Submitted by Anonymous on Fri, 04/20/2012 - 08:18
Forums
Airborne Survey of Polar Ice

What makes the northern lights their color? How long is it estimated for the biomass to decay? -Hanna Stucke

Sun, 04/22/2012 - 17:42

Tim Spuck

Hanna,First ... the northern lights ... How you ever broken open a florescent light bulb? If you have you will notice there is no wire, it's just filled with gas. When we send electricity through the gas we excite it and it glows. The northern lights are similar in that the sun during solar storms gives off charged particles and when these particles. These charged particles slam into the earth's magnetic field and travel along the magnetic field lines to the north and south pole regions, excite the gas in the atmosphere causing it to glow.
Visit: http://www.loc.gov/rr/scitech/mysteries/northernlights.html
As far as biomass decay ... that's a bit trickier. I'll assume you are talking about the biomass trapped in the permafrost. The rate of biomass decay of course will depend on temperature. The higher the temp the faster the decay rate. And we don't yet know how quickly this stuff will thaw. But we do know that as it does decay it will release methane and CO2 into the atmosphere and both methane and CO2 have the potential to increase global temperatures which will in turn accelerate the thawing and decay of the biomass.
Thanks for your questions. Tim