ATM OCN (Meteorology) 100 - Lecture 3
THERMODYNAMICS:
BEHAVIOR OF GASES IN THE ATMOSPHERE
Fall 1997
Lecture #9 Scheduled for:
22 SEP 1997 (M)
Recommended Readings from Moran and Morgan (1997):
pages 120-121; 136-138, 147-149 (skim).
Objectives:
- To apply the gas law to atmospheric processes.
- To explain an adiabatic process.
- To differentiate between adiabatic cooling and the lapse rate.
- To explain how atmospheric stability influences vertical motion
of air.
- To identify the various lifting processes operating with the
atmosphere.
Outline:
A. INTRODUCTION
- Practical Problems
- Solutions to these problems
B. KINETIC THEORY OF MATTER
- Definitions
- Historical
- Assumptions for gases
- Variables describing the molecular state of a gas
- Diffusion
C. THE GAS LAWS
- Classical approach to Ideal Gas Law (or Equation of State)
- Atmospheric application of Ideal Gas Law
- Dalton's Laws of Partial Pressures
- Atmospheric application of Dalton's Laws of Partial Pressures
D. THE THERMODYNAMIC LAWS
- Introduction
- First Law of Thermodynamics
- Atmospheric application of the First Law of Thermodynamics
E. THE VERTICAL MOTION PROBLEM
- Response of an air parcel
- Response of the environment
F. STATIC STABILITY
- Importance
- Stability - Instability Concept
- Response of the atmospheric environment
- Criteria for Static Stability (Instability) Determination
- Processes which change static stability (instability)
- Visual stability indicators
- Graphical Analysis: The Thermodynamic Diagram
Last revision 28 September 1997
Produced by Edward J. Hopkins, Ph.D.
Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences
University of Wisconsin-Madison Madison, WI 53706
hopkins@meteor.wisc.edu