Environmental lapse rates

[matthyaouw]

Hey. I was wondering if you guys could help me with something. I'm doing an assignment on air masses & instability etc etc. One of the things it asks me is about envirionmental lapse rates detected by a rising radiosonde. It seems fairly straightforward mostly, however it asks me to work out the average lapse rate. Here is a sketch of the graph I'm working with:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v257/matthyaouw/ELR.jpg

When working out the average rate, should I take it from the whole of the troposphere, including the green section that is under the influence of frontal weather systems, or should i just use the blue section where the temperature loss is reasonably uniform with height?

thanks in advance.
Matt.

[Andre]

I understand the question and intuitively I'd say the whole range but that would not help establishing whether or not most of the section was stable our unstable.

So why don't you ask it to a whole bunch of nice UK weatherman in this cosy place here (http://www.ukweatherworld.co.uk/forum/category-view.asp).