The troposphere is the lowest layer of Earth's atmosphere, and is also where nearly all weather conditions take place. It contains 75% of the atmosphere's mass and 99% of the total mass of water vapour and aerosols. The average height of the troposphere is in the tropics, in the middle latitudes, and in the polar regions in winter. The total average height of the troposphere is . The lowest part of the troposphere, where friction with the Earth's surface influences airflow, is the planetary boundary layer. This layer is typically a few hundred meters to deep depending on the landform and time of day.
Introduction
Troposphere
Troposphere | Introduction
It is the lowest layer of earth's atmosphere. It is the lowest layer of Earth's atmosphere, and is also where nearly all weather conditions take place. It is the lowest layer of Earth's atmosphere, and is also where nearly all weather conditions take place. The troposphere is the lowest layer of Earth's atmosphere, and is also where nearly all weather conditions take place.
the general surface wind circulation associated with the high-pressure center (h) is most likely
user
A high-pressure area, high ,or anticyclone.
assistant
how is it formed?
user
Winds within high-pressure areas flow outward from the higher pressure areas near their centers towards the lower pressure areas further from their centers. Gravity adds to the forces. The winds are further twisted due to Coriolis effect.
assistant
could i know more about the effect mentioned above?
user
This is an apparent, but fictitious, force that arises when an observer is in a rotating reference frame, due to the conservation of angular momentum of the air as it moves towards or away from the Earth's axis of rotation.
assistant
how is it related to the wind conditions?
user
They are associated with light winds at the surface and subsidence through the lower portion of the troposphere.
assistant
what is the last term used above?
user
Atop the troposphere is the tropopause, which is the border between the troposphere and stratosphere. The tropopause is an inversion layer, where the air temperature ceases to decrease with height and remains constant through its thickness. The word "troposphere" is derived from the Greek "tropos" (meaning "turn, turn toward, change") and "sphere" (as in the Earth), reflecting the fact that rotational turbulent mixing plays an important role in the troposphere's structure and behaviour. Most of the phenomena associated with day-to-day weather occur in the troposphere.
Troposphere | Introduction
Strong vertical wind shear within the troposphere also inhibits tropical cyclone development, but helps to organize individual thunderstorms into living longer life cycles that can then produce severe weather. The thermal wind concept explains how differences in wind speed with height are dependent on horizontal temperature differences, and explains the existence of the jet stream.
Wind | Shear
For instance, the thermal wind associated with pole-to-equator temperature gradients is the primary physical explanation for the jet stream in the upper half of the troposphere, which is the atmospheric layer extending from the surface of the planet up to altitudes of about 12-15 km. Mathematically, the thermal wind relation defines a vertical wind shear – a variation in wind speed or direction with height. The wind shear in this case is a function of a horizontal temperature gradient, which is a variation in temperature over some horizontal distance. Also called baroclinic flow, the thermal wind varies with height in proportion to the horizontal temperature gradient.
Thermal wind | Introduction
In general, winds are strongest immediately under the tropopause (except locally, during tornadoes, tropical cyclones or other anomalous situations). If two air masses of different temperatures or densities meet, the resulting pressure difference caused by the density difference (which ultimately causes wind) is highest within the transition zone. The wind does not flow directly from the hot to the cold area, but is deflected by the Coriolis effect and flows along the boundary of the two air masses. All these facts are consequences of the thermal wind relation. The balance of forces acting on an atmospheric air parcel in the vertical direction is primarily between the gravitational force acting on the mass of the parcel and the buoyancy force, or the difference in pressure between the top and bottom surfaces of the parcel.
Jet stream | Cause
Within an unstable layer in the troposphere, the lifting of air parcels will occur, and continue for as long as the nearby atmosphere remains unstable. Once overturning through the depth of the troposphere occurs (with convection being capped by the relatively warmer, more stable layer of the stratosphere), deep convective currents lead to thunderstorm development when enough moisture is present. Over warm ocean waters and within a region of the troposphere with light vertical wind shear and significant low level spin (or vorticity), such thunderstorm activity can grow in coverage and develop into a tropical cyclone. Over hot surfaces during warm days, unstable dry air can lead to significant refraction of the light within the air layer, which causes inferior mirages.
Atmospheric instability | Unstable atmosphere
The result is a circulation of the atmosphere that transports warm air poleward from the tropics and cold air equatorward from the poles. The effect of the three cells is the tendency to even out the heat and moisture in the Earth's atmosphere around the planet.
Troposphere | Three-cell model
Despite this, much of the atmosphere outside the tropics is close to geostrophic flow much of the time and it is a valuable first approximation. Geostrophic flow in air or water is a zero-frequency inertial wave.
Geostrophic wind | Introduction
The poleward movement of the air in the upper part of the troposphere deviates toward the east, caused by the coriolis acceleration (a manifestation of conservation of angular momentum). At the ground level, however, the movement of the air toward the equator in the lower troposphere deviates toward the west, producing a wind from the east. The winds that flow to the west (from the east, easterly wind) at the ground level in the Hadley cell are called the Trade Winds. Though the Hadley cell is described as located at the equator, in the northern hemisphere it shifts to higher latitudes in June and July and toward lower latitudes in December and January, which is the result of the Sun's heating of the surface.
Atmospheric circulation | Hadley cell
It has basically all the weather-associated cloud genus types generated by active wind circulation, although very tall cumulonimbus thunder clouds can penetrate the tropopause from below and rise into the lower part of the stratosphere. Most conventional aviation activity takes place in the troposphere, and it is the only layer that can be accessed by propeller-driven aircraft.
