Abstract
MR. NICHOLS, in NATURE, vol. xi. p. 486, advances the opinion that in a vertical column of gas at rest the temperature does not tend, as generally believed, to become equal throughout, but that such a column is in a state of thermal equilibrium when the temperature diminishes at the rate of 1° centigrade for every 233 feet of ascent (or 1° Fahr. for every 129 feet). This is a question of thermo-dynamics, and I am not mathematician enough to offer any opinion on it from the theoretical point of view, but it seems inconsistent with well-known meteorological facts. Were it true, there would be, as Mr. Nichols points out, a constantly renewed tendency for the lower strata to flow upwards in consequence of their higher temperature and consequent relative expansion. Such a tendency is no doubt very common, but Mr. Nichols's theory would require it to be universal, and it does not appear to exist in the absence of direct solar heating. Cumulus cloud is an infallible proof of the presence of ascending columns of air, and according to the report of the Austrian Polar Expedition in NATURE, vol. xi. p. 415, cumulus is never seen in the Arctic winter; and I have somewhere read the same respecting the Siberian winter. The true cause of the accumulation of heat in the lower atmospheric strata, to which upward currents and the formation of cumulus is due, is, I have no doubt, that usually assigned—namely, that the atmosphere is more pervious to the heat of the sun than to heat radiated back from the earth; so that, as I think Tyndall expresses it, the sun's heat is caught as in a trap.
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MURPHY, J. Equilibrium in Gases. Nature 12, 26 (1875). https://doi.org/10.1038/012026c0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/012026c0
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