Temperature inversion layers, also called thermal inversions or just inversion layers, are areas where the normal decrease in air temperature with increasing altitude is reversed and air above the ground is warmer than the air below it. Inversion layers can occur anywhere from close to ground level up to thousands of feet into the atmosphere.
Inversion layers are significant to meteorology because they block atmospheric flow which causes the air over an area experiencing an inversion to become stable. This can then result in various types of weather patterns. More importantly though, areas with heavy pollution are prone to unhealthy air and an increase in smog when an inversion is present because they trap pollutants at ground level instead of circulating them away.
Opinion: Thermal inversion are areas when warm air is on the top of cold air, reversed from the original pattern Thermal inversions are bad and can create extreme weather conditions. Some of these extreme weather conditions are tornadoes and thunderstorms. Theses inversions are said to be a result of other weather patterns. The occur when a warm less dense air mass moves over a cold dense air mass.
Questions:
1) What are thermal inversions and why are they bad?
2) What are some things that cause these inversions?
3) Explain the normal pattern of air and contrast it to the inversion air pattern.
Opinion:
ReplyDeleteIn my opinion, thermal inversions are not always bad. They only become bad when pollution is in the picture. In thermal inversions, the air stays where it is because it is where it wants to be. But when pollution comes into play, it cannot escape from the surface and stays trapped. The only thing that can break this up is any precipitation. In class we were discussing the deadly smog in Donora, PA. Their pollution got so bad that at noon, it looked like the middle of the night. It stayed like this for 5 days, and 70 people died from it.
Question #1:
Thermal inversions are when the atmospheric air is switched. This caused cool air to be at the surface, and warm air to be above it. The air will stop circulating since it is where it wants to be. Without pollution, these inversions are fine, all it does is make it colder. But with pollution, It gets trapped, and has the potential to harm people.
Opinion
ReplyDeleteThermal inversions are considered to be pretty bad because of the pollution that we are producing and the amount that is already in the atmosphere. Thermal inversions are basically when the cool and hot air flip flop. Thermal inversions stop the air currents from going up and down which makes the ground temperature much colder. We know the result of thermal inversions can be dangerous. We learned in class that 70 people died in a month. We need to be careful what we do with the pollution cause it could cause smog which messes with the human body.
Question 3
The normal pattern of air is that the warm air is on the bottom and the cold air is on the top. As you go up into the atmosphere it gets colder. The air usually circulates up and down and this way no pollutants get trapped. Thermal inversions the cold air is on the bottom and the warm air is on the top. As you go up into the atmosphere it gets warmer which shouldn't happen. The air doesn't circulate which then traps the pollutants on gorund level making smog and harming many people. Thermal inversions usually happen in indutrial places.
Opinion:
ReplyDeleteAlthough thermal inversions tend to not last very in very long time periodsm, they can still harm alot of people. Like in Donora PA in 1948. Like 18 people died in 5 days. And in these situations we really have to count on the weather to come and break things up or they could last a long time.
Question 2:
When the cold air is underneath of the hot air, and thermal inversion is taking place. With the heat above the cool air, no circulation takes place which results in no movement of the air underneath and in the cold layer of air. This presents issues with air pollution because that air pollution isn't getting circulated to other places so it stays in that area and the amount of it keeps getting larger due ot the fact that there is no where for the previous air pollution to go. The air quality then gets extremely bad unless other weather patterns come through and help pget things back to normal with the warmer air underneath the cooler air.
Opinion:
ReplyDeleteI belive thermal inversion is not always a bad thing. I feel like some people always think of it as trapping pollution down with the cold hair, which it does. However, thermal inversion can also just trap cool air if we don't have a signifigant amount of pollution. Overall, thermal inversions don't always have to be looked on as a bad thing, they can simply just be some nice cool air. In fact, we probably have thermal inversions durring the winter, however, we don't have a signifigant amount of people to really pay attention to the extreme effects.
Question 1:
Thermal inversions are when the cool air is trapped under a pocket of warm air (hot air rises, cold air falls). Thermal inversions themselves are not bad, it's the pollution they trap that is bad.