why does the atmospheric pressure decrease with height?

Question

in terms of kinetic theory of gases

Answer 1

If you had a bin filled with ball bearings you would expect the pressure at any level in the bin to depend on the total weight of the ball bearings above. However air is compressible and it would be more like filling the bin with ball bearings that are smaller and more densely packed at each lower layer from top to bottom due to the weight above. The total weight on the floor of the bin is the total weight of all the ball bearings above and can be calculated as the weight per square foot or square inch, etc.

The kinetic theory of gases merely says that the air is not stationary (like ball bearings) but rather the air molecules bounce off each other and the floor and expand or contract depending on the temperature of the gas. However the pressure exerted on the floor of the bin by a gas results from the weight above and the billions of collisions per second as the gas molecules bounce against the floor. Although the gas molecules are moving a great speeds it is still called static pressure because the gas is not flowing en mass along a pipe or air duck which adds dynamic pressure. Hope that helps a little.

Answer 2

The rigidity at any point interior the ambience could be interpreted because of the fact the completed weight of the air above a unit section at any elevation. At greater elevations, there are fewer air molecules above a given floor than an analogous floor at decrease stages. to illustrate, there are fewer molecules above the 50 km floor than are got here across above the 12 km floor, it is why the rigidity is way less at 50 km. What this suggests is that atmospheric rigidity decreases with increasing height. on the grounds that dissimilar the ambience's molecules are held on the brink of the earth's floor via the rigidity of gravity, air rigidity decreases on the instant on the start, then greater slowly at greater stages. on the grounds that greater effective than one million/2 of the ambience's molecules are located under an altitude of five.5 km, atmospheric rigidity decreases variety of 50% (to around 500 mb) interior the backside 5.5 km. Above 5.5 km, the rigidity keeps to decrease yet at an progressively greater slower fee.

Answer 3

We are living underneath about 80 km of air. The higher you go, the less air is pressing down on you. Therefore the pressure gets lower.

Answer 4

r u a teacher or just plain stupid.....just open up ur chemistry book,under the chapter kinetic theory of gases u'll find all the required info.............keep in mind the volume density relationship.......i.e they r inversely proportional to each other..now it shudn't b tough

Answer 5

Because there is less air pushing down on itself at higher altitudes. At very high altitudes there is less effect of gravity.