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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 ...
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.
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 stable marine layer may then develop over the ocean as a result. As this layer moves over progressively warmer waters, however, turbulence within the marine layer can gradually lift the inversion layer to higher altitudes, and eventually even pierce it, producing thunderstorms, and under the right circumstances, tropical cyclones .
High pressure also plays a role, leading to a very stable atmosphere, with many cloudless days and little rain. "This circulation pattern, though there are short-term and seasonal interruptions ...
Typically, due to aerodynamic drag, there is a wind gradient in the wind flow ~100 meters above the Earth's surface—the surface layer of the planetary boundary layer. Wind speed increases with increasing height above the ground, starting from zero [4] due to the no-slip condition. [5]
A ball on the top of a hill is an unstable situation. In dynamical systems instability means that some of the outputs or internal states increase with time, without bounds. [1] Not all systems that are not stable are unstable; systems can also be marginally stable or exhibit limit cycle behavior.