Inversion Layers

[jonathanw]

Cracking ride to Cromarty today. Out above the Moray Firth and back by the Cromarty Firth. I'm not sure if the photos do justice to the inversion layers, but on the high ground of the black Isle, the views were stunning. Chilly decending back into the cloud, but well worth the effort to get above it.

I'm still amazed at the weather. These roads were covered in snow this time last year !!!!

 

[Herbie]

Looks fab...i'll be in this area in June...hope the weathers like this

 

[Globalti]

We'll pay for it. Look what happened last year; a cracking April then it pissed all summer.

My solar panel boiled on the last day of April for the first and last time.

 

[steveindenmark]

What is an inversion layer?

Steve

 

[jonathanw]

probably slighty incorrectly used to describe the cloud tapped in cold air below me on the day, over the two firths

Definition: temperature inversion, condition in which the temperature of the atmosphere increases with altitude in contrast to the normal decrease with altitude. When temperature inversion occurs, cold air underlies warmer air at higher altitudes. Temperature inversion may occur during the passage of a cold front or result from the invasion of sea air by a cooler onshore breeze. Overnight radiative cooling of surface air often results in a nocturnal temperature inversion that is dissipated after sunrise by the warming of air near the ground. A more long-lived temperature inversion accompanies the dynamics of the large high-pressure systems depicted on weather maps. Descending currents of air near the center of the high-pressure system produce a warming (by adiabatic compression), causing air at middle altitudes to become warmer than the surface air. Rising currents of cool air lose their buoyancy and are thereby inhibited from rising further when they reach the warmer, less dense air in the upper layers of a temperature inversion. During a temperature inversion, air pollution released into the atmosphere's lowest layer is trapped there and can be removed only by strong horizontal winds. Because high-pressure systems often combine temperature inversion conditions and low wind speeds, their long residency over an industrial area usually results in episodes of severe smog.

Read more: temperature inversion — Infoplease.com http://www.infoplease.com/ce6/weather/A0848126.html#ixzz1q7U91Ra9​

 

[steveindenmark]

I think you mean something like I saw at Zell Am See last summer.

Steve