Atmosphere of Earth | Troposphere
These winds are thought to be related to the sublimation of nitrogen ice from the southern cap as there was summer in the southern hemisphere in 1989. The gaseous nitrogen moves northward and is deflected by the Coriolis force to the east forming an anticyclone near the surface. The tropospheric winds are capable of moving material of over a micrometre in size thus forming the streaks. Eight kilometers high in the atmosphere near the tropopause, the winds change direction. They now flow to the west and are driven by differences in temperature between the poles and equator. These high winds may distort Triton's atmosphere making it asymmetric.
Atmosphere of Triton | Weather
Its poleward progression is accelerated by the development of a heat low over the Asian, African, and North American continents during May through July, and over Australia in December.
Wind | Tropics
Wind patterns push air across the surface mixing it horizontally. At higher altitudes, other atmospheric circulation regimes exist, such as the Brewer-Dobson circulation in the terrestrial stratosphere, which mixes the air. In Earth's mesophere, atmospheric waves become unstable and dissipate, creating turbulent mixing of this region.
Homosphere | Introduction
The troposphere is the lowest layer of Earth's atmosphere, and is also where nearly all weather conditions take place. It contains 75% of the atmosphere's mass and 99% of the total mass of water vapour and aerosols. The average height of the troposphere is in the tropics, in the middle latitudes, and in the polar regions in winter. The total average height of the troposphere is . The lowest part of the troposphere, where friction with the Earth's surface influences airflow, is the planetary boundary layer. This layer is typically a few hundred meters to deep depending on the landform and time of day.
Troposphere | Introduction
The temperature of the troposphere generally decreases as altitude increases. The rate at which the temperature decreases, formula_2, is called the environmental lapse rate (ELR). The ELR is nothing more than the difference in temperature between the surface and the tropopause divided by the height. The ELR assumes that the air is perfectly still, i.e. that there is no mixing of the layers of air from vertical convection, nor winds that would create turbulence and hence mixing of the layers of air. The reason for this temperature difference is that the ground absorbs most of the sun's energy, which then heats the lower levels of the atmosphere with which it is in contact.
Troposphere | Temperature
The troposphere is a dynamic part of the atmosphere, exhibiting strong winds, bright clouds and seasonal changes.
Uranus | Troposphere
Temperatures in the atmosphere decrease with height at an average rate of 6.5°C/km. Because the troposphere experiences its warmest temperatures closer to Earth's surface, there is great vertical movement of heat and water vapour, causing turbulence. This turbulence, in conjunction with the presence of water vapour, is the reason that weather occurs within the troposphere. Following the tropopause is the stratosphere. This layer extends from the tropopause to the stratopause which is located at an altitude of about 50 km (31 mi). Temperatures remain constant with height from the tropopause to an altitude of 20 km (12.5 mi), after which they start to increase with height.
Atmospheric temperature | Temperature versus altitude
The circulation around mid-level (altitude) ridges, and the air subsidence at their center, act to steer tropical cyclones around their periphery. Due to the subsidence within this type of system, a "cap" can develop which inhibits free convection and hence mixing of the lower with the middle level troposphere. This limits thunderstorm activity near their centers and traps low-level pollutants such as ozone as haze under their base, which is a significant problem in large urban centers during summer months such as Los Angeles, California and Mexico City.
Anticyclone | Mid-tropospheric systems
The flow of the atmosphere generally moves in a west to east direction. This, however, can often become interrupted, creating a more north to south or south to north flow. These scenarios are often described in meteorology as zonal or meridional. These terms, however, tend to be used about localized areas of the atmosphere (at a synoptic scale). A fuller explanation of the flow of atmosphere around the Earth as a whole can be found in the three-cell model.
Troposphere | Atmospheric flow
The lowest part of the troposphere is called the "atmospheric boundary layer (ABL)" or the "planetary boundary layer (PBL)" . The air temperature of the atmosphere decreases with increasing altitude until it reaches what is called an "inversion layer" (where the temperature increases with increasing altitude) that caps the Convective Boundary Layer, typically to about 1.5 to 2.0 km in height. The upper part of the troposphere (i.e., above the inversion layer) is called the "free troposphere" and it extends up to the tropopause (the boundary in the Earth's atmosphere between the troposphere and the stratosphere). In tropical and mid-latitudes during daytime, the Free convective layer can comprise the entire troposphere, which is up to 10 km to 18 km in the Intertropical convergence zone.
Atmospheric dispersion modeling | Atmospheric layers
The "thermal wind equation" is where the are geopotential height fields with , is the Coriolis parameter, and is the upward-pointing unit vector in the vertical direction. The thermal wind equation does not determine the wind in the tropics. Since is small or zero, such as near the equator, the equation reduces to stating that is small.
Wind shear | Thermal wind
Given the direction of the winds around an anticyclonic circulation and the fact that weather systems move from west to east: Surface ridges, just like highs, generate fair weather because they develop under wind convergence in the negative vorticity advection zone ahead of the upper level ridge. The vertical downward air motion then gives a divergence of the winds near the surface. The subsidence of the air causes a warming in the column compared to the previous environment and therefore a drying of it because its relative humidity decreases, which has the effect of clearing the sky.
Ridge (meteorology) | Related weather
Because the temperature in the tropopause and lower stratosphere is largely constant with increasing altitude, very little convection and its resultant turbulence occurs there. Most turbulence at this altitude is caused by variations in the jet stream and other local wind shears, although areas of significant convective activity (thunderstorms) in the troposphere below may produce turbulence as a result of convective overshoot.
Stratosphere | Aircraft flight
Wind speeds increase with the distance from the equator, reaching zero values near ±20° latitude, where the troposphere's temperature minimum is located. Closer to the poles, the winds shift to a prograde direction, flowing with Uranus's rotation. Wind speeds continue to increase reaching maxima at ±60° latitude before falling to zero at the poles. Wind speeds at −40° latitude range from . Because the collar obscures all clouds below that parallel, speeds between it and the southern pole are impossible to measure. In contrast, in the northern hemisphere maximum speeds as high as are observed near +50° latitude.
