Adiabatic Cooling
In an adiabatic process, the system does not gain or lose heat (Q=0Q=0), meaning that all changes in internal energy come from work done by or on the gas. For an ideal gas, the internal energy is directly related to temperature, so any expansion or compression must affect temperature. One might wonder why temperature must change especially in the presence of Ideal Gas Law. Well. that’s what adiabatic process is about:
\[\begin{gather*} \begin{aligned} & TV^{γ−1}=constant \end{aligned} \end{gather*}\]$γ$ is the adiabatic index. A practical example of this is air rising in the atmosphere. As air rises, it expands due to decreasing atmospheric pressure. Since this expansion happens quickly and heat exchange with the surroundings is minimal, it is approximately adiabatic. As the volume increases, temperature drops, leading to condensation and cloud formation. This cooling effect is a fundamental principle behind weather patterns and cloud dynamics.
