Calculation: An air parcel at sea-level has a temperature of 28°C and a dew poin
ID: 109048 • Letter: C
Question
Calculation: An air parcel at sea-level has a temperature of 28°C and a dew point temperature of 12°C. The air is then forced to rise over a 3 km high mountain range.
What is the temperature and dew point temperature of the air parcel at 1000 m, 2000 m, and 3000 m as the air parcel rises? Show your work.
At what elevation do clouds start to form and why?
If the air parcel at 3000 meters sinks back down to the surface, what is the temperature and dew point temperature of the air parcel at 2000 m, 1000 m, and the surface? Show your work.
Why is the surface temperature so much warmer on the leeward side of the mountain than on the windward side of the mountain?
Explanation / Answer
Answer:
These problems are solved with some assumptions such as follows:
1: On rising air parcel the temperature decreases with rate of 10 degree C per 1000 meter.
2: Saturation point comes when air parcel temperature becomes equal to dew point temperature.
Therefore, in given problem the surface temperature are 28 degree C and dew temperature are 12 degree C.
On decreasing the air temperature with height at 1000m it become 18 degree C, at 2000 m it would be 8 degree C and at 3000 m it become -2 degree C. As we can see that at 2000m the air parcel temperature become nearly equal to dew point temperature and this would be the saturation point.
Clouds starts to forms at saturation point, hence according to the given condition it would be start to form at elevation of 2000 m.
On moving reverse, the air parcel shows pattern with increasing temperature at the rate of 6 degree C per 1000m therefore, back from the attained height of 3000m, it would be 4 degree C, at height 2000m it would be 10 degree C and at 1000m it would be 16 degree C.
The difference in temperature are due to the presence of cloud water into the cloud, if more water form during condensation, more temperature require to evaporate and if less water is present then less temperature is require to evaporate.
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