Editing Climate of the Alps (section)

{{Short description|none}} <!-- "none" is preferred when the title is sufficiently descriptive; see [[WP:SDNONE]] -->
[[File:Altitudinal zones of Alps mountains-extended diagram.svg|thumb|right|upright=2.2|Life zones of the Alps]]
The '''climate of the Alps''' is the [[climate]], or average [[weather]] conditions over a long period of time, of the exact middle [[Alps|Alpine]] region of [[Europe]].<ref>{{Cite book|title=Climate change in the European alps : adapting winter tourism and natural hazards management|last=Agrawala, Shardul.|date=2007|publisher=OECD, Organisation for economic co-operation and development|isbn=978-9264031685|oclc=729351518}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal|last1=Elsasser|first1=H|last2=Bürki|first2=R|date=2002|title=Climate change as a threat to tourism in the Alps|url=https://www.int-res.com/abstracts/cr/v20/n3/p253-257/|journal=Climate Research|language=en|volume=20|issue=3|pages=253–257|doi=10.3354/cr020253|issn=0936-577X|doi-access=free}}</ref> As air rises from [[sea level]] to the upper regions of the [[Earth's atmosphere|atmosphere]] the [[temperature]] [[adiabatic lapse rate|decreases]]. The effect of [[mountain]] topography on prevailing [[wind]]s is to force warm air from the lower region into an upper zone where it expands in [[volume]] at the cost of a proportionate loss of [[heat]], often accompanied by the [[precipitation (meteorology)|precipitation]] of moisture in the form of [[snow]], [[rain]] or [[hail]].