Module 1 : Atmospheric Composition and Principles of Contaminant Behavior

Lecture 1 : The Atmosphere of Earth

 

The troposphere is the lowest major atmospheric layer, and is located from the Earth's surface up to the bottom of the stratosphere . It has decreasing temperature with height (at an average rate of 3.5 °F per thousand feet (6.5°C per kilometer); whereas the stratosphere has either constant or slowly increasing temperature with height. The troposphere is where all of Earth's weather occurs. The boundary that divides the troposphere from the stratosphere is called the " tropopause ", located at an altitude of around 5 miles in the winter, to around 8 miles high in the summer, and as high as 11 or 12 miles in the deep tropics. When you see the top of a thunderstorm flatten out into an anvil cloud , like in the illustration above, it is usually because the updrafts in the storm are "bumping up against" the bottom of the stratosphere

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Stratosphere

Temperature inversion in stratosphere Ozone plays a major part in heating the air at this altitude