Uranus | Banded structure, winds and clouds
The troposphere is the lowest layer of Earth's atmosphere. It extends from Earth's surface to an average height of about , although this altitude varies from about at the geographic poles to at the Equator, with some variation due to weather. The troposphere is bounded above by the tropopause, a boundary marked in most places by a temperature inversion (i.e. a layer of relatively warm air above a colder one), and in others by a zone which is isothermal with height. Although variations do occur, the temperature usually declines with increasing altitude in the troposphere because the troposphere is mostly heated through energy transfer from the surface.
Atmosphere of Earth | Troposphere
High-pressure systems are frequently associated with light winds at the surface and subsidence through the lower portion of the troposphere. Subsidence will generally dry out an air mass by adiabatic, or compressional, heating. Thus, high pressure typically brings clear skies. During the day, since no clouds are present to reflect sunlight, there is more incoming shortwave solar radiation and temperatures rise. At night, the absence of clouds means that outgoing longwave radiation (i.e. heat energy from the surface) is not absorbed, giving cooler diurnal low temperatures in all seasons. When surface winds become light, the subsidence produced directly under a high-pressure system can lead to a buildup of particulates in urban areas under the ridge, leading to widespread haze.
Synoptic scale meteorology | Surface high-pressure systems
Once aloft, air flows away from the storm's center, producing a shield of cirrus clouds. The previously mentioned processes result in a nearly axisymmetric wind field: Wind speeds are low at the center, increase rapidly moving outwards to the radius of maximum winds, and then decay more gradually with radius to large radii. However, the wind field often exhibits additional spatial and temporal variability due to the effects of localized processes, such as thunderstorm activity and horizontal flow instabilities. In the vertical direction, winds are strongest near the surface and decay with height within the troposphere.
Tropical cyclone | Wind field
Tropospheric propagation describes electromagnetic propagation in relation to the troposphere. The service area from a VHF or UHF radio transmitter extends to just beyond the optical horizon, at which point signals start to rapidly reduce in strength. Viewers living in such a "deep fringe" reception area will notice that during certain conditions, weak signals normally masked by noise increase in signal strength to allow quality reception. Such conditions are related to the current state of the troposphere. Tropospheric propagated signals travel in the part of the atmosphere adjacent to the surface and extending to some 25,000 feet (7,620 m). Such signals are thus directly affected by weather conditions extending over some hundreds of miles.
Tropospheric propagation | Introduction
The same holds if the temperature is increasing with height. If the temperature is decreasing with height (inversion) and the wind speed is low, sound rays are bent upwards.
Refraction (sound) | Introduction
Meanwhile, the radiation of heat at the top of the atmosphere results in the cooling of that part of the atmosphere. The ELR assumes the atmosphere is still, but as air is heated it becomes buoyant and rises. The dry adiabatic lapse rate accounts for the effect of the expansion of dry air as it rises in the atmosphere and wet adiabatic lapse rates include the effect of the condensation of water vapor on the lapse rate. When a parcel of air rises, it expands because the pressure is lower at higher altitudes. As the air parcel expands, it pushes the surrounding air outward, transferring energy in the form of work from that parcel to the atmosphere.
Troposphere | Temperature
The thermal wind relation results from hydrostatic balance and geostrophic balance in the presence of a temperature gradient along constant pressure surfaces, or isobars.
Thermal wind | Introduction
Likewise they approximate, due to the earth not being a perfect sphere, the "angle" of the Earth's axial tilt. The "angle" itself is not perfectly fixed due chiefly to the influence of the moon, but the limits of tropics are a geographic convention, being an averaged form, not least the variance is very small. In terms of climate, the tropics receive sunlight that is more direct than the rest of Earth and are generally hotter and wetter. The word "tropical" sometimes refers to this sort of climate rather than to the geographical zone. The tropical zone includes deserts and snow-capped mountains, which are not tropical in the climatic sense.
Tropics | Introduction
As energy transfer to a parcel of air by way of heat is very slow, it is assumed to not exchange energy by way of heat with the environment. Such a process is called an adiabatic process (no energy transfer by way of heat). Since the rising parcel of air is losing energy as it does work on the surrounding atmosphere and no energy is transferred into it as heat from the atmosphere to make up for the loss, the parcel of air is losing energy, which manifests itself as a decrease in the temperature of the air parcel. The reverse, of course, will be true for a parcel of air that is sinking and is being compressed.
Troposphere | Temperature
Most of tropospheric gases are treated as ideal gases and water vapor, with its ability to change phase from vapor, to liquid, to solid, and back is considered as one of the most important trace components of air. Advanced topics are phase transitions of water, homogeneous and in-homogeneous nucleation, effect of dissolved substances on cloud condensation, role of supersaturation on formation of ice crystals and cloud droplets. Considerations of moist air and cloud theories typically involve various temperatures, such as equivalent potential temperature, wet-bulb and virtual temperatures. Connected areas are energy, momentum, and mass transfer, turbulence interaction between air particles in clouds, convection, dynamics of tropical cyclones, and large scale dynamics of the atmosphere.
Atmospheric thermodynamics | Overview
Heating of the earth near the equator leads to large amounts of convection along the monsoon trough or Intertropical convergence zone. This air mass rises to the lower stratosphere where it diverges, moving away from the equator in the upper troposphere in both northerly and southerly directions. As it moves towards the mid-latitudes on both sides of the equator, the air cools and sinks. The resulting air mass subsidence creates a subtropical ridge of high pressure near the 30th parallel in both hemispheres. At the surface level, the sinking air diverges again with some returning to the equator, completing the Hadley circulation.
