Temperature gradient of vertical air column in gravitational field

Abstract

The negative temperature gradient under gravity was observed with a vertical air column inside a practically insulated aluminum cylinder filled with sawdust. The temperature drop rate measured between 90 and 10 cm height positions was as much as 2.22 Km−1 when the diameter of the air column was 60 cm. This drop rate is much larger than the mean lapse rate of the earth’s troposphere (0.0045–0.0065 Km−1) and the previously reported experimental value (0.07 Km−1) by Graeff for the air column in a relatively small system. We proposed a kinetic model based on classical mechanics to account for this temperature drop, which is significantly larger than the values previously reported. The negative temperature gradient of the air column inside the cylinder showed a tendency to decrease sensitively as the positive temperature gradient of the ambient air outside the cylinder increased, although it was practically insulated. In addition, the temperature drop rate increased as the air column's diameter increased. These results suggest that as the size of the system increases, the external influence that relaxes the negative temperature gradient of the air column is diluted, and thus the negative temperature gradient becomes more pronounced.