Some characteristics of the atmosphere during an adiabatic process*

Abstract

Abstract Some important characteristics of the atmosphere during an adiabatic process are investigated, which include the invariability of atmospheric entropy range and local surface potential temperature, the conservation of the atmospheric mass intervened between any isentropic surface and the ground, and the isentropic surface intersecting with the ground. The analysis shows that the atmospheric reference state (ARS) for investigation on available potential energy (APE) should be defined objectively as the state which could be approached from the existing atmosphere by adiabatic adjustment, and be related to initial atmospheric state before adjustment. For the initial atmosphere state at any time, its corresponding ARS is different from the one at another time. Based on the above-mentioned total conclusions, the reference state proposed by Lorenz cannot be obtained physically, so a new conception, the conditional minimum total potential energy, is put forward in order to objectively investigate atmosph...