Horse latitudes | Formation
The tropopause is the boundary in the Earth's atmosphere between the troposphere and the stratosphere. It is a thermodynamic gradient stratification layer, marking the end of the troposphere. It lies, on average, at above equatorial regions, and about over the polar regions.
Tropopause | Introduction
Wind shear is a difference in relative speed between two adjacent air masses. An excessive wind shear produces vortices, and when the wind shear is of sufficient degree, the air will tend to move chaotically. As is explained elsewhere in this article, temperature decreases and wind velocity increase with height in the troposphere, and the reverse is true within the stratosphere. These differences cause changes in air density, and hence viscosity. The viscosity of the air thus presents both inertias and accelerations which cannot be determined in advance.
Clear-air turbulence | Wind shear
The observable characteristics of such high-pressure systems are usually clear, cloudless days with little or no wind. At sunset the upper air cools, as does the surface temperature, but at different rates. This produces a boundary or temperature gradient, which allows an inversion level to form – a similar effect occurs at sunrise. The inversion is capable of allowing very high frequency (VHF) and UHF signal propagation well beyond the normal radio horizon distance.
Tropospheric propagation | Introduction
Vertical wind is crucial to weather and storms of all types. Even slow, broad updrafts can create convective instability or bring air to its lifted condensation level creating stratiform cloud decks. Unfortunately, predicting vertical motion directly is difficult. For synoptic scales in Earth's broad and shallow troposphere, the vertical component of Newton's law of motion is sacrificed in meteorology's primitive equations, by accepting the hydrostatic approximation. Instead, vertical velocity must be solved through its link to horizontal laws of motion, via the mass continuity equation. But this presents further difficulties, because horizontal winds are mostly geostrophic, to a good approximation.
Omega equation | Concept and summary
Going upward from the surface, it is the point where air ceases to cool with height, and becomes almost completely dry. More formally, the tropopause is the region of the atmosphere where the environmental lapse rate changes from positive, as it behaves in the troposphere, to the stratospheric negative one. Following is the exact definition used by the World Meteorological Organization: The tropopause as defined above renders as a first-order discontinuity surface, that is, "temperature" as a function of height varies continuously through the atmosphere but the "temperature gradient" does not.
Tropopause | Definition
Another way to state this is to say that regions of upper air divergence are conducive to lower level convergence, cyclone formation, and positive vertical velocity. Therefore, identifying regions of upper air divergence is an important step in forecasting the formation of a surface low-pressure area.
Troposphere | Divergence and convergence
The barotropic vorticity equation assumes the atmosphere is nearly barotropic, which means that the direction and speed of the geostrophic wind are independent of height. In other words, there is no vertical wind shear of the geostrophic wind. It also implies that thickness contours (a proxy for temperature) are parallel to upper level height contours. In this type of atmosphere, high and low pressure areas are centers of warm and cold temperature anomalies. Warm-core highs (such as the subtropical ridge and the Bermuda-Azores high) and cold-core lows have strengthening winds with height, with the reverse true for cold-core highs (shallow Arctic highs) and warm-core lows (such as tropical cyclones).
Barotropic vorticity equation | Introduction
Isentropic analysis in meteorology is a technique to find the vertical and horizontal motion of airmasses during an adiabatic process above the planetary boundary layer. The change of state of air parcels following isentropic surfaces does not involve exchange of heat with the environment. Such an analysis can also evaluate the airmass stability in the vertical dimension and whether an air parcel crossing such a surface will result in convective or stratiform clouds. It is based on the study of weather maps or vertical cross-sections of the potential temperature values in the troposphere. On a synoptic scale, isentropic analysis is associated with weather fronts: warm fronts are found where the wind crosses lines of a chosen potential temperature from lower heights to higher ones, while cold fronts are where the wind crosses descending heights.
Isentropic analysis | Introduction
1), the inertia of the geostrophic wind field (that is, its propensity to carry on forward) is creating a demand for decreasing thickness formula_48 in order for thermal wind balance to continue to hold. For instance, when there is an approaching upper-level cyclone or trough above the level in question, the part of formula_5 attributable to the first term in Eq. 1 is upward motion needed to create the increasingly cool air column that is required hypsometrically under the falling heights. That adiabatic reasoning must be supplemented by an appreciation of feedbacks from flow-dependent heating, such as latent heat release.
Omega equation | Interpretation
By volume, dry air contains 78.08% nitrogen, 20.95% oxygen, 0.93% argon, 0.04% carbon dioxide, and small amounts of other gases. Air also contains a variable amount of water vapor. Except for the water vapor content, the composition of the troposphere is essentially uniform. The source of water vapor is at the Earth's surface through the process of evaporation. The temperature of the troposphere decreases with altitude. And, saturation vapor pressure decreases strongly as temperature drops. Hence, the amount of water vapor that can exist in the atmosphere decreases strongly with altitude and the proportion of water vapor is normally greatest near the surface of the Earth.
Troposphere | Composition
With all this solar radiation, the air around the tropics begins to warm up. Because hot air is less dense than cold air, the hot air rises into the upper levels of the atmosphere and as a result, cold air filters down into the lower levels of the atmosphere. The dynamics that provide the tropics with the rain belt are founded on the principle that warmer air is able to retain more moisture than colder air.
Tropical rain belt | Introduction
The three-cell model of the atmosphere attempts to describe the actual flow of the Earth's atmosphere as a whole. It divides the Earth into the tropical (Hadley cell), mid-latitude (Ferrel cell), and polar (polar cell) regions, to describe energy flow and global atmospheric circulation (mass flow). Its fundamental principle is that of balance – the energy that the Earth absorbs from the sun each year is equal to that which it loses to space by radiation. This overall Earth energy balance, however, does not apply in each latitude due to the varying strength of the sun in each "cell" as a result of the tilt of the Earth's axis concerning its orbit.
