How is that the higher you go off the ground, the colder it gets?

Question

I've had this question since I was a kid. Many people including my teachers, have tried explaining it to me, but I just don't seem to get it.
The higher you go, the colder it gets; but we know that cold air is heavier than hot air, so hot air goes up and cold air goes down. So it ideally should get hotter the higher you go (in the atmosphere wherein the sun rays are partially trapped).

Answer 1

The atmosphere is what keeps the Earth warm. It is like a blanket covering the planet. Heat from the sun enters the atmosphere, and remains below it. Without an atmosphere, the Earth would be a frozen wasteland because heat would not remain on the planet.

The higher you go in the atmosphere, the thinner it gets. The thinner it gets, the less heat it is capable of holding in. When you climb to the top of a mountain, or fly in an airplane, the atmosphere is so thin that there is a drastic difference in temperature. It gets colder the higher you go because the thinner atmosphere allows more heat to escape back into space.

So lets say that it's a very hot summer day. The top floor of a building would be hotter than the first floor because hot air does rise. But this building is way below the atmosphere, so all of the heat from the sun is being held in nicely.

Now if you imagine the heat from the top floor of that building rising up as high as the top of Mt. Everest, let's say, or as high as a plane flying in the sky, then the thinner atmosphere would not be able to hold on to it as easily, and that heat would be released into space. Therefore, very high elevations are much colder due to the thinner atmosphere.

I hope I explained it in a way you can understand. :o)

Answer 2

It isn't really the temperature of the air that causes it to move, but the density. If you heat a volume of air, it expands and gets less dense. This density change is really why it rises, not because it is warm.

The densest air is always at the bottom. But it is possible to cool air at a low density, and this is what happens at high altitudes. The higher you go, the less dense air is, due to gravity. The denser air is still at the bottom, right?

What warms the air? It mostly comes from the sun shining on the surface of the earth and warming it up. Sunlight can't directly warm the air very well because it is transparent.

So the higher up you go, the farther you get from the warm earth, and the colder the air gets, but even though it is cold, its density is still very low, so it doesn't sink down to the ground.

Answer 3

You are right to say hot air rises, and this is often seen in the form of thunderstorms, tornados, and hurricanes, all of which are powered by rising columns of hot air. This would be true throughout the atmosphere if the density of air were constant regardless of altitude. This is not the case. Just like how pressure increases as you dive deeper underwater, the air pressure near the earth's surface is much greater than it is several miles up. Because the pressure is much lower, there are fewer air particles bouncing off of eachother in a given volume, so the temperature is also lower. This obeys the ideal gas law that states that pressure is proportional to temperature, among other things.

Answer 4

In undemanding phrases, the floor of the Earth acts like a heater. The layers of air that are nearer to the floor of Earth get heated greater whilst in comparison with the top layers. The layers of air that are at a greater advantageous altitude are greater distant from the floor and for this reason are heated lesser merely like an merchandise added faraway from a heater in our rooms would be heated much less. regardless of if it quite is now not so undemanding as that. Temperature lapse fee happens in basic terms upto a undeniable altitude. After that, this rule does'nt prepare. there are various different aspects.

Answer 5

as you go up in the sky the pressure goes down an so the air expands, when air expands it cools adiabatically
like the opposite of when you use a bicycle pump on a tyre it gets hot as the pressure goes up

dry air cools at 3 degree per 1000ft aprox

Answer 6

the earth's core is nice and toasty. its warm down here.

when you go up, the air is colder cause its further from the core.

hot air rises in a room, not in the atmosphere.
: )

Answer 7

I believe that the "adiabatic index" is what you're looking for. You can wikipedia it.