Dines' compensation

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Dines' compensation, or Dines compensation principle, is a

cloud, and then disperses at the top of the cloud so there is a balancing of converging and diverging air flows and no net increase in air molecules above a given location.

Dines compensation is a demonstration of conservation of mass under the weak constraint that the height of the atmosphere is approximately the same anywhere on Earth.

Mathematically it may be stated that the sign of the horizontal divergence changes at least once in any given column of air.^[1]

A corollary is that rising air at any given point in the atmosphere tends to be balanced by sinking or subsiding air elsewhere. This is a salient feature of mesoscale

in visible satellite imagery which is compensating for the inbound winds at sea level.

Dines compensation is useful in

In general Dines compensation ties together vertical and horizontal air movements in the atmosphere.

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