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Purpose: To apply radiosonde plotting skills in a stability framework and visualize stability in different ways: on a sounding, in a lab experiment, and as it flows over a mountain. This will increase your confidence and ability to use these skills throughout the semester when applying them to physical meteorological problems. Additionally, these skills will allow you to understand the theory behind some of the driving forces in meteorology, and to understand the subject matter better as a whole.
Learning Objectives: Become more familiar with plotting radiosonde data and lift a parcel using lapse rates, both on a sounding, and over a mountain.
If an air parcel is warmer than environmental temperature, it is unstable and will rise. If an air parcel is colder than environmental temperature, it is stable and will sink. Computing these mathematically is done via lapse rates.
Lifted condensation level (LCL) is the level at which the parcel becomes saturated.
Level of free convection (LFC) is the level when the parcel becomes warmer than its environment and rises freely.
Equilibrium level (EL) is the level at which the air parcel will become colder than its environment, and will no longer freely rise.
We will discuss how a parcel's temperature changes as it's forced to go over a mountain, specifically looking at an unsaturated and saturated parcel.
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