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Atmospheric instability is a condition where the Earth's atmosphere is considered to be unstable and as a result local weather is highly variable through distance and time. [ clarification needed ] [ 1 ] Atmospheric instability encourages vertical motion, which is directly correlated to different types of weather systems and their severity.
A stable atmosphere makes vertical movement difficult, and small vertical disturbances dampen out and disappear. In an unstable atmosphere, vertical air movements (such as in orographic lifting , where an air mass is displaced upwards as it is blown by wind up the rising slope of a mountain range) tend to become larger, resulting in turbulent ...
A ball on the top of a hill is an unstable situation. In dynamical systems instability means that some of the outputs or internal states increase with time, without bounds. [1] Not all systems that are not stable are unstable; systems can also be marginally stable or exhibit limit cycle behavior.
Stable stratification of fluids occurs when each layer is less dense than the one below it. Unstable stratification is when each layer is denser than the one below it. Buoyancy forces tend to preserve stable stratification; the higher layers float on the lower ones. In unstable stratification, on the other hand, buoyancy forces cause convection ...
Also actiniform. Describing a collection of low-lying, radially structured clouds with distinct shapes (resembling leaves or wheels in satellite imagery), and typically organized in extensive mesoscale fields over marine environments. They are closely related to and sometimes considered a variant of stratocumulus clouds. actinometer A scientific instrument used to measure the heating power of ...
Atmospheric thermodynamics is the study of heat-to-work transformations (and their reverse) that take place in the Earth's atmosphere and manifest as weather or climate. . Atmospheric thermodynamics use the laws of classical thermodynamics, to describe and explain such phenomena as the properties of moist air, the formation of clouds, atmospheric convection, boundary layer meteorology, and ...
A stable marine layer may then develop over the ocean as a result. As this layer moves over progressively warmer waters, however, turbulence within the marine layer can gradually lift the inversion layer to higher altitudes, and eventually even pierce it, producing thunderstorms, and under the right circumstances, tropical cyclones .
Turbulent mixing in stratified flows is described by mixing efficiency. This mixing efficiency compares the energy used in irreversible mixing, enlarging the minimum gravitational potential energy that can be kept in the density field, to the entire change in mechanical energy during the mixing process. It can be defined either as an integral ...