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Whether or not the atmosphere has stability depends partially on the moisture content. In a very dry troposphere, a temperature decrease with height less than 9.8 °C (17.6 °F) per kilometer ascent indicates stability, while greater changes indicate instability. This lapse rate is known as the dry adiabatic lapse rate. [3]
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 ...
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 ...
By contrast, other conditions, such as a less warm air parcel or a parcel in an atmosphere with a temperature inversion (in which the temperature increases above a certain height) have much less capacity to support vigorous upward air movement, thus the potential energy level (CAPE) would be much lower, as would the probability of thunderstorms.
This would counter, or "erode" the increase of temperature with height that is present during a capping inversion. Forcing mechanisms that can lead to the eroding of inhibition are ones that create some sort of evacuation of mass in the upper parts of the atmosphere, or a surplus of mass in the low levels of the atmosphere, which would lead to ...
Lake stratification, the formation of water layers based on temperature, with mixing in the spring and fall in seasonal climates. 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 ...
So cool air lying on top of warm air can be stable, as long as the temperature decrease with height is less than the adiabatic lapse rate; the dynamically important quantity is not the temperature, but the potential temperature—the temperature the air would have if it were brought adiabatically to a reference pressure. The air around the ...
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 ...