Meaning of cold trap | Babel Free

Definitions

1. In vacuum applications, a device that condenses all vapours except the permanent gases into a liquid or solid, typically to prevent contamination of a vacuum pump.
2. An atmospheric layer that is significantly colder than the adjacent layers both deeper and higher. It keeps ascending gases that have high melting points from escaping the atmosphere by freezing them to a solid which then drops back to the planet surface.

Examples

“The impact of a large body in the oceans would inject large quantities of water through the tropopause cold trap into the stratosphere and lower mesosphere.”

“Since the tropopauses of these planets are very cold, there is effectively a cold trap, which in the absence of any other sources should keep the stratospheric water abundance very low, as discussed in Section 4.3.3.”

“The heat input to polar areas prevents this global cold trap catastrophe from happening, but during ice ages, significant capture of the Earth's water in polar areas will occur.”

“The tropopause acts as a cold trap, dehumidifying the upper atmosphere and strongly limiting the opportunity for water vapor to escape or for hydrogen to build up in Earth's upper atmosphere through decomposition of water vapor.”

CEFR level