Troposphere | Three-cell model
Forcing is a term used by meteorologists to describe the situation where a change or an event in one part of the atmosphere causes a strengthening change in another part of the atmosphere. It is usually used to describe connections between upper, middle or lower levels (such as upper-level divergence causing lower level convergence in cyclone formation), but also be to describe such connections over lateral distance rather than height alone. In some respects, teleconnections could be considered a type of forcing.
Troposphere | Forcing
The term tropic refers to the tropics, a region of the Earth surrounding the Equator. Tropic or Tropics may also refer to:
Tropic (disambiguation) | Introduction
More intense systems form over land than water.
Mesoscale convective system | Tropics
Easterly winds, on average, dominate the flow pattern across the poles, westerly winds blow across the mid-latitudes of the earth, polewards of the subtropical ridge, while easterlies again dominate the tropics. Directly under the subtropical ridge are the doldrums, or horse latitudes, where winds are lighter. Many of the Earth's deserts lie near the average latitude of the subtropical ridge, where descent reduces the relative humidity of the air mass. The strongest winds are in the mid-latitudes where cold polar air meets warm air from the tropics.
Wind | Global climatology
In other words, the farther from the tropics one lies, the lower the sun angle is, which causes those locations to be cooler due to the spread of the sunlight over a greater surface. The strong temperature contrast between polar and tropical air gives rise to the large scale atmospheric circulation cells and the jet stream. Weather systems in the mid-latitudes, such as extratropical cyclones, are caused by instabilities of the jet stream flow (see baroclinity). Weather systems in the tropics, such as monsoons or organized thunderstorm systems, are caused by different processes. Because the Earth's axis is tilted relative to its orbital plane, sunlight is incident at different angles at different times of the year.
Weather | Causes
When the zonal flow buckles, the atmosphere can flow in a more longitudinal (or meridional) direction, and thus the term "meridional flow" arises. Meridional flow patterns feature strong, amplified troughs of low pressure and ridges of high pressure, with more north–south flow in the general pattern than west-to-east flow.
Troposphere | Meridional flow
The atmospheric circulation pattern that George Hadley described was an attempt to explain the trade winds. The Hadley cell is a closed circulation loop which begins at the equator. There, moist air is warmed by the Earth's surface, decreases in density and rises. A similar air mass rising on the other side of the equator forces those rising air masses to move poleward. The rising air creates a low pressure zone near the equator. As the air moves poleward, it cools, becomes denser, and descends at about the 30th parallel, creating a high-pressure area. The descended air then travels toward the equator along the surface, replacing the air that rose from the equatorial zone, closing the loop of the Hadley cell.
Atmospheric circulation | Hadley cell
However, this relationship is indirect via the large-scale dynamics of the tropics; the direct influence of the absolute sea surface temperature on formula_7 is weak in comparison.
Tropical cyclone | Characteristic values and variability on Earth
The tropopause is a layer which separates two very different types of air. Beneath it, the air gets colder and the wind gets faster with height. Above it, the air warms and wind velocity decreases with height. These changes in temperature and velocity can produce fluctuation in the altitude of the tropopause, called gravity waves.
Clear-air turbulence | Gravity wave wind shear
Propagation path attenuation may be below free-space loss. Some of the lesser inversion types related to warm ground and cooler air moisture content occur regularly at certain times of the year and time of day. A typical example could be the late summer, early morning tropospheric enhancements that bring in signals from distances up to few hundred kilometers for a couple of hours, until undone by the Sun's warming effect.
Radio propagation | Tropospheric ducting
It can also be the focus of locally heavy precipitation, with thunderstorms possible if the atmosphere along the trowal is unstable enough for convection.
Extratropical cyclone | Surface pressure and wind distribution
Any imbalance between these forces results in the acceleration of the parcel in the imbalance direction: upward if the buoyant force exceeds the weight, and downward if the weight exceeds the buoyancy force. The balance in the vertical direction is referred to as hydrostatic. Beyond the tropics, the dominant forces act in the horizontal direction, and the primary struggle is between the Coriolis force and the pressure gradient force. Balance between these two forces is referred to as geostrophic. Given both hydrostatic and geostrophic balance, one can derive the thermal wind relation: the vertical gradient of the horizontal wind is proportional to the horizontal temperature gradient.
Jet stream | Cause
Under special circumstances, they can induce thunderstorm activity and lead to the formation of tropical cyclones.
Tropical upper tropospheric trough | Introduction
As part of the Hadley cell, surface air flows toward the equator while the flow aloft is towards the poles. A low-pressure area of calm, light variable winds near the equator is known as the doldrums, near-equatorial trough, intertropical front, or the Intertropical Convergence Zone. When located within a monsoon region, this zone of low pressure and wind convergence is also known as the monsoon trough. Around 30° in both hemispheres, air begins to descend toward the surface in subtropical high-pressure belts known as subtropical ridges. The subsident (sinking) air is relatively dry because as it descends, the temperature increases, but the moisture content remains constant, which lowers the relative humidity of the air mass.
Trade winds | Cause
Air currents are concentrated areas of winds. They are mainly due to differences in pressure or temperature. They are divided into horizontal and vertical currents; both are present at mesoscale while horizontal ones dominate at synoptic scale. Air currents are not only found in the troposphere, but extend to the stratosphere and mesosphere.
Air current | Introduction
Cold cyclones are stronger aloft than at the Earth's surface, or stronger in areas of the troposphere with lower pressures, per the thermal wind relationship and the hypsometric equation. The hypsometric equation dictates that colder atmospheres have less room between pressure surfaces, which corresponds to the concept of lower atmospheric thickness, and the thermal wind relation indicates that in this situation, the wind increases with height. It also means that an isolated pool of cold air aloft is associated with the feature. Because of its cold center, the center shows an area of thickness minimum. Since the temperature at any given radius is similar and parallel to the orientation of the pressure gradient, and therefore the wind, it is barotropic in nature.
