tisdag 8 februari 2011

4 different explanations for the lapse rate

Despite the fact that greenhouse speculations (4) have been with us for at least a century, highly trained physicists seem to be awfully uneducated (irony) on this topic. Read and behold:

1. Serways Principles of Physics ISBN 0-534-49143-X,(kap 16.7 s. 520) 'The atmospheric lapse rate':

" ...We can argue conceptually why the temperature decreases with height.
Imagine a parcel of air moving upward along the slope of a mountain. As
the parcel rises into higher elevations, the pressure on it from the
surrounding air decreases. The pressure difference between the interior
and exterior of the parcel causes the parcel to expand. In doing so, the
parcel is pushing the surrounding air outward, doing work on it. Because
the system is doing work on the environment, the energy in the parcel
decreases. The decreased energy is manifested as a decrease in
temperature
..."

2. Erren and Dietze, E&E 2003:

"...Upper layers would
be cooler because the vertical component of the thermal molecular speed
is reduced...."


3. M.N. Berbaran-Santos et al. :

".. The fall of temperature with altitude in the troposhere is due to the fact that air is warmed mainly from the surface of the planet. This fall is, however, smaller than could be expected because convection occurs (up to the tropopause). .."

4. Manabe-Strickler:

".. The observed troposheric lapse rate of temperature is approximately 6.5 deg per km. The explanation for this fact is rather complicated. It is essentially the result of a balance between (a) the stabilizing effect of upward heat transport in moist and dry convection on both small and large scales and (b) the destabilizing effect of radiative transfer... "

Inga kommentarer:

Skicka en kommentar