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The concept of potential temperature applies to any stratified fluid. It is most frequently used in the atmospheric sciences and oceanography. [2] The reason that it is used in both fields is that changes in pressure can result in warmer fluid residing under colder fluid – examples being dropping air temperature with altitude and increasing water temperature with depth in very deep ocean ...
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
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 temperature gradient is a physical quantity that describes in which direction and at what rate the temperature changes the most rapidly around a particular location. The temperature spatial gradient is a vector quantity with dimension of temperature difference per unit length. The SI unit is kelvin per meter (K/m).
The saturated adiabatic lapse rate (SALR), or moist adiabatic lapse rate (MALR), is the decrease in temperature of a parcel of water-saturated air that rises in the atmosphere. It varies with the temperature and pressure of the parcel and is often in the range 3.6 to 9.2 °C/km (2 to 5 °F/1000 ft ), as obtained from the International Civil ...
Equivalent potential temperature, commonly referred to as theta-e (), is a quantity that is conserved during changes to an air parcel's pressure (that is, during vertical motions in the atmosphere), even if water vapor condenses during that pressure change.
Because the specific heat of ocean water is much larger than that of air, the top 2.5 m of the ocean holds as much heat as the entire atmosphere above it. Thus the heat required to change a mixed layer of 2.5 m by 1 °C would be sufficient to raise the temperature of the atmosphere by 1 °C.
Air also contains a variable amount of water vapor, on average around 1% at sea level, and 0.4% over the entire atmosphere. Earth's early atmosphere consisted of accreted gases from the solar nebula , but the atmosphere changed significantly over time, affected by many factors such as volcanism , impact events , weathering and the evolution of ...