What causes adiabatic cooling?

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Multiple Choice

What causes adiabatic cooling?

Adiabatic cooling happens when an air parcel rises and expands as ambient pressure drops, and it does so without exchanging heat with its surroundings. The work required to expand comes from the parcel’s own internal energy, so its temperature decreases. This is the defining behavior of an adiabatic process in the atmosphere. In contrast, options describing compression warming (air being squeezed and warming), radiative cooling (energy loss by radiation, which is not an adiabatic heat exchange), or mixing with cooler air at the surface (which involves heat/mass exchange) do not portray adiabatic cooling.

Adiabatic cooling happens when an air parcel rises and expands as ambient pressure drops, and it does so without exchanging heat with its surroundings. The work required to expand comes from the parcel’s own internal energy, so its temperature decreases. This is the defining behavior of an adiabatic process in the atmosphere. In contrast, options describing compression warming (air being squeezed and warming), radiative cooling (energy loss by radiation, which is not an adiabatic heat exchange), or mixing with cooler air at the surface (which involves heat/mass exchange) do not portray adiabatic cooling.

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