Atmospheric Physics to Quantum Phenomenon

Question

Is there any possibility of application of Quantum mechanics to understand complex atmospheric phenomenon? Such as precise quantification in forecasting

Answer 1

When information is copied out of a quantum system interference is suppressed: this is called decoherence. In the case of something like a gas this means that on a suitably large scale energy and momentum densities and similar quantities obey classical equations of motion to a good approximation:

https://arxiv.org/abs/0903.1802

For chaotic systems like weather the evolution of the resulting system is unpredictable because the set of possible quantum states increases exponentially over time, see Section V of

https://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/0105127

Quantum theory may be relevant in explaining some aspects of chemistry and possibly propagation of radiation in the atmosphere but it rules out predicting the weather too far in the future.

Answer 2

Quantum phenomena are generally observed at low temperatures and in systems with few degrees of freedom, since otherwise the thermal effects wash them out. There are some exceptions to it - like quantum behavior of macromolecules or certain phenomena observe din phase transitions.

Mostly quantum behavior manifests itself via the properties of atoms and molecules (or more complex structures, like energy bands in crystals - but this is not the case of atmosphere.) But one usually do not need to get into quantum details to incorporate these in macroscopic description.

One obvious example is Rayleigh scattering, which is a manifestly quantum phenomenon and serves as a material for question in many quantum courses - why the sky is blue?, why sunset is red?. Yet, as Wikipedia article demonstrates, most applications of this phenomenon completely bypass its quantum nature.

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