167
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[-] lurker2718@lemmings.world 8 points 3 months ago

While I agree in general, one point is a bit to simplified in my opinion

In other words, there are fewer air molecules per cubic foot (volume of air). The molecules are farther apart and can hold less heat energy. Because "heat" is what we say when we mean molecules are moving around.

Less molecules mean less heat, it has nothing to do with the temperature, if you just decrease the density by removing half the molecules, you have the same temperature.

It cools down because it expands adiabatically. Consider a very thin balloon filled with air which is warmer than the surrounding. This now rises up, but as it does, the pressure decreases, causing the balloon to expand. During this expansion, the balloon transfers energy away from itself, because it has to push away air, to make room for expanding in the surrounding. This work cools the air inside the balloon. Assuming the air inside is dry, it would cool around 10 °C per km it rises. Now if you think about it, the balloon just stopped the inside from mixing with the outside. If you look at a large "piece" of air, it does not mix very fast, so you can remove the balloon and just consider what happens with warm air heated from the ground.

Now this does not mean, it has to be cooler when higher up. The same points hold, inside a house, but there it is often warmer when higher.

The best explaination is when looking where the heat comes from and goes too from the air. The atmosphere is mostly heated from the surface of earth, so the bottom and cooled from the upper layers. So naturally it gets hotter where it is heated. The question is now by how much? There are three modes of heat transfer in the atmosphere: radiation, conduction and convection. The first two are very slow. Connection is fast but has limits. Consider the piece of air, if it rises, it cools. So at some place it may be the same temperature as the surrounding air, so it stops rising. This means the convection works only when the air gets cooler by 10 °C/km going up (~6.5°C when the air is moist and precipation happens). So this temperature gradient is observable very often.

[-] Turun@feddit.de 2 points 3 months ago

But does the energy to expand the balloon not just come from the pressure? Pressure has units of energy per volume btw.

[-] lurker2718@lemmings.world 2 points 3 months ago

I think it is actually the other way around. You can consider the air inside the balloon to have internal energy from the heat. And additionally you have to make room for the balloon in the atmosphere, so you have removed the atmosphere from the volume the balloon takes, which also needs energy. If you consider both you arrive at the concept of enthalpy (H = U + pV), which is very useful for reactions in the atmosphere as pressure is constant. For this example it is not that useful as outside pressure changes when the balloon rises.

Another way to see it, the pressure has no "real" energy. In a ideal gas, the only energy comes from the kinetic or movement energy of the atoms. Each time a gas molecule is hits the balloon envelope it transfers some momentum. The cumulative effect of the constant collisions is the pressure of the gas. If the balloon is now expanding slowly, each collisions also tranfers some energy, in sum building the work the system has to do to the atmosphere. Leading to a decrease in internal, so "real" energy in the balloon. This corresponds to a decrease in temperature.

[-] Turun@feddit.de 2 points 3 months ago

Each time a gas molecule is hits the balloon envelope it transfers some momentum.

I see! Thank you very much!

If we assume the balloon model and the sides expand then each collision of a molecule inside the balloon with the outer wall will leave it with less speed and therefore lower energy and therefore a lower temperature.

As a consequence, gas expanding in a vacuum does not cool off, because it has nothing to transfer the energy to!

[-] Zippy@lemmy.world 1 points 3 months ago

Balloons are open. Most typically do not expand but the excess air just escapes out the bottom. Basically they will rise till the overall weight matches that if what they displace.

There are more efficient balloons that do expand and can attain same great heights. Far more than conventional aircraft even. But that expansion is mostly due to excess material in the construction and little from stretching. Thus the pressure difference is minimal while the volume increase significantly with altitude.

[-] Turun@feddit.de 1 points 3 months ago

I can't even criticize this comment, because you wouldn't understand why.

So thanks for the effort I guess? But we're not discussing real balloons.

this post was submitted on 06 Apr 2024
167 points (95.6% liked)

No Stupid Questions

34333 readers
1133 users here now

No such thing. Ask away!

!nostupidquestions is a community dedicated to being helpful and answering each others' questions on various topics.

The rules for posting and commenting, besides the rules defined here for lemmy.world, are as follows:

Rules (interactive)


Rule 1- All posts must be legitimate questions. All post titles must include a question.

All posts must be legitimate questions, and all post titles must include a question. Questions that are joke or trolling questions, memes, song lyrics as title, etc. are not allowed here. See Rule 6 for all exceptions.



Rule 2- Your question subject cannot be illegal or NSFW material.

Your question subject cannot be illegal or NSFW material. You will be warned first, banned second.



Rule 3- Do not seek mental, medical and professional help here.

Do not seek mental, medical and professional help here. Breaking this rule will not get you or your post removed, but it will put you at risk, and possibly in danger.



Rule 4- No self promotion or upvote-farming of any kind.

That's it.



Rule 5- No baiting or sealioning or promoting an agenda.

Questions which, instead of being of an innocuous nature, are specifically intended (based on reports and in the opinion of our crack moderation team) to bait users into ideological wars on charged political topics will be removed and the authors warned - or banned - depending on severity.



Rule 6- Regarding META posts and joke questions.

Provided it is about the community itself, you may post non-question posts using the [META] tag on your post title.

On fridays, you are allowed to post meme and troll questions, on the condition that it's in text format only, and conforms with our other rules. These posts MUST include the [NSQ Friday] tag in their title.

If you post a serious question on friday and are looking only for legitimate answers, then please include the [Serious] tag on your post. Irrelevant replies will then be removed by moderators.



Rule 7- You can't intentionally annoy, mock, or harass other members.

If you intentionally annoy, mock, harass, or discriminate against any individual member, you will be removed.

Likewise, if you are a member, sympathiser or a resemblant of a movement that is known to largely hate, mock, discriminate against, and/or want to take lives of a group of people, and you were provably vocal about your hate, then you will be banned on sight.



Rule 8- All comments should try to stay relevant to their parent content.



Rule 9- Reposts from other platforms are not allowed.

Let everyone have their own content.



Rule 10- Majority of bots aren't allowed to participate here.



Credits

Our breathtaking icon was bestowed upon us by @Cevilia!

The greatest banner of all time: by @TheOneWithTheHair!

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS