Last class, we figured out that hail can fall in many different places at different times. One pattern that we noticed was that hail, which is frozen, can fall in places where the temperature is well above freezing. Many of us said that the hail might be forming high up in the air, where we think the air is colder than it is on the ground. To figure out how the weather conditions change higher up in the air vs. near the ground, we’re going to use data from a weather balloon. Weather balloons are balloons that carry equipment that can collect data about the weather. These balloons start at the ground and float way up into the air before dropping back down. You can see a video of a weather balloon being launched here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1&v=dLpyTodmfg8 From the weather balloon data, we saw that the temperature of the air goes DOWN as we get higher up in the air away from the ground. This led us to conclude that hail must be freezing into hailstones high up in the air (like near the clouds). We then added what we've figured out so far to our Science Learning Journal: But this forced us to ask some difficult questions: Why is it colder high up in the air away from the ground? Why is it warmer near the ground, where it's further from the Sun? How does the air get warm or cold, anyway?
We have some initial ideas about why that we started brainstorming this class -- we'll pick up with these ideas next class!
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