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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.
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 ...
A Skew-T diagram with important features labeled. Convective inhibition (CIN or CINH) [1] is a numerical measure in meteorology that indicates the amount of energy that will prevent an air parcel from rising from the surface to the level of free convection.
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 . The temperature is measured in Celsius.
High values indicate unstable and/or weakly-sheared environments; low values indicate weak instability and/or strong vertical shear. Generally, values in the range of around 10 to 50 suggest environmental conditions favorable for supercell development.
Instability results from difference between the adiabatic lapse rate of an air mass and the ambient lapse rate in the atmosphere. [2] If the adiabatic lapse rate is lower than the ambient lapse rate, an air mass displaced upward cools less rapidly than the air in which it is moving. Hence, such an air mass becomes warmer relative to the ...
One passenger died and 30 others were injured aboard a Singapore Airlines flight that was hit by "severe turbulence," officials said Tuesday, but experts say such deaths are rare even as ...
For an ideal gas (see gas laws), the stability criterion for an air column is that potential temperature increases monotonically with height. To understand this, consider dry convection in the atmosphere, where the vertical variation in pressure is substantial and adiabatic temperature change is important: As a parcel of air moves upward, the ...