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In meteorology, an inversion (or temperature inversion) is a phenomenon in which a layer of warmer air overlies cooler air. Normally, air temperature gradually decreases as altitude increases, but this relationship is reversed in an inversion. [2] An inversion traps air pollution, such as smog, near the ground.
The inversion temperature in thermodynamics and cryogenics is the critical temperature below which a non-ideal gas (all gases in reality) that is expanding at constant enthalpy will experience a temperature decrease, and above which will experience a temperature increase.
In chemistry, pyramidal inversion (also umbrella inversion) is a fluxional process in compounds with a pyramidal molecule, such as ammonia (NH 3) "turns inside out". [ 1 ] [ 2 ] It is a rapid oscillation of the atom and substituents, the molecule or ion passing through a planar transition state . [ 3 ]
Temperature generally decreases with altitude, but the heat from the day's exposure to sun is released at night, which can create a warm region at ground with colder air above. This is known as an inversion (a further example of a thermocline).
Water at the top of the troposphere, particularly in liquid and solid states, cools as it emits net photons to space. Neighboring gas molecules other than water (e.g. nitrogen) are cooled by passing their heat kinetically to the water. This is why temperatures at the top of the troposphere (known as the tropopause) are about -50 degrees Celsius.
One example of this is the cooling crystallization of water that can occur when the system's surroundings are below freezing temperatures. Unconstrained heat transfer can spontaneously occur, leading to water molecules freezing into a crystallized structure of reduced disorder (sticking together in a certain order due to molecular attraction).
The highly attenuated gas in this layer can reach 2,500 °C (4,530 °F). Despite the high temperature, an observer or object will experience low temperatures in the thermosphere, because the extremely low density of the gas (practically a hard vacuum) is insufficient for the molecules to conduct
Thermodynamic temperature is a quantity defined in thermodynamics as distinct from kinetic theory or statistical mechanics.. Historically, thermodynamic temperature was defined by Lord Kelvin in terms of a macroscopic relation between thermodynamic work and heat transfer as defined in thermodynamics, but the kelvin was redefined by international agreement in 2019 in terms of phenomena that are ...