Case study · US
Denver mile-high air
Colorado
A kilometre and a half up, the troposphere is thinner above you and the air is already the ‘high’ part of the weather layer.
Locator · OpenStreetMap / OpenFreeMap · 39.74°, -104.99°
Weather lives in the troposphere. Denver sits at about 1,600 m. Air pressure is lower; the same lapse-rate story starts from a higher platform. A UK radiosonde from a Met Office station is the pair: a balloon through troposphere toward tropopause, temperature falling, then the inversion at the tropopause.
The atmosphere-layers lab’s exploded shells are this. Composition readout (nitrogen, oxygen, argon, CO₂) is the same at Denver as at sea level in proportion; density is not.
Exam-style question
Why is Denver’s weather still ‘troposphere’ weather even though the city is a mile above sea level?
Teacher hint: The tropopause is still many kilometres above the city. Weather’s layer is thick compared with a mile.
Process labs
Sources
- NOAA / NWS Denver
- Met Office radiosondes