Re: Hot air rising and automobile thermometers

[Leigh Palmer <palmer@SFU.CA>]

> I used the radiosonde data only because I don't have the data from your
> thermometer.  I assume that the temperature inversion is seen in the
> morning on your way up the mountain (when "mixing"* is at a minimum).  Do
> you see the same inversion in the afternoon when you come back down the
> mountain (when "mixing"* is at a maximum)?

We do observe inversions going downhill, but, I think, less frequently.
I think we observe less frequently altogether on our way home, so it is
apparent that I must do something about that. I do not know how closely
the surface temperature on the hillside represents the atmospheric
temperature at the same altitude over the city below, but I expect the
monotonicity with altitude to be the same in both cases.

Thank you for alerting me to the likely difference. Having been alerted
I will start observing. Perhaps I will even write down my data, though
probably not in ink in the prescribed bound notebook. I may even switch
my thermometer from Celsius degrees Fahrenheit, and for two reasons. My
car, a 1989 Dodge Caravan, has a Fahrenheit thermometer and it uses a
lookup table to convert Fahrenheit to Celsius, to the nearest degree!
Thus the Fahrenheit scale is both more precise and more accurate. This
provides an excellent example of the meanings of those two words, so it
is not an entirely useless comment in this group.

How many people in this list have made that same observation? Try it if
you normally only look at one scale.

Leigh