you know heat rises well then how come if you go to the top of a huge mountain it gets colder?
453673
While it is true that hot air rises, it is also true that it will cool as it rises. This is called adiabatic cooling.\n\nAir pressure deminishes as you go to higher altitudes b/c there is less gravity. Less air pressure means air particles are more spread out. Hence the adiabatic cooling effect.\n\nThis is true in the troposphere, the atmospheric layer in which we live & where weather occurs.\n\nAs you go higher the reverse happens. In the stratosphere it gets warmer due to the ozone layer. In the mesosphere it gets colder again b/c you move away from the ozone layer. In the thermosphere it gets warmer again b/c of the bombardment of air particles by intense short wave solar radiation.
30834
The air is not warmed directly by the sun's rays, but by infrared, or long-wave radiation from the earth. The sun's rays strike the earth, and are absorbed by the earth, which raises the temperature of the earth. The earth reradiates the energy at a wavelength dependent on the temperature of the earth. The air is able to absorb the earth radiation, and becomes warmer. At high altitudes, as on mountain tops, strong winds keep the air mixed, and prevent much rise in temperatures near the surface of the mountain.\n\nAs you go up in altitude from the surface of the earth, the air cools at a fixed rate. This is called the "lapse rate," and for unsaturated air, that rate is about 5 deg. C. for each thousand feet of altitude. For saturated air, the rate is about 3.5 deg.C. for each thousand feet of altitude.
183132
Because your body generates enough heat to be much hotter than 98.6 degrees. When it's cooler outside, the heat just radiates out through your skin, and your body stays at 98.6 instead of going up past 100 degrees as it would if your body just let the heat it produces accumulate.\n\nWhen it's hotter outside, getting rid of the extra heat is harder to do and so you have to sweat to get rid of it. So it seems strange, but the thing to remember is that your body isn't an ice cube melting on the desktop. It's an engine that's constantly burning fuel to make energy and some of that energy is released as heat. It's more about releasing the heat that's being made than maintaining a particular temperature.
615439
It got colder then warmer.
790846
While it may be closer to the sun, the atmosphere is thinner (less air pressure) and thus colder.  Warmer temperatures also depend a lot on the surrounding area; cities stay warmer at night than open areas since all the buildings & roads holding the heat from the day and radiating that heat back.   In a mountain area there is less of that kind of heat.
387707
Temperature decreases w/ height as you move up through the troposphere b/c of a decrease in air pressure.\n\nAir pressure steadily declines as you move up b/c there is less gravity. Since gravity acts on everything that has mass, including air, it holds most of the earth's air close to the ground. Air acts as an insulator or blanket, absorbing long wave radiation reradiated from the earth. When you move upward away from the surface, the air thins out. There is less air to hold heat.\n\nHowever, once you leave the troposphere, you enter the stratosphere. Here the temps steadily increase due to the presence of the ozone layer. The ozone traps heat.\n\nAs you move away from the stratosphere you will enter the mesosphere where temps decrease again due to less air & movement away from the ozone layer.\n\nAs you go even higher & enter the Thermosphere, the temps increase again b/c solar radiation is so intense that the few air particles that are present are super heated. The chances of being burned are slight to none b/c the air particles are few & far between. After all that is what is holding the actual heat.
1129634
As you go up in altitude, the air does get cooler since it's less dense, and can therefore retain less heat.  However, this heat loss is 2 degrees Celcius per 1000 feet.  So, for the height of a three story house, at about 35 feet, the cooling effect would be .07 of a degree.  Hardly enough to notice.  You have to go much higher than your house to notice any cooling effect.  The air near the surface is constantly in motion, and you can't measure differences over such a short scale.\n\nAnyway, as others have stated, hot air rises, and unless you have a large vent on your top floor, it will collect there and heat the upper floors.
746774
yes it can, if your on a high elevation and the temperature is hot moisture can build up without clouds
750969
For every 1000 feet, the temperature drops by 2 deg C (average and not linear).\nThe Sun heats the ground through the atmosphere.  The heat is trapped on the ground: this is the warmest place.\nAs you go higher, the heat reflected by the ground diminishes.  You are getting closer to the Sun, but that does not make much difference!\nThe temperature continues to drop as you go higher, until you reach 35-40000 feet, where it is about -52Deg C, but then other phenomenons occur and it becomes a bit more complicated, until to "outer space", where the temperature is near 0K, or -273DegC.
194124
Because the air spreads out, and as it spreads out it retains less heat.\n\nAnd while cold air does sink and hot air rises, as cold air does get lower in altitude it warms up, and hot air cools as it rises. \n\nI live in the foothills west of Denver so I see the rising/falling air thing firsthand. In the winter we get this air that 50 miles to the west was part of a blizzard. As it descends the mountains, it dries out and heats up sometimes bringing temperatures in the middle of the winter into the 60's or 70's.
1044273
Well like all the others you need warm air to rise to create that warming effect. but on rare occations there is what is called Thundersnow which I have experiance a few times with major snow storms. There aint as much thunder as in regular thunderstorms but it still can be heard.
970970
This is not a simple answer to explain in one or two sentences, so I will give it in two parts.  First, the basic reason:\n\nOvernight, the breezy conditions that was on the surface is lifted upwards.  This is because the surface becomes very stable with the loss of daytime heating.  The wind will blow above this layer of stable air until after sunrise when daytime heating will bring the winds back to the surface.\n\nNow the more detailed explaination.  In general, wind at night will decouple from the surface if...\n-there is no strong subsidence (sinking of air) like what you will find behind a strong upper level disturbance.\n-there is strong mixing (unstable airmass) in and ahead of a storms system\n-there is strong surface winds with upper level support. (winds blowing from the same direction through a deep layer above the surface)\n-near ridge or hill tops\n\n(Assuming no major weather changes are expected to occur overnight...)  During the night, with the loss of daytime heating, we lose two parameters that will keep the winds blowing near the surface.  The thermal gradient usually becomes weak and the surface cools.  A thin stable layer forms near the surface as heat rises to the top of this layer.  With time, this layer will thicken as warm air continues to leave the lower layer and replace by cooler air.  The top of this layer, you will find a temperature inversion.  This layer will seperate the higher winds that has lifted higher in the atmosphere and the very stable and near calm winds below.  Once the sun rises, the surface warms and starts to mix.  This will break the inversion and the winds will start to mix back down to the surface.  \n\nThis is also the reason why during the winter, sometimes you will find ground fog forming in a thin layer during the evening and then lifting to a low cloud or stratus right by sunrise; then "burning" off during the day.
417406
Cold falls, right! The higher you are in altitude, the colder it gets!
88614
maybe you're just in a very warm place, or was in a very cold place then entered a very warm area.
152795
They are so high the temerature never reaches above freezing and there for you have solid water (ice, snow, etc...) almost all year long, and all year long in the highest of elevations.
833244
It is one of the ways heat is transported.  The other two are conduction and convection.
659938
Why do people ask such questions?\n\nIf there is an obstacle to the flow of the air, of course it's gonna change the climate and temperatures because the air flow cannot go through mountains barriers, it will clash against it and part of it will go over it.\n\nBut the point is, if it was a cool air flow in hot summer ( happens sometimes but you'll have to ask another question on this subject), the sky will get all the cool air but because of the mountains barriers the lower part of the flow will not go through, that is how we get rain on hot days!