What is temperature inversion? How does it trap pollutants near Earth's surface?
1 Answer
An increase in temperature with altitude.
Explanation:
Normally as one get higher in the atmosphere the temperature drops. This is due to the drop in pressure (Gay-Lussac's Law). In the case of an inversion, other factors have resulted in there being an increase in temperature with altitude.
Even though an inversion is the opposite of what we normally expect to see in the atmosphere it is very stable. In other words, the air is not likely to move at all (vertically). The reason for this is when warm air is over cold air you already have the denser air below the less dense air, so there is no force for the lower air to rise or the higher air to drop.
As far as pollutants go, if the lower air has no force to cause it to rise then the pollutants released into the lower air also have no force on them to cause them to rise. Therefore they stay trapped at the surface.
