why is the temperature cooler when you go higher?

Answer 1

Adiabatic expansion. While air rises, it expands and this expansion results in less collisions between particles because they're more spread out. Less collisions mean less friction and less kinetic energy which results in lower temperatures. On the average day, one could expect the temperature to decrease by about 6 degrees Celsius per every kilometer of height. This is called the lapse rate, and it can vary from hour to hour.

Temperature inversions, or atmospheric caps, can make the atmospheric temperature increase with height for a portion of the lower atmosphere. These are most common during the night and morning hours due to the temperatures at the surface cooling faster than those aloft.

At a certain point in the atmosphere, called the tropopause, temperatures will begin to increase with height because of greenhouse gases trapping heat.

Answer 2

The pressure at the surface of the earth results of course from the weight of all the atmosphere above. If you go up many thousands of feet in a balloon there is much less air above you than on the ground and the pressure will be less. With less pressure air expands and cools because the heat energy is spread out over a larger volume. For example if one cubic foot of air rises where pressure is less and expands to two cubic feet there is only one half of the heat energy available in each (of the two) cubic feet. Less concentration of heat energy shows up as a reduced temperature.

Answer 3

It's not always the case, sometimes temperature inversion occurs, trapping ozone and smog at the surface. However, in general, the density and the pressure of the atmosphere decreases with height because the overlying atmosphere weighs less and less. This decrease in pressure causes air to expand and cool. Eventually above a certain height the temperature again actually increases due to the presence of the ozone layer and its absorption of solar UV.

Answer 4

The main reason is that the atmosphere is heated from the bottom as explained below.
The incident solar radiation is a short-wave radiation which passes through the atmosphere towards the earth, without heating it much, as air can not absorb this short-wave radiation.But the earth absorbs it and radiates back to atmosphere as a long-wave radiation.Water vapour in the air (which is concentrated near the earth's surface) is a powerful absorber of this long-wave radiation and so it absorbes the heat and in turn heats the air near the earth's surface.This heat is carried above by conduction as well as obsorption by water vapour in higher levels.Earth's surface also absorbs the heat and heats the atmosphere above it.Thus the atmosphere is heated from below and that is why the temperature is less as you go up.

Answer 5

That is called adiabatic cooling. As air rises, it expands and loses heat. The molecules are farther apart and have less kinetic energy, making their temperature less. When the air gets cool enough, water vapor in the air condenses into rain or snow, depending upon the season.

Answer 6

Heat is the vibration of molecules. The more molecules you have vibrating the more the heat. The higher the elevation the less air there is. There are fewer air molecules there are the fewer there are to bump in to you and pass the heat on to you or a thermometer.
Temperature is the quantifying of heat passing from one molecule to another.

Answer 7

there is 3 issues that works for my cats. keen on direction...they prefer to be in front of the fan. yet in addition they prefer ice cubes. because of the fact cats are curious and would't face up to investigating, I placed a small pan (like a cake pan) on the floor with a team of ice cubes in it. They get curious and that they look at and that they play with the ice cubes. they warfare licking them and touching them and that's fresh for them. As they soften, the cats drink the cool water. another element I do is i exploit a small unused clutter field, one that I easily have purely for this purpose. I moist a towel and squeeze the water out as much as possible and fold it up interior the pan. My cats then think of they have a definite mattress and that they sleep on the cool towel, which brings their physique temperature down. They like it. stable success!