much the content, but the easier ability to manufacture it to build a deeper layer.

[Moontanman]

CLIMBING OUT OF THE BOX

 

I disagree. 50% of the planets atmospheric mass is in the troposphere and the stratosphere contains somewhat less. Argon is the most abundant of the inert gases, but the helium still has a small list of other gases to collide with before it reaches escape. The point is not so much the content, but the easier ability to manufacture it to build a deeper layer.

 

Disagreement will not change the facts, helium escapes out atmosphere at a very high rate, if it wasn't being replenished by ground sources and the solar wind there wouldn't any in the Earths atmosphere at all. Isn't that link your own writing? A bit incestuous to use your own unsubstantiated ideas a proof don't you think? We cannot produce helium fast enough to appreciably affect the atmosphere.

[7DSUSYstrings]

Moontanman,

 

I say your "facts" are lacking in understanding. Where's your link to back up what you say are facts? In case you missed them, there were two links to the sacred "wiki" site backing up my argument. Two for the price of one is not deserving of your inane insult. If this is the way this board is heading I'll not waste my time.

Maybe you cannot produce helium fast enough to make a difference...:)... of course you seem to lack both imagination and understanding. Anyone can be a wiki-knowledge postulate; it takes a great deal of understanding to think outside the box... It takes some real imagination to create outside the box.

 

What I postulate is from what I learned and understand. If I don't understand it I don't postulate from it.

 

You have left out more data in your argument than you want to know. Erasmus has as well. Links and/or math, or stop making false assumptions based upon insufficient data.

[Moontanman]

Moontanman,

 

I say your "facts" are lacking in understanding. Where's your link to back up what you say are facts? In case you missed them, there were two links to the sacred "wiki" site backing up my argument. Two for the price of one is not deserving of your inane insult. If this is the way this board is heading I'll not waste my time.

Maybe you cannot produce helium fast enough to make a difference...... of course you seem to lack both imagination and understanding. Anyone can be a wiki-knowledge postulate; it takes a great deal of understanding to think outside the box... It takes some real imagination to create outside the box.

 

What I postulate is from what I learned and understand. If I don't understand it I don't postulate from it.

 

You have left out more data in your argument than you want to know. Erasmus has as well. Links and/or math, or stop making false assumptions based upon insufficient data.

 

You are the one making wild unsubstantiated claims, your facts fly in the face of reality. You need to show some proof that isn't your own inane writing's. I will not be bullied by you or anyone else. You made the wild claims that defy reality, you prove them :)

[freeztar]

Here is a peer-reviewed article on He escape:

 

Helium escape from the terrestrial atmosphere: The ion outflow mechanism

 

It seems to support Moontanman's and Will's assertions.

[Erasmus00]

7DSUSYstrings, the article you linked to in your response to me was about helium at the galactic center. How does this relate to our atmosphere, or am I missing something?

 

Next, some data, .005% of the atmosphere is helium (see Encyclopedia Britannica article on helium, under natural abundance). Helium is continuously created by cosmic rays, decaying tritium, etc and the atmospheric abundance stays constant- because it is escaping.

 

Consider, for instance, that helium is one of the most abundant elements in the universe and yet our atmosphere has so little. Either we started off in a very exceptional part of the universe OR our helium has been leaving us.

 

Its not a worry, however, as nitrogen at STP (the majority of the atmosphere) is practically inert. We don't have to worry about the atmosphere burning.

-Will

[Karnuvap]

I'm with ERASMUS on this one. I remember reading a New Scientist article on this subject (I think it was in a Christmas Special talking about the party atmosphere and the helium balloons that are an essential ingredient of any good party) they said that the Earth's helium resource is dwindling and there isn't much of it being made (it is a by-product of certain radioactive decay). This is why the LHC problem disturbed me because each release of helium to atmosphere is effectively a release to space - soon the whole planet is going to run out of helium. How soon - it didn't say.

 

but this article sheds light

ptonline.aip.org/journals/doc/PHTOAD-ft/vol_60/iss_6/31_1.shtml

 

It turns out that Helium is extracted from Natural gas but once extracted and concentrated you should look after it and try not to release it to atmosphere because then it is effectively lost - if not to space then to dilution in the air where it is too uneconomical to extract.

 

The wikipedia article on helium has an interesting story about how world production was kept from the Germans during WWII because they were using it in airships. Thus they had to use Hydrogen with the well-known disastrous consequences.