MadSci Network: Earth Sciences
Query:

Re: wHY DO WE NEED AIR MASKS AT hIGH ELEVATIONS

Date: Tue Nov 11 20:08:40 2003
Posted By: Sarah Fretz, environmental scientist
Area of science: Earth Sciences
ID: 1067384893.Es
Message:

Jenny;

You were wondering why we need to wear masks at high elevations.  Mountain 
climbers and high altitude pilots are usually the ones who reach such 
elevations, and we can usually find pictures of these people wearing their 
masks.

The masks they wear supply oxygen, sometimes just as bottled air, 
sometimes as pure oxygen.  They can't get oxygen from the air in the upper 
parts of our atmosphere.  Down here, about 20% of the air we breathe is 
oxygen, the rest is nitrogen and other gasses-mostly nitrogen.  Nitrogen 
and oxygen are really heavy compared to the other gasses up there, and 
most get attracted down here by gravity.  

The change in oxygen concentration happens pretty fast, as a lot of 
athletes know, when you exercise at sea level and then try to play a game 
or compete in a race at, say a mile above sea level, your body isn't used 
to the low oxygen concentrations and has a hard time compensating.  

You can do more research on the web through searching for sites about 
weather, atmosphere, troposphere and stratosphere (there's more to the 
layers, but those are the ones we most often visit with our planes and 
high-altitude weather balloons).  

That's the quick and simple answer to your question, but you might also 
want to look into how heavier molecules and pollutants get up there.  --
Sarah



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