2006-09-03 00:51:31 · 4 answers · asked by Davit H 1 in Science & Mathematics ➔ Earth Sciences & Geology
Mountains are colder than the flat lands below them because of the weight of air. Air has weight. If you could visualize a plastic tube from the ground all the way up into the sky, the density of air at the bottom of the tube would be much greater than that at the top.
That means that the air molecules are farther apart from each other, and the amount of heat that each air molecule contains can escape much easier. The closer the molecules are to each other the more heat they tend to retain.
On a cold night, remove the covers from a bed and snuggle with someone. The places where you contact the other person will be nice and warm. The places that are away from your snuggle partner will seem cold because the heat of your body is escaping into the surrounding air. So, heat can travel into air, and air can feel either hot, mild, or cold depending upon how much heat is in it.
Hot air rises and expands. As it expands air tends to give off some of its heat, cooling it off. So, going back to our plastic tube from the ground to the sky, air at the bottom is dense and warmer than the thin air at the top of the tube. Air at the top of the tube is much colder than the air at the bottom. For that reason, air around mountain tops is colder than the air lower down the mountain sides.
2006-09-03 02:31:46 · answer #1 · answered by zahbudar 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
The mountains are higher in the Earth's atmosphere. Warmth on Earth is not due only to the incoming energy from the Sun, but also the amount of heat that the Earth's atmosphere retains from the Sun's input and from geothermal processes. Otherwise, we'd freeze to death every night. So on a snow-capped mountaintop, the "closeness" to the Sun, which is tiny compared to Earth's total distance from the Sun, is more than counteracted by the thinness of Earth's atmosphere and lack of retained heat.
2006-09-03 07:56:33 · answer #2 · answered by DavidK93 7 · 3⤊ 0⤋
The mountain top may be a couple of thousand feet closer to the Sun, but that makes no difference at all because the Sun is nearly 100 million MILES away.
2006-09-03 07:56:23 · answer #3 · answered by poorcocoboiboi 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Actually, have you ever lived on a mountain? We just moved from there...When the sun was shining, it seemed that it was just as warm, or even warmer than the valley below...Snow reflects heat, so we were never cold...And the mountain air was crisp...
2006-09-03 08:12:28 · answer #4 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 0⤋