| Temperature Inversion |
| In meteorology, an inversion is a deviation from the normal change of an atmospheric property with altitude. It almost always refers to a temperature inversion. Condition in which the temperature of the atmosphere increases with altitude in contrast to the normal decrease with altitude is called temperature inversion. When temperature inversion occurs, cold air underlies warmer air at higher altitudes. An inversion can lead to pollution such as smog being trapped close to the ground, with possible adverse effects on health. An inversion can also suppress convection by acting as a "cap". If this cap is broken for any of several reasons, convection of any moisture present can then erupt into violent thunderstorms.
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In order to understand inversions, we must first understand normal atmospheric conditions. Under normal circumstances, the air near the surface of the Earth is warmer than the air above it. Typically air is hottest at the ground. Air is fairly transparent to sunlight, most of which passes straight through it without heating it. When the sunlight reaches the ground it is almost entirely absorbed, heating the land. Some of this energy is then re-radiated as infrared rays to the layer of the atmosphere directly above it. Unlike the original sunlight, infrared light interacts more strongly with air, which is then heated from below. Hot air, however, rises. This leads to constant convection, which draws the warmer air up, to be replaced with cooler air, which is then heated. Hence in the lower atmosphere (the troposphere) the air near the surface of the Earth is warmer than the air above it. |
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