Cold-core low | Characteristics
Highs are frequently associated with light winds at the surface and subsidence through the lower portion of the troposphere. In general, subsidence will dry out an air mass by adiabatic, or compressional, heating. Thus, high pressure typically brings clear skies. During the day, since no clouds are present to reflect sunlight, there is more incoming shortwave solar radiation and temperatures rise. At night, the absence of clouds means that outgoing longwave radiation (i.e. heat energy from the surface) is not absorbed, giving cooler diurnal low temperatures in all seasons. When surface winds become light, the subsidence produced directly under a high-pressure system can lead to a buildup of particulates in urban areas under the ridge, leading to widespread haze.
High-pressure area | Typical conditions
When these downdrafts reach the surface, they spread out and turn into the destructive straight-horizontal winds.
Thunderstorm | Downburst
On the weather timescale, positive wind curls are related to low-pressure systems of a subsynoptic scale in space, energized by surface baroclinicity and latent heat release along the STF front. The SST front also anchors a meridional maximum in column-integrated water vapor, indicating a deep structure of the atmosphere response.
Subtropical Countercurrent | Introduction
A second factor which contributes to a concentrated jet is more applicable to the subtropical jet which forms at the poleward limit of the tropical Hadley cell, and to first order this circulation is symmetric with respect to longitude. Tropical air rises to the tropopause, and moves poleward before sinking; this is the Hadley cell circulation. As it does so it tends to conserve angular momentum, since friction with the ground is slight. Air masses that begin moving poleward are deflected eastward by the Coriolis force (true for either hemisphere), which for poleward moving air implies an increased westerly component of the winds (note that deflection is leftward in the southern hemisphere).
Jet stream | Subtropical jet
This notion is used to predict the possibility of tornadic development in a thundercloud. In this case, the vertical integration will be limited below cloud tops (generally 3 km or 10,000 feet) and the horizontal wind will be calculated to wind relative to the storm in subtracting its motion:
Hydrodynamical helicity | Meteorology
The tropopause is not a "hard" boundary. Vigorous thunderstorms, for example, particularly those of tropical origin, will overshoot into the lower stratosphere and undergo a brief (hour-order or less) low-frequency vertical oscillation. Such oscillation sets up a low-frequency atmospheric gravity wave capable of affecting both atmospheric and oceanic currents in the region. Most commercial aircraft are flown in the lower stratosphere, just above the tropopause, during the cruise phase of their flights. In this region, clouds are usually absent, as significant weather perturbations also are.
Tropopause | Phenomena
The thermal wind relation does not explain why the winds are organized into tight jets, rather than distributed more broadly over the hemisphere. One factor that contributes to the creation of a concentrated polar jet is the undercutting of sub-tropical air masses by the more dense polar air masses at the polar front. This causes surface low pressure and higher pressure at altitude. At high altitudes, lack of friction allows air to respond freely to the steep pressure gradient with low pressure at high altitude over the pole. This results in the formation of planetary wind circulations that experience a strong Coriolis deflection and thus can be considered 'quasi-geostrophic'.
Jet stream | Polar jet stream
The log wind profile is a semi-empirical relationship commonly used to describe the vertical distribution of horizontal mean wind speeds within the lowest portion of the planetary boundary layer. The relationship is well described in the literature. The logarithmic profile of wind speeds is generally limited to the lowest 100 m of the atmosphere (i.e., the surface layer of the atmospheric boundary layer). The rest of the atmosphere is composed of the remaining part of the planetary boundary layer (up to around 1000 m) and the troposphere or free atmosphere. In the free atmosphere, geostrophic wind relationships should be used.
Log wind profile | Introduction
The tropical upper tropospheric cyclone has a cold core, meaning it is stronger aloft than at the Earth's surface, or stronger in areas of the troposphere with lower pressures. This is explained by the thermal wind relationship. It also means that a pool of cold air aloft is associated with the feature. If both an upper tropospheric cold-core low and lower tropospheric easterly wave trough are in-phase, with the easterly wave near or to the east of the upper level cyclone, thunderstorm development (also known as moist convection) is enhanced. If they are out-of-phase, with the tropical wave west of the upper level circulation, convection is suppressed due to convergence aloft leading to downward motion over the tropical wave or surface trough in the easterlies.
Upper tropospheric cyclonic vortex | Characteristics
The low-level surface trade winds, which normally blow from east to west along the equator, either weaken or start blowing from the other direction.
Tropic of Capricorn | Australia
Thus, the lowest part of the troposphere (i.e. Earth's surface) is typically the warmest section of the troposphere. This promotes vertical mixing (hence, the origin of its name in the Greek word τρόπος, "tropos", meaning "turn"). The troposphere contains roughly 80% of the mass of Earth's atmosphere. The troposphere is denser than all its overlying atmospheric layers because a larger atmospheric weight sits on top of the troposphere and causes it to be most severely compressed. Fifty percent of the total mass of the atmosphere is located in the lower of the troposphere. Nearly all atmospheric water vapor or moisture is found in the troposphere, so it is the layer where most of Earth's weather takes place.
Atmosphere of Earth | Troposphere
A zonal flow regime is the meteorological term meaning that the general flow pattern is west to east along the Earth's latitude lines, with weak shortwaves embedded in the flow. The use of the word "zone" refers to the flow being along the Earth's latitudinal "zones". This pattern can buckle and thus become a meridional flow.
Troposphere | Zonal flow
A good example of convective instability can be found in our own atmosphere. If dry mid-level air is drawn over very warm, moist air in the lower troposphere, a hydrolapse (an area of rapidly decreasing dew point temperatures with height) results in the region where the moist boundary layer and mid-level air meet. As daytime heating increases mixing within the moist boundary layer, some of the moist air will begin to interact with the dry mid-level air above it. Owing to thermodynamic processes, as the dry mid-level air is slowly saturated its temperature begins to drop, increasing the adiabatic lapse rate.
