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In meteorology, an inversion (or temperature inversion) is a phenomenon in which a layer of warmer air overlies cooler air. Normally, air temperature gradually decreases as altitude increases, but this relationship is reversed in an inversion. [2] An inversion traps air pollution, such as smog, near the ground.
As the temperature is increased on such a system, particles move into higher and higher energy states, so that the number of particles in the lower energy states and in the higher energy states approaches equality. [10] (This is a consequence of the definition of temperature in statistical mechanics for systems with limited states.) By ...
The inversion temperature in thermodynamics and cryogenics is the critical temperature below which a non-ideal gas (all gases in reality) that is expanding at constant enthalpy will experience a temperature decrease, and above which will experience a temperature increase.
All air entering the stratosphere must pass through the tropopause, the temperature minimum that divides the troposphere and stratosphere. The rising air is literally freeze-dried; the stratosphere is a very dry place. The top of the stratosphere is called the stratopause, above which the temperature decreases with height.
A capping inversion occurs when there is a boundary layer with a normal temperature profile (warm air rising into cooler air) and the layer above that is an inversion layer (cooler air below warm air). Cloud formation from the lower layer is "capped" by the inversion layer.
Also actiniform. Describing a collection of low-lying, radially structured clouds with distinct shapes (resembling leaves or wheels in satellite imagery), and typically organized in extensive mesoscale fields over marine environments. They are closely related to and sometimes considered a variant of stratocumulus clouds. actinometer A scientific instrument used to measure the heating power of ...
Sea of fog riding the coastal marine layer through the Golden Gate Bridge at San Francisco, California Afternoon smog within a coastal marine layer in West Los Angeles. A marine layer is an air mass that develops over the surface of a large body of water, such as an ocean or large lake, in the presence of a temperature inversion.
The temperature of this point, the Joule–Thomson inversion temperature, depends on the pressure of the gas before expansion. In a gas expansion the pressure decreases, so the sign of is negative by definition. With that in mind, the following table explains when the Joule–Thomson effect cools or warms a real gas: