Talk:Inversion (meteorology)

Rename Article

I propose to rename this article "Inversion (meteorology)". Tmangray 17:50, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

That doesn't sound like a good idea at all. T inv is the std name. William M. Connolley 07:55, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

Your comment is entirely out of touch with the common usage. Few people including those in the field of meteorology use the full (yes, correct) term "temperature inversion". Indeed, you don't find the term "temperature inversion" in the NWS glossary at all, but you do find "inversion". By far, most people use the shorthand "inversion", and this would be most likely be what people on Wikipedia search for. They would come to the disambiguation page which lists temperature inversion on a page titled "inverse", then under the header "science", not meteorology. This is poor way to get people to an article. I notice that the standard format for many terms on Wikipedia that are shared by different fields is to specify the term followed by the name of the field in parentheses. I propose this for this article. Then, within the article, right in the first paragraph, bolded, the more exact usage "temperature inversion" can be mentioned. It can also be put on a redirect. BTW, the NWS glossary mentions that inversions of OTHER properties in the atmosphere exist, so the article can also be generalized. Tmangray 17:38, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

I totally agree. The article confuses Temperature Inversions (which do happen) with Pressure Inversions, which don't (and cannot) happen. Gutta Percha (talk) 14:25, 4 January 2015 (UTC)

sleet and ice

Sleet and ice storms are, by definition, caused by inversions! There must be a warm layer above ground level to melt the precipitation, then a cold layer at the ground to freeze it. This is the definition of asn inversion. Why does this correct information keep getting removed!

(William M. Connolley 08:26, 16 Jun 2004 (UTC)) It was me. The reason is, the stuff about "cause". The storm - the precipitation itself - is not caused by the inversion. All that does is transform it from liquid to solid. And anyway, sleet can be caused by a warm lower layer melting solid ppn from a higher layer.

Lochcarron pic

I added the Lochcarron pic, which I'm pretty sure is a temp. inversion; if anyone who knows more about weather than me wants to check it, that would be good. — Johan the Ghost _seance 14:33, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

Merger

Agree with the merger, go for it! — Johan the Ghost _seance 14:34, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

Rephrase - consequences

I hacked the consequences a bit. I believe that the main contribution to "stillness" is the lack of convection. This also affects buoyant plumes, which tend to entrain ambient air and hence stop being buoyant at some point (below the inversion top usually). In other words, stuff *isn't* trapped at the *top* of the inversion. Also, the clouds stuff: fog in an inversion is just low cloud; so inversions don't stop cloud. The new pic looks nice though William M. Connolley 20:43, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

Thank you! I was passing through Lochcarron and saw this, and my first thought was "Temperature inversion — Wikipedia!" Maybe I've been spending too much time here... ;-) It does look like a classic case, though (though I'm no expert). — Johan the Ghost _seance 10:38, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

Hot/Cold Air

"Hot air, however, rises (*). This is convection in which the warmer air rises up, to be replaced with cooler air which is then heated. It is this process that leads to cloud building, thermals, and other convection related atmospheric behaviour.

(*) The truth is that Colder air sinks and occupies the lower layers. It is the simple gravitational effect of a "heavier" (denser) mass winning over a lighter mass. Hot air has no intrinsic antigavitational properties"

Actually it does. Warm air doesn't "rise", except relatively speaking. It expands. Part of that expansion is upward, e.g. against the force of gravity. Tmangray 03:18, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

This section seems inappropiate and not very encyclopedic. Maybe the second paragraph should just be removed?翔太 ^{「Shouta:talk」} 08:52, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

Great Smog of 1952

Why not mention the Great Smog of 1952 in the consequences section? It was a temperature inversion with important consequences... Psyno 22:46, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

Good idea. Go for it. -Will Beback 02:12, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

Done. Psyno 22:30, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

Correct to write "an increase in temperature with height"?

I believe it should be "an increase in potential temperature with height", as there can be an inversion even if the temperature decreases with height - if the decrease is smaller than that caused by adiabatic transfer of air upwards.

The diagram should have curves for both adiabatic and normal variation, and the article should discuss in terms of °C/km.

(I studied physics, but never meteorology.) OlavN 07:38, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

Mechanism for nighttime inversion

"An inversion is also produced whenever radiation from the surface of the earth exceeds the amount of radiation received from the sun ..." This doesn't make sense to me. Wouldn't excess radiation cause the air near the surface of the earth to be heated *more* relative to the air farther from the surface? (yielding the normal stratification) Would a clearer explanation be: During the day, the Earth converts solar radiation to heat; during the night, this doesn't happen, so air at the surface stays cool. Joee92 (talk) 16:30, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

"Radiation from the surface" is what makes the surface cool. At night, and when there are no clouds, the radiation from the surface is typically much larger than the back radiation from water vapor and CO2. Therefore, the ground, and the air close to it, become cooler than the air 100 feet above.

During the day, when the surface absorbs more radiation than it radiates, it tends to be hotter than the air 100 feet above. However, smog, or a cool sea breeze, could keep the surface cooler than the air above. Q Science (talk) 17:17, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

I had the same question as Joee92. Apparently the heat radiated (at night) from the Earth is not transferred to the air very much as it moves through it. And during the day when radiation from the Sun is more than that from the Earth, preponderantly the Earth is warmed rather than the air (why?), and the Earth then warms the air by conduction. Correct? -lifeform (talk) 06:05, 30 December 2015 (UTC)

during the day... the Earth is warmed rather than the air (why?) because the air is largely transparent; the Earth isn't; and the Earth then warms the air by conduction. Correct? yes, ish. Actual conduction is really slow, if I remember correctly, and only applies to really still air. It is likely to be small-eddies in practice William M. Connolley (talk) 09:53, 30 December 2015 (UTC)

WikiProject class rating

This article was automatically assessed because at least one WikiProject had rated the article as start, and the rating on other projects was brought up to start class. BetacommandBot 09:55, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Scrambled Eggs

This statement doesn't convey much meaning: '...causing them to sound like "scrambled eggs"'. I don't know what scrambled eggs sound like. I propose to either redefine in terms the reader can understand or remove altogether. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.59.150.191 (talk) 07:22, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

Remove list of cities

Inversion layers seem to affect most coasts and valleys, am I correct? In that case, is it really useful to have a list of cities in the article, since almost all cities in the world are either on a coast or in a valley? It's also a little unsure of what it wants to be; it starts off as a list of cities where inversion layers drive smog (which is almost just a List of most polluted cities by particulate matter concentration), and then segues into a list of a number of smaller cities that are so far down the list of "most polluted" that they're actually higher on the list of "cleanest," like the whole set of Willamette Valley cities that someone decided had to be in there. I think it should probably just go, it doesn't really add anything. SilverbackNet ^talk 22:50, 14 July 2017 (UTC)

intro not at level of encylopedia

thermal lapse rate is BS if your 5 yro can't understand it , it is not right for a gnereal encylopedia geez, why do you stem types never make it simple ? math and linguistics stem is the worst — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:192:4700:1F70:7832:858E:FDFE:4F10 (talk) 21:22, 7 February 2021 (UTC)

"Inversion (meteorology" listed at Redirects for discussion

The redirect Inversion (meteorology has been listed at redirects for discussion to determine whether its use and function meets the redirect guidelines. Readers of this page are welcome to comment on this redirect at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2024 April 8 § Inversion (meteorology until a consensus is reached. Utopes _{(talk / cont)} 01:02, 8 April 2024 (UTC)