Convective available potential energy | Example from meteorology
The lower atmosphere also typically contains a boundary between two distinct regions (the troposphere and stratosphere), but that boundary (the tropopause) displays quite different behavior. However, atmospheric thermoclines, or "inversions", can occur, e.g. as nighttime cooling of the Earth's surface produces cold, dense, often calm air adjacent to the ground. The coldest air is next to the ground, with air temperature increasing with height. At the top of this nighttime boundary layer (which may be only a hundred meters) the normal adiabatic temperature profile of the troposphere (i.e. temperature decreasing with altitude) is again observed. The thermocline or inversion layer occurs where the temperature profile changes from positive to negative with increasing height.
Thermocline | Atmosphere
A related structure modality is tensegrity. Conceivably, an ultralightweight structure evacuated of air would float in the atmosphere, much as a buoy floats in water A crushing load is present destabilizing such structures. However, enclosed-air structures perhaps made of tensairity beams in a tensegrity format holding an enveloping skin could be heated by solar energy and interior activity and then become lighter than air, like hot-air balloons. A torus of 72 inch major diameter and 27 inch minor diameter displaces about 5 pounds of atmosphere, so if the torus weighed less than 5 pounds, and was evacuated, it would be buoyant.
Tensairity | Related technology
Using charts of mean 200-hectopascal circulation for July through August (located above sea level) to locate the circumpolar troughs and ridges, trough lines extend over the eastern and central North Pacific and over the North Atlantic. Case studies of upper tropospheric cyclones in the Atlantic and Pacific have been performed by using airplane reports (winds, temperatures and heights), radiosonde data, geostationary satellite cloud imagery, and cloud-tracked winds throughout the troposphere. It was determined they were the origin of an upper tropospheric cold-core lows, or cut-off lows.
Upper tropospheric cyclonic vortex | History of research
Thunderstorms form when air parcels are lifted vertically. Deep, moist convection requires a parcel to be lifted to the LFC where it then rises spontaneously until reaching a layer of non-positive buoyancy. The atmosphere is warm at the surface and lower levels of the troposphere where there is mixing (the planetary boundary layer (PBL)), but becomes substantially cooler with height. The temperature profile of the atmosphere, the change in temperature, the degree that it cools with height, is the lapse rate. When the rising air parcel cools more slowly than the surrounding atmosphere, it remains warmer and less dense. The parcel continues to rise freely (convectively; without mechanical lift) through the atmosphere until it reaches an area of air less dense (warmer) than itself.
Convective available potential energy | Significance to thunderstorms
Especially in meteorology they are used to analyze the actual state of the atmosphere derived from the measurements of radiosondes, usually obtained with weather balloons. In such diagrams, temperature and humidity values (represented by the dew point) are displayed with respect to pressure. Thus the diagram gives at a first glance the actual atmospheric stratification and vertical water vapor distribution. Further analysis gives the actual base and top height of convective clouds or possible instabilities in the stratification. By assuming the energy amount due to solar radiation it is possible to predict the 2 m (6.6 ft) temperature, humidity, and wind during the day, the development of the boundary layer of the atmosphere, the occurrence and development of clouds and the conditions for soaring flight during the day.
Thermodynamic diagrams | Overview
High-pressure systems are frequently associated with light winds at the surface and subsidence of air from higher portions of the troposphere. Subsidence will generally warm an air mass by adiabatic (compressional) heating. Thus, high pressure typically brings clear skies. Because no clouds are present to reflect sunlight during the day, there is more incoming solar radiation and temperatures rise rapidly near the surface. At night, the absence of clouds means that outgoing longwave radiation (i.e. heat energy from the surface) is not blocked, giving cooler diurnal low temperatures in all seasons. When surface winds become light, the subsidence produced directly under a high-pressure system can lead to a buildup of particulates in urban areas under the high pressure, leading to widespread haze.
Anticyclone | Surface-based systems
Stratospheric temperatures also vary within the stratosphere as the seasons change, reaching particularly low temperatures in the polar night (winter). Winds in the stratosphere can far exceed those in the troposphere, reaching near in the Southern polar vortex.
Stratosphere | Introduction
In the tropical atmosphere, the order of magnitude of the pressure deviations is so small that the contribution of the Eötvös effect to the pressure deviations is considerable. In addition, objects travelling upwards ("i.e.", out) or downwards ("i.e.", in) are deflected to the west or east respectively. This effect is also the greatest near the equator. Since vertical movement is usually of limited extent and duration, the size of the effect is smaller and requires precise instruments to detect. For example, idealized numerical modeling studies suggest that this effect can directly affect tropical large-scale wind field by roughly 10% given long-duration (2 weeks or more) heating or cooling in the atmosphere.
Coriolis force | Eötvös effect
In some cases, such as in discussing the weather, the sky refers to only the lower, denser layers of the atmosphere.
Sky | Introduction
80% of that mass is concentrated within the troposphere. The mass of the thermosphere above about 85 km is only 0.002% of the total mass. Therefore, no significant energetic feedback from the thermosphere to the lower atmospheric regions can be expected. Turbulence causes the air within the lower atmospheric regions below the turbopause at about 110 km to be a mixture of gases that does not change its composition. Its mean molecular weight is 29 g/mol with molecular oxygen (O) and nitrogen (N) as the two dominant constituents. Above the turbopause, however, diffusive separation of the various constituents is significant, so that each constituent follows its barometric height structure with a scale height inversely proportional to its molecular weight.
