The shape of the Earth's atmosphere

[FanaticalFighter]

Puzzlingly, I have never read about the shape of the Earth's atmosphere. I mean, if you were to draw a surface on which every point is at the same pressure(say 0.01 Pa), what will it look like? Will it be spherical or bulging as it rotates with the Earth? What will a surface drawn such that all points on it have the same mass density (or molecule desnity) look like? The two surfaces would probably be different, I guess, as pressure varies with both density and temperature, so the day and night side will cause the surfaces to do weird stuff. Does anyone have any idea what this is like? I can't find anything from my short google-fu, and nothing on arxiv either. Most of the research I see is on lower atmosphere wind flows and changes with pressure and temperature as you go up. Ideas?

[LordFerret]

It bulges all over, high and low pressure zones etc. I don't know what you've been trying to search Google with, but try "visualize earth atmosphere", you'll find some results. For example: http://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/details.cgi?aid=4180

Or maybe this is more helpful? http://disc.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/giovanni

Edited December 8, 2014 by LordFerret

[EdFred]

Which part of the atmosphere?

[lajoswinkler]

Rossby waves. Bulges all over the planet.

[Chiboko]

I have no idea about the shape but, I can leave you with the comforting thought that it has great trails coming off it and spiraling beautifully into space as we forever loose several thousand (million?) tons of atmosphere every day to the solar wind.

[Brotoro]

I've also read that the tidal effects of the Moon and Sun change the shape of the atmosphere, but I don't recall by how much.

[Motokid600]

Changes with the seasons as well. Shrinks in the winter and expands during the summer.