Create Date: August 22, 2024
Last Modified Date: January 28, 2025
If you wanted to use the formula for calculating the temperature of certain altitudes, you can use this one:
Where:
Your result is automatically displayed as cubic inches as it is one of the more popular units of measurement for this type of metric, but another commonly used unit is liters. So once you hit calculate and get your engine displacement value, that is how much volume and space your engine's cylinders have in total.
You will not find a more simple altitude temperature calculator online! To use ours, you simply have to:
You are trying to calculate the temperature of an altitude of 45,710 feet when the sea level temperature is 50 °F. After you plug in these numbers, our tool does the following calculation: T(45,710) = 50 - (.00357 * 49,710). The result is a temperature of about -127.17 °F
Like many other topics, the understanding of temperatures at altitudes was noted by Aristotle as he noticed that mountain tops had snow atop them, even in summer. It wasn't until about 1778 when there was a major steps towards understanding this.
A man named Jean-Baptiste Lamarck theorized that the atmosphere gets thinner and cooler at higher altitudes. Then in 1787 a Swiss scientist, Horace-Benedict de Saussure, climbed Mount Blank and recorded the air temperature and pressure changes and became the first study clearly outlining the difference in temperature at different altitudes.
In the 1800s scientists would begin to quantify how temperature changes at altitudes and came up with lapse rates. This would be crucial for meteorology for centuries to come.
As years pass in the late 1800s there are now meteorology and scientific advancements. There are now balloon experiments which allowed scientists to study temperature and pressure even better at different altitudes.
In the troposphere, every 1,000 feet there is about a 3.5 degree F difference in air temperature. The troposphere goes about as far as 10 miles off the surface of the earth for reference.
30,000 Feet is about the elevation that commercial planes fly. At these heights, the temperature is around −40 to −70 °F.
There is little to no moisture 30,000 feet in the air, this means there is little to no moisture. So there may be instances of ice build up, but it is typically very minimal. Also, the engines produce a lot of heat themselves, then when you are landing the temperature rises so any ice of frozen components will thaw quickly.
Understanding temperature at altitudes can be difficult if some of the terms and keywords used are not ones you understand. Here we shed some more light on some of these terms.
Term | Definition |
---|---|
Balloon experiments | Balloon experiments refer to a set of studies that were conducted with the use of balloons that were released into the atmosphere to collect data. These balloons had tools attached to them to collect data. |
Lapse rate | The rate at which air temperature changes with increasing altitude. |
Meteorology | The study of Earth's atmosphere including the weather and climate and other adjacent concepts. |
There are many interesting things that can be shared about boiling points. Here are some of our favorites.
For every 1,000 feet of altitude gain, the temperature drops by about 3.6°F (2°C) on average in the troposphere. This is why mountaintops are often snowy, even in tropical climates!
Because of thinner air and lower temperatures, your body loses heat faster at higher altitudes, increasing the risk of hypothermia. Even mild conditions can feel much colder than at sea level!
Sometimes, temperatures increase with altitude in the lower atmosphere due to temperature inversions, trapping cold air below warm air. This can create fog and smog in valleys.