Thermosphere | Neutral gas constituents
Thermal wind is a meteorological term not referring to an actual wind, but a "difference" in the geostrophic wind between two pressure levels and , with ; in essence, wind shear. It is only present in an atmosphere with horizontal changes in temperature (or in an ocean with horizontal gradients of density), i.e. baroclinicity. In a barotropic atmosphere, where temperature is uniform, the geostrophic wind is independent of height. The name stems from the fact that this wind flows around areas of low (and high) temperature in the same manner as the geostrophic wind flows around areas of low (and high) pressure.
Wind shear | Thermal wind
Symbiotic relationships can exist between tropical cyclones and the upper level lows in their wake, with the two systems occasionally leading to their mutual strengthening. When they move over land during the warm season, an increase in monsoon rains occurs.
Upper tropospheric cyclonic vortex | Introduction
The tropopause location coincides with the lowest point at which the lapse rate falls below a prescribed threshold. Since the tropopause responds to the average temperature of the entire layer that lies underneath it, it is at its peak levels over the Equator, and reaches minimum heights over the poles. On account of this, the coolest layer in the atmosphere lies at about 17 km over the equator. Due to the variation in starting height, the tropopause extremes are referred to as the equatorial tropopause and the polar tropopause. Given that the lapse rate is not a conservative quantity when the tropopause is considered for stratosphere-troposphere exchanges studies, there exists an alternative definition named "dynamic tropopause".
Tropopause | Location
The pressure of the atmosphere is maximum at sea level and decreases with altitude. This is because the atmosphere is very nearly in hydrostatic equilibrium so that the pressure is equal to the weight of air above a given point. The change in pressure with altitude can be equated to the density with the hydrostatic equation where: Since temperature in principle also depends on altitude, one needs a second equation to determine the pressure as a function of altitude as discussed in the next section.
Troposphere | Pressure
Vertical wind shear above the jet stream (i.e., in the stratosphere) is sharper when it is moving upwards, because wind speed decreases with height in the stratosphere. This is the reason CAT can be generated above the tropopause, despite the stratosphere otherwise being a region which is vertically stable. On the other hand, vertical wind shear moving downwards within the stratosphere is more moderate (i.e., because downwards wind shear within the stratosphere is effectively moving against the manner in which wind speed changes within the stratosphere) and CAT is never produced in the stratosphere. Similar considerations apply to the troposphere but in reverse.
Clear-air turbulence | Vertical
These two species can be found in the high, middle, or low levels of the troposphere depending on the stratocumuliform genus or genera present at any given time.
Cloud | Stable or mostly stable
High-pressure systems are frequently associated with light winds at the surface and subsidence through the lower portion of the troposphere. In general, subsidence will dry out an air mass by adiabatic or compressional heating. Thus, high pressure typically brings clear skies. During the day, since no clouds are present to reflect sunlight, there is more incoming shortwave solar radiation and temperatures rise. At night, the absence of clouds means that outgoing longwave radiation (i.e. heat energy from the surface) is not absorbed, giving cooler diurnal low temperatures in all seasons. When surface winds become light, the subsidence produced directly under a high-pressure system can lead to a buildup of particulates in urban areas under the ridge, leading to widespread haze.
Pressure system | High-pressure system
The thermal wind is the "difference" in the geostrophic wind between two levels in the atmosphere. It exists only in an atmosphere with horizontal temperature gradients. The ageostrophic wind component is the difference between actual and geostrophic wind, which is responsible for air "filling up" cyclones over time. The gradient wind is similar to the geostrophic wind but also includes centrifugal force (or centripetal acceleration).
Wind | Causes
t = June 21 is the date of northern summer solstice, and τ = 15:00 is the local time of maximum diurnal temperature.
Thermosphere | Dynamics
The form of a troposkein can be approximated for a given gravitational acceleration, rope density and angular velocity by iterative approximation. This shape is also useful for decreasing the stress experienced by the blades of a Darrieus vertical axis wind turbine.
Troposkein | Introduction
Earth's atmosphere has no definite boundary, slowly becoming thinner and fading into outer space. Three-quarters of the atmosphere's mass is contained within the first of the surface. This lowest layer is called the troposphere. Energy from the Sun heats this layer, and the surface below, causing expansion of the air. This lower-density air then rises and is replaced by cooler, higher-density air. The result is atmospheric circulation that drives the weather and climate through redistribution of thermal energy. The primary atmospheric circulation bands consist of the trade winds in the equatorial region below 30° latitude and the westerlies in the mid-latitudes between 30° and 60°.
Earth | Weather and climate
The same process promotes the development of a low level jet to the east of the dryline. During the daytime, if heating and/or convergence are sufficient, the cap can be broken, resulting in convective clouds.
Dry line | Associated weather
The existence of upper-level (altitude) high pressure allows upper level divergence which leads to surface convergence. If a capping mid-level ridge does not exist, this leads to free convection and the development of showers and thunderstorms if the lower atmosphere is humid. Because a positive feedback loop develops between the convective tropical cyclone and the upper level high, the two system are strengthened. This loop stops once ocean temperatures cool to below , reducing the thunderstorm activity, which then weakens the upper level high pressure system.
Anticyclone | Upper tropospheric systems
The relationship between static and total air temperatures is given by:
Total air temperature | Introduction
Most of them are detectable in the low tropospheric temperature field as cold troughs in the easterlies. They tend to vertically tilt toward the northeast. Cumulonimbus clouds and rainfall occur in the southeast quadrant, approximately 5° latitude (or ) from the upper cyclone center. Large variations of cloud cover can exist in different systems. The summer tropical upper tropospheric trough is a dominant feature over the trade wind regions of the North Atlantic Ocean, Gulf of Mexico, and Caribbean Sea, and that the lower tropospheric responses to the tropical upper tropospheric trough in the North Atlantic are differ from those in the North Pacific.
Upper tropospheric cyclonic vortex | Climatology