Why do mountain climbers feel breathlessness at high altitude but birds don’t?
Mountaineers feel breathless and uncomfortable at high altitudes because of the difference in atmospheric pressure. The standard atmospheric pressure at sea level is about 100kPa. As the altitude rises, the atmospheric pressure decreases and the air starts getting ‘thinner’. Thin air has a very little oxygen content. Hence, for your body to get the same amount of oxygen, you will have to breathe in a higher volume of air. This leads to shortness of breath, dizziness and fatigue. Your heart will have to work more to pump the required amount of oxygen molecules through your veins, giving you a high blood pressure and heart rate.Remember, in order for you to breathe properly, the atmospheric pressure outside your body must be higher than the air pressure in your lungs.Coming to birds, the highest flying bird ever recorded is the Rüppell’s Griffon Vulture which flies at about 37,000 feet. To put that into perspective, the summit of Mt.Everest is at 29,000 feet(atmospheric pressure at ~31 kPa). The birds that fly at such high altitudes have a unique physiology that helps them breathe and fly. Externally, they have longer wings to stay afloat in the thin air. Internally, to meet their oxygen demands, they have larger lungs, a dense network of blood vessels in the wing muscles and haemoglobin in their blood that adheres to oxygen. They are also able to extract more oxygen from the air and are adapted to hypoxia(low oxygen conditions) as a species.Image: Rüppell's Griffon Vulture (Gyps rueppellii)
Why does one's nose bleed when visiting high altitudes?
Sometimes when we climb up the hill, our NOSE starts bleeding at high altitudes. This occurs especially in WINTER season. There are so many reasons for NOSE BLEEDS. But, bleeding of NOSE at high altitudes and Cold temperatures are because of surrounding WEATHER CONDITIONS. Lets know what this changing weather does to our Body.Here are the changes in our Surrounding that occurs at HIGH ALTITUDES.The Atmospheric Pressure goes down.The Temperature decreases.Water Vapour content is less.The Relative HUMIDITY decreases because of fall in water vapour content.What bothers our body is the RELATIVE HUMIDITY. Relative Humidity is simply the amount of Water Vapour present in the AIR. When humidity reduces, the AIR becomes DRY. This Dry air is not good for our NOSE.Our NOSE is very RICH in BLOOD VESSELS. The Front part of our NOSE is where 5 BLOOD ARTERIES join together. This area is called the Kiesselbach's Triangle or Little's Area. Nose Bleed is the LOSS of Blood from the TISSUE lining the NOSE.Dry Air moving through the NOSE dries NASAL MEMBRANES lining inside the Nose, forming crust. These Crust BLEEDS when irritated by Running, Picking or Blowing the Nose. The Water Vapour present in the AIR acts as a LUBRICANT for the movement of Air through our NOSE. Absence of it increases FRICTION and irritates our Nasal Membranes.The Medical Name for Nose Bleeding is EPISTAXIS. This Bleeding can be avoided by handling our NOSE softly.
At high altitudes, the RBCs in the human blood increase in number. Why?
Well, as we go from low altitude to high altitude, the air starts getting thinner and thinner…in more accurate terms, the partial pressure of oxygen starts decreasing with increasing altitude.Now, since partial pressure of oxygen is less in our lungs(alveolar level), the binding of oxygen to haemoglobin in RBCs is decreased…resulting is decreased oxygen supply to the tissues thereby starving them of oxygen(hypoxic stress).This in turn activates the compensatory mechanisms in our body leading to the release of the hormone erythropoietin from the kidneys, which stimulates the bone marrow to increase the production of RBCs (erythropoiesis).In this picture, it's clearly evident that her face has turned pinkish indicating increased RBC production!The increase in RBCs compensate for the decreased binding of oxygen thereby eliminating the hypoxic stress at the tissue level.Hope this is a satisfactory explanation to your query!
How do potato chips get transported to high altitudes without exploding?
while traveling over a high altitude mountain our chip bags began to explode from pressure.....how do all the chip distributers get chips over those mountains and why don't the bags exlode in the stores up high in he mountains
Why do people suffer from nose bleeds at higher altitude?
High altitude - as altitude increases, the availability of oxygen decreases, making the air thinner and drier. The dryness can cause drying and cracking inside the nose, which can lead to a nosebleed
Why do ears pop at high altitudes?
Because as you climb or descend in an aircraft, there is an accompanying air pressure change – less pressure going up, increasing pressure going down. The “popping” in your ears is the sudden, resulting, and very natural equalization of air pressure between your inner and outer ear. It is a good thing and you want it to happen. If it does not, it can cause ear pain and can ultimately lead to ear infection.So as the air pressure outside of your ear drops as you climb, how does the air pressure in your middle ear decrease and equalize the pressure differential?It is via the Eustachian Tube. As the air in the middle ear expands, it is allowed to escape out through the Eustachian tube and into your throat and mouth area to equalize pressure. The converse is true also in a descent where increasing air pressure travels back up the Eustachian Tube into the Middle Ear.Very young children do not have very well established eustachian tubes to allow pressurization equalization. That is why infants are often screaming in pain on a descent, because they have great difficulty in equalizing the pressure in their ears.In the early days of flying, flight attendants used to pass out free gum or Chiclets. Chewing (also yawning) relaxes the muscles of the Eustachian tube allowing air to more freely move through it and to equalize pressure changes.Equalizing pressure in your ears is usually not a problem during ascent. It is during the descent that may cause problems for some people. In this case, here are some techniques for equalizing ear pressure, including the popular, Valsalva_maneuver
Why cooking at higher altitude take more time?
You got the idea but still didn't hit the spot. As elevation increases atmospheric pressure decreases. This means vapor pressure on water decreases as elevation increases. This results to easier escape of water molecules because the vapor pressure pushing them down is decreased. That is why when you heat water at high elevation, the water reaches boiling point at much lower temperature: water boils at 100C at sea level but boils less than 100C at elevated level. So when you cook meat or egg in water on top of a mountain, your water has already evaporated leaving your meat or egg partially cook or worse still raw. This makes cooking with water very hard! It is advisable you use brine for cooking. Or you bring along a pressure cooker! Water EASILY boils on a mountain. =) Water boils at a SHORTER time on a mountain. =) Dipping your hand in a boiling water on a mountain will NOT HURT you. =) LESS ENERGY is required to boil water on a mountain. =) Don't get confused ok.