Sounding the Ocean of Air: Being Six Lectures Delivered Before the Lowell Institute of Boston, in December 1898Rotch, Abbott Lawrence
Science
Sounding the Ocean of Air: Being Six Lectures Delivered Before the Lowell Institute of Boston, in December 1898
Rotch, Abbott Lawrence
Atmosphere; Balloons; Clouds; Kites (Meteorology)
Since there appears to be no appreciable diurnal period in the
temperature at and above 500 metres, a better comparison of the
relative changes aloft and below during the passage of warm and cold
waves is obtained by smoothing out the diurnal period below. This has
been done in Plate XI., Fig. 4, with the data given by the kites at
500 and 1000 metres plotted in curves, which it was necessary to
complete by extrapolation. It is seen that there is a much greater
range in the temperature from the crest of a warm to the crest of a
cold wave at a height of 500 metres than at the ground. At 1000 metres
the range appears to be slightly greater than at 500 metres, and the
crests of the warm and cold waves occur successively earlier than they
do at the ground. On the approach, and until the passage of the crest
of the cold wave the air is colder aloft than at the ground, the
difference being apparently that of the adiabatic cooling of ascending
air. After the passage of the crest of the cold wave, the temperature
aloft rises much more rapidly than at the ground, and at the crest of
the warm wave the air at 500 metres is some 10∞ warmer than the mean
daily temperature at the ground. In many kite-flights the difference
was found to be even greater than this. Taking the mean temperature of
twenty-four-hours, it is seen that the average temperature at the
ground during a week or more is about the same as it is at 500
metres. Fig. 5 shows the change in the vertical distribution of
temperature during the oncoming of the warm wave on the eighth and
early morning of the ninth, as determined by four ascents, culminating
at 11 a.m., 9 p.m., 11 p.m., and 4 a.m. The lines of 59∞, 62∞, 65∞,
and 68∞ show that there was a gradual rise of temperature aloft, which
extended downwards to 200 metres, or to the top of Blue Hill. Clouds
formed at the level of lowest temperature, and these sank also until
they covered the top of the hill.
Plate XII. is a facsimile of the meteorogram during the kite-flight of
October 15, 1897, the lower part showing the trace of the barometer on
a scale of heights in metres, the middle section the trace of the
hygrometer, and the upper one the trace of the thermometer on a scale
of Centigrade degrees. The temperature followed the normal change,
which is as follows: during the day, up to a certain height, which
varies under different conditions, there is a decrease nearly at the
adiabatic rate of 1∞∑8 F. per hundred metres. Above that height the
air suddenly becomes warmer, and then cools with ascent at a rate
somewhat less than the adiabatic rate. During the night there is a
marked inversion of temperature between the ground and 200 or 300
metres.
[Illustration: PLATE XII.--AUTOMATIC RECORDS DURING A HIGH
KITE-FLIGHT AT BLUE HILL.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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