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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 ...
The atmosphere is warm at the surface and lower levels of the troposphere where there is mixing (the planetary boundary layer (PBL)), but becomes substantially cooler with height. The temperature profile of the atmosphere, the change in temperature, the degree that it cools with height, is the lapse rate.
Unstable areas are in yellow (slightly) and red (highly) while the stable zone is in blue. The lifted index ( LI ) is the temperature difference between the environment Te(p) and an air parcel lifted adiabatically Tp(p) at a given pressure height in the troposphere (lowest layer where most weather occurs) of the atmosphere , usually 500 hPa ( mb ).
Composition of Earth's atmosphere by molecular count, excluding water vapor. Lower pie represents trace gases that together compose about 0.0434% of the atmosphere. [5] [6] [7] The three major constituents of Earth's atmosphere are nitrogen, oxygen, and argon. Water vapor accounts for roughly 0.25% of the atmosphere by mass.
From 11 km up to 20 km (65,620 ft or 12.4 mi), the constant temperature is −56.5 °C (−69.7 °F), which is the lowest assumed temperature in the ISA. The standard atmosphere contains no moisture. Unlike the idealized ISA, the temperature of the actual atmosphere does not always fall at a uniform rate with height.
The five components of the climate system all interact. They are the atmosphere, the hydrosphere, the cryosphere, the lithosphere and the biosphere. [1]: 1451 Earth's climate system is a complex system with five interacting components: the atmosphere (air), the hydrosphere (water), the cryosphere (ice and permafrost), the lithosphere (earth's upper rocky layer) and the biosphere (living things).
Classes range from 1 (most unstable) to 7 (most stable). The Turner stability class system was devised by D. B. Turner as a modification of the Pasquill stability class system. [1] The following table is used to determine the Turner stability class for a given wind speed and net solar radiation: