L'énergie utilisable de l'atmosphère : Histoire et développements récents [prix Prud'homme 1995]

International audienceThe concept of available potential energy has been developed in meteorology by E. N. Lorenz in order to understand how the incoming solar energy is transformed within the atmosphere and why the observed values of kinetic energy of wind are much smaller than might be expected. Lorenz has succeeded in explaining, on a global scale, the energy cycle associated with general circulation of the atmosphere.This paper presents the history of other theories of the conversion of energy that have been introduced by the founders of thermodynamics. It is shown that one of them, the available enthalpy approach, can be applied to meteorology. A local available enthalpy cycle is derived to investigate the conversions that take place within a limited area of the atmosphere domain