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The variation in temperature that occurs from the highs of the day to the cool of nights is called diurnal temperature variation. Temperature ranges can also be based on periods of a month or a year. The size of ground-level atmospheric temperature ranges depends on several factors, such as: Average air temperature; Average humidity; The regime ...
T = mean atmospheric temperature in kelvins = 250 K [4] for Earth m = mean mass of a molecule M = mean molar mass of atmospheric particles = 0.029 kg/mol for Earth g = acceleration due to gravity at the current location. The pressure (force per unit area) at a given altitude is a result of the weight of the overlying atmosphere.
This increase of temperature with altitude is characteristic of the stratosphere; its resistance to vertical mixing means that it is stratified. Within the stratosphere temperatures increase with altitude (see temperature inversion); the top of the stratosphere has a temperature of about 270 K (−3°C or 26.6°F). [9] [page needed]
Density and pressure decrease smoothly with altitude, but temperature (red) does not. The speed of sound (blue) depends only on the complicated temperature variation at altitude and can be calculated from it since isolated density and pressure effects on the speed of sound cancel each other. The speed of sound increases with height in two ...
In the absence of such extreme air-mass changes, diurnal temperature variations typically range from 10 °F (5.6 °C) or smaller in humid, tropical areas, up to 40 to 50 °F (22.2 to 27.8 °C) in higher-elevation, arid to semi-arid areas, such as parts of the U.S. Western states' Intermountain Plateau areas, for example Elko, Nevada, Ashton ...
Pressure as a function of the height above the sea level. There are two equations for computing pressure as a function of height. The first equation is applicable to the atmospheric layers in which the temperature is assumed to vary with altitude at a non null lapse rate of : = [,, ()] ′, The second equation is applicable to the atmospheric layers in which the temperature is assumed not to ...
a lapse rate given per kilometer of geopotential altitude (A positive lapse rate (λ > 0) means temperature decreases with height) In the above table, geopotential altitude is calculated from a mathematical model that adjusts the altitude to include the variation of gravity with height, while geometric altitude is the standard direct vertical ...
Atmospheric density decreases as the altitude increases. This variation can be approximately modeled using the barometric formula. More sophisticated models are used to predict the orbital decay of satellites. The average mass of the atmosphere is about 5 quadrillion (5 × 10 15) tonnes or 1/1,200,000 the mass of Earth.