Atmospheric Thermodynamics

Publisher Summary Thermodynamics plays an important role in the quantitative understanding of atmospheric phenomena ranging from the smallest cloud microphysical processes to the general circulation of the atmosphere. This chapter introduces some fundamental ideas and relationships in thermodynamics and applies them to a number of simple, but important, atmospheric situations. The chapter deals with the ideal gas equation and its application to dry air, water vapor, and moist air. The chapter provides an important meteorological relationship, known as the hydrostatic equation. The chapter also focuses on the relationship between the mechanical work done by a system and the heat that the system receives, as expressed in the first law of thermodynamics. The chapter concludes with the details on the concept of the second law of thermodynamics and the concept of entropy.