why topmontainsare colder than sea level ?

Question

I was askedthisquestionby my kid. I need an answer :).

Answer 1

hot and cold are measured by AVERAGE KINETIC MOLECULAR MOTION. ie moving particles get hot the more they move.
In outer space there are no particles so that space is very 'cold"
As you go higher, the air gets thinner (less molecules ) and the heat ( see defenition above ) goes down, continually as you go up as the particles get fewer and fewer until you are in outer space. If you drill a hole and go down, the air gets thicker and thicker as more air molecules sit on top and squish the bottoms ones together - They move around and hit each other since they are tightly packed, and at about 12 miles down the temperature gets very hot ( there is a bit of geothermal energy as well ).

Answer 2

You may already know about the relationship between temperature and pressure: When you pressurize air (or any gas), it gets hotter, and when you release the pressure on air it gets colder. So a bicycle pump gets hot when you pump up a tire, and a spray paint can or a C02 cartridge gets cold as you release the pressurized gas. A refrigerator puts both of these processes together, pressurizing gas on the outside of the refrigerator to release heat and decompressing it inside the refrigerator to absorb heat (see How Refrigerators Work for details).

You may also know that air pressure decreases as altitude increases. This table shows the pressure (in pounds per square inch) at different altitudes:

As air rises, the pressure decreases. It is this lower pressure at higher altitudes that causes the temperature to be colder on top of a mountain than at sea level.

http://science.howstuffworks.com/question186.htm

Answer 3

Snow. "BTW, I even have already seen snow and precipitation and different problems with that nature and it in simple terms does not upload up." How so? bypass communicate with a fellow engineer or scientist, in keeping with risk they are going to have extra suited good fortune explaining to you. even though it snows close to the poles. And it became decrease than freezing many of the time, so as that basically many of the snow melts. the load of snow piling on actual of alternative snow turns it into ice. Now that it fairly is warming, a number of that vey previous ice is melting.

Answer 4

Just telll him it has to do with altitude. The higher you go, the colder it gets.

Answer 5

The air is thinner, and doesn't hold heat as well as air at sea level.

Answer 6

The atmosphere is like a blanket, and the farther you go up the mountain, the less blanket you have keeping the mountaintop warm.