Abstract
MR. DINES makes a happy choice of terms when he writes of the isothermal column (NATURE, January 21, p. 341). Each of the unrejected traces is interpreted to show a more or less isothermal column, and it is by mentally piecing together these columns into a sort of honeycomb that the miscalled isothermal layer is brought into existence. It must not be forgotten that this hypothetical layer has a very uneven floor, and that each cell in the honeycomb has its own particular temperature. This is a complex structure. I certainly think it more feasible to ascribe the sudden and sustained minimum in the temperature curve, which is the gist of this discussion, to some idiosyncrasy or limit to which all the instruments, foreign as well as native, are subject night and day, and on the down as well as the up journey. In your issue of January 21 I referred to the falling density of the air current, upon which current the whole experiment depends. If the trace shows a uniform temperature during the upper 9 kilometres of an ascent, there is no escape from the conclusion that the temperature of the air has steadily fallen to compensate for its tenuity, and if we assume an adequate compression of the hydrogen before the rubber gives way, there is a further compensation required for loss of speed.
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HUGHES, R. The Isothermal Layer of the Atmosphere. Nature 79, 429 (1909). https://doi.org/10.1038/079429a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/079429a0
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