Use the fact (more detail) to explain why Earth's air gets thinner as you go higher up the side of a mountain

Question

The bottom of Earth's atmosphere is in gravitational equilibrium, with the air pressure in the lower layers of air providing balanced support to the weight of the upper layers of air

a)Use this fact to explain why Earth's air gets thinner (less dense) as you go higher up the side of a mountain.

b)Use this fact to explain why the air gets cooler as you go higher up the side of a mountain.

Answer 1

It is just like going to the bottom of a swimming pool. The deeper you go, the more weight of water is above you. The atmosphere also behaves as a fluid, but it is a gas. With gases, the greater the pressure, the closer the gas molecules are to each other which means the gas has more mass per unit volume at sea level than it does at higher elevations. Temperature in gas is due to the energy of the collisions of the gas molecules with each other. The greater the number of collisions, the higher the energy (heat). When gas expands the thermal energy is distributed over a larger volume which relates to a decrease in temperature. Compressing the gas (example: a cylinder and piston) will concentrate the energy in a smaller space, elevating the temperature. Which is why diesel engines do not require spark plugs.

Answer 2

a) The air at the bottom of a mountain has more air above it and so is packeded more densely. As you ascend, there is less air above and so less air pressure.
b) Pressure and volume are directly related and so as pressure goes down so does the temperature.
The temp is the average energy of air. With less pressure at higher altitudes, the air molecules have less energy since they don't bounce around as much and so generate less heat. There are fewer molecules to hit in a given space if the pressure is lower, and so the average energy of the air molecules is lower (lower temp).

Answer 3

Air gets thinner because as you go up in altitude there is simply less air above you pushing down. Thus, there is also less air at a given higher altitude. Less air equals more space between air molecules equals "thinner" air. The air gets cooler partially because there is less kinetic energy between air molecules.

Answer 4

a)
The density of air is the mass per unit volume of Earth's atmosphere, and is a useful value in aeronautics. In the SI system it is measured as the number of kilograms of air in a cubic meter (kg/m3). At sea level and at 20 °C dry air has a density of approximately 1.2 kg/m3. varying with pressure and temperature. Air density and air pressure decrease with increasing altitude.

Atmospheric pressure is the pressure at any point in the Earth's atmosphere.

In most circumstances atmospheric pressure is closely approximated by the hydrostatic pressure caused by the weight of air above the measurement point. Air masses are affected by the general atmospheric pressure within the mass, creating areas of high pressure (anti-cyclones) and low pressure (depressions). Low pressure areas have less atmospheric mass above their location, whereas high pressure areas have more atmospheric mass above their location.

As elevation increases, there are exponentially fewer and fewer air molecules. Therefore, atmospheric pressure decreases with increasing altitude at a decreasing rate.

b)
As there are fewer molecules in the air at higher altitudes, the sun heat doesn't accumulate as much as in lower altitudes (which have more dense air).

Answer 5

In simple terms (I'm not a scientist) the atmosphere, much like the ocean, is denser at the bottom where it presses against the Earth and has nowhere to go. And the denser air holds heat better, like a blanket.

Answer 6

because air has mass(weight) and gravity acts on it and pulls it down so as you go higher theres gonna be less air

the vaccuum of space is cold any heat in that high in earths atmosphere is conducted-or convected?-out to the coldness of space

Answer 7

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