| Section S | S index | 621-629 of 1376 terms |
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soil moisture—The total amount of water, including the water vapor, in an unsaturated soil.
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soil stripe—(Same as earth stripe, soil strip.) A zone of sorted soil particles oriented as one of several alternating bands of coarse and fine material appearing on the soil surface and commonly aligned parallel to downslope transport on hillslopes.
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soil temperature—The temperature measured at a given soil depth, typically at 2, 4, 8, and sometimes 20 and 40 in. Many biological processes, including seed germination, plant emergence, microbial activity, and soil respiration are a function of soil temperature.
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soil thermometer—(Also called earth thermometer) A thermometer used to measure the temperature of the soil. Two forms of the mercury-in-glass thermometer are used for this purpose. For measurement at small depths, a thermometer with a right-angle bend in the stem is used. The bulb is inserted into a hole in the ground with the stem lying along the surface. A thermometer that has been fused into an outer protecting glass shield is used for measurement at greater depths. Wax is inserted between the bulb and the shield to increase the time constant. To obtain a measurement, the instrument is lowered into a steel tube that has been driven into the soil to the desired depth.
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soil zone—A vertical or horizontal region of soil with common characteristics.
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sol–air temperature—The temperature that, under conditions of no direct solar radiation and no air motion, would cause the same heat transfer into a house as that caused by the interplay of all existing atmospheric conditions. It is given by the formula  where θ is the sol–air temperature, T the outdoor air temperature, a the radiational absorptivity of the wall surface, I the incident radiation, c the coefficient of convective heat transfer between air and building material, and E the difference between the longwave radiation emitted and received by the surface. In practice, this equation has been reduced to  where θ, T, and I are the same as above; a′ is a constant for construction material; and c′ is a constant for climate.
Landsberg, H. E., 1954: Bioclimatology of housing. Recent Studies in Bioclimatology, Meteor. Monogr., 2(8), p. 86.
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solaire—A name generally applied to winds from an easterly direction (i.e., from the rising sun) in central and southern France. Local variants are soulédras, soulèdre. In the Morvan Mountains the soulaire blows from the south. Compare matinal, solano.
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