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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.
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 . The ...
Typical mixing pattern for many lakes, caused by the fact that water is less dense at the freezing point than at 4 Celsius. Lake stratification is stable in summer and winter, becoming unstable in spring and fall when the surface waters cross the 4 Celsius mark. Stable stratifications can become unstable if layers change density.
Moist air has more water vapor than dry air, so more latent heat is released into the parcel of moist air as it rises. Dry air does not have as much water vapor, therefore dry air cools at a higher rate with vertical movement than moist air. As a result of the latent heat that is released during water vapor condensation, moist air has a ...
However, the temperature of maximum density for freshwater is 4 °C. In temperate regions where lake water warms up and cools through the seasons, a cyclical pattern of overturn occurs that is repeated from year to year as the water at the top of the lake cools and sinks (see stable and unstable stratification).
[70] [71] It is driven by differences in the density of water; colder and more salty water is heavier than warmer fresh water. [71] The AMOC acts as a conveyor belt, sending warm surface water from the tropics north, and carrying cold fresh water back south. [70] As warm water flows northwards, some evaporates which increases salinity.
A change in the temperature of the water impacts on the distance between water parcels directly. [clarification needed] When the temperature of the water increases, the distance between water parcels will increase and hence the density will decrease. Salinity is a measure of the mass of dissolved solids, which consist mainly of salt.
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.