GEOG 1300 Chapter Notes - Chapter 6: Urban Heat Island, Waste Heat, Shifting Cultivation
5 Dec 2013
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Document Summary
Lapse rate rate at which temperature decreases with altitudinal increase. Environmental lapse rate the actual rate at which temperature falls with increasing altitude in the local atmosphere. Conditionally unstable instability in the atmosphere that is conditional upon an air parcel becoming saturated, which leads to a shift from cooling via the dry adiabatic lapse rate to the saturated adiabatic lapse rate. This causes the air to become warmer than the surrounding air and ascend more rapidly, leading to the deep-ocean floor. Super-adiabatic a term used for localized steep lapse rates that are greater than even the dry adiabatic lapse rate causing rapid local convection. Katabatic drainage radiative cooling at night causes the air close to the ground to cool; this cooler air is slightly denser and slowly moves downslope to lower ground and into depressions. It is greatest in cloud-free and dry conditions with light winds (limited mechanical mixing of the air).
