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Water vapor can also be indirect evidence supporting the presence of extraterrestrial liquid water in the case of some planetary mass objects. Water vapor, which reacts to temperature changes, is referred to as a 'feedback', because it amplifies the effect of forces that initially cause the warming. Therefore, it is a greenhouse gas. [2]
The condensed water is called dew when it forms on a solid surface, or frost if it freezes. In the air, the condensed water is called either fog or a cloud, depending on its altitude when it forms. If the temperature is below the dew point, and no dew or fog forms, the vapor is called supersaturated.
The air is radiatively cooled by greenhouse gases (water vapor, carbon dioxide, etc.) and clouds emitting longwave thermal radiation to space. [ 12 ] If radiation were the only way to transfer energy within the atmosphere, then the lapse rate near the surface would be roughly 40 °C/km and the greenhouse effect of gases in the atmosphere would ...
In the troposphere, the temperature of the air decreases at high altitude, however, in the stratosphere the air temperature initially is constant, and then increases with altitude. The increase of air temperature at stratospheric altitudes results from the ozone layer's absorption and retention of the ultraviolet (UV) radiation that Earth ...
The vapor then condenses into tiny water droplets which freeze if the temperature is low enough. These millions of tiny water droplets and/or ice crystals form the contrails. The time taken for the vapor to cool enough to condense accounts for the contrail forming some distance behind the aircraft.
The atmosphere of planet Earth: The tropopause is between the troposphere and the stratosphere. Rising from the planetary surface of the Earth, the tropopause is the atmospheric level where the air ceases to become cool with increased altitude and becomes dry, devoid of water vapor.
If the clouds were removed with all else remaining the same, the Earth would lose this much cooling and the global temperatures would increase. [3]: 1022 Climate change increases the amount of water vapor in the atmosphere due to the Clausius–Clapeyron relation, in what is known as the water-vapor feedback. [23]
Because the troposphere experiences its warmest temperatures closer to Earth's surface, there is great vertical movement of heat and water vapour, causing turbulence. This turbulence, in conjunction with the presence of water vapour, is the reason that weather occurs within the troposphere. [3] [4] Following the tropopause is the stratosphere.