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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.
Severe weather can occur under a variety of situations, but three characteristics are generally needed: a temperature or moisture boundary, moisture, and (in the event of severe, precipitation-based events) instability in the atmosphere.
Organized severe weather occurs under the same conditions that generate ordinary thunderstorms: atmospheric moisture, lift (often from thermals), and instability. [9] A wide variety of conditions cause severe weather. Several factors can convert thunderstorms into severe weather.
Some atmospheric conditions, such as very warm, moist, air in an atmosphere that cools rapidly with height, can promote strong and sustained upward air movement, possibly stimulating the formation of cumulus clouds or cumulonimbus (thunderstorm clouds). In that situation the potential energy of the atmosphere to cause upward air movement is ...
Atmospheric instability; Atmospheric stratification, the dividing of the upper reaches of the Earth's atmosphere into stably-stratified layers; Atmospheric circulation, caused by the unstable stratification of the atmosphere; Thermohaline circulation, circulation in the oceans despite stable stratification.
Similar to thunderstorms, thundersnow requires a significant amount of atmospheric instability, and in areas where the phenomenon occurs, snowfall rates can be exceptionally heavy.
That instability is expected to increase as the world warms. Prosser’s colleagues at the University of Reading separately used climate models to project how clear-air turbulence in the latter ...
Atmospheric stability occurring at night with radiative cooling tends to vertically constrain turbulent eddies, thus increasing the wind gradient. [8] The magnitude of the wind gradient is largely influenced by the weather, principally atmospheric stability and the height of any convective boundary layer or capping inversion.