Why does the stratosphere get warmer

Meteors burn in the mesosphere even though the gas is very thin; these burning meteors are shooting stars. The density of molecules is so low in the thermosphere that one gas molecule can go about 1 km before it collides with another molecule.

Since so little energy is transferred, the air feels very cold Figure above. Within the thermosphere is the ionosphere. The ionosphere gets its name from the solar radiation that ionizes gas molecules to create a positively charged ion and one or more negatively charged electrons.

The freed electrons travel within the ionosphere as electric currents. Because of the free ions, the ionosphere has many interesting characteristics.

At night, radio waves bounce off the ionosphere and back to Earth. This is why you can often pick up an AM radio station far from its source at night. The Van Allen radiation belts are two doughnut-shaped zones of highly charged particles that are located beyond the atmosphere in the magnetosphere. The particles originate in solar flares and fly to Earth on the solar wind.

These lines extend from above the equator to the North Pole and also to the South Pole then return to the equator. When massive solar storms cause the Van Allen belts to become overloaded with particles, the result is the most spectacular feature of the ionosphere — the nighttime aurora Figure below.

The particles spiral along magnetic field lines toward the poles. The charged particles energize oxygen and nitrogen gas molecules, causing them to light up. Each gas emits a particular color of light. There is no real outer limit to the exosphere , the outermost layer of the atmosphere; the gas molecules finally become so scarce that at some point there are no more.

Beyond the atmosphere is the solar wind. The solar wind is made of high-speed particles, mostly protons and electrons, traveling rapidly outward from the Sun. This video is very thorough in its discussion of the layers of the atmosphere.

It would look like the aurora! Skip to main content. Search for:. Atmospheric Layers Lesson Objectives List the major layers of the atmosphere and their temperatures. Discuss why all weather takes place in the troposphere. Discuss how the ozone layer protects the surface from harmful radiation. Air Temperature Papers held up by rising air currents above a radiator demonstrate the important principle that warm air rises.

Licenses and Attributions. The virtue of taking in the broadest possible view using our own senses rather than relying on the opinions of others. A top down mode of causation is described. This mode of change is capable of explaining variations in both the short and long term in both directions, both warming and cooling. It can explain warming in one place and simultaneous cooling in another. In short it is very well adapted to explain the climate changes that we observe from daily through to centennial time scales …….

Some impromptu observations on the inexplicable entanglement of science and politics. Some off the cuff comments on the nature of the atmosphere and climate science directed to a man who struggles earnestly in that same field of endeavour. A re-examination of the nature of the troposphere and the stratosphere via a study of the lapse rate of temperature with elevation as it varies with latitude. Lots of heresy here. A cyclone cannot come into existence in the absence of a warm low density core.

In short the polar cyclone is cold below and warm above. Ozone kick starts and then accelerates the circulation of the air in a fashion that is more vigorous than is possible anywhere else on the globe. An investigation of the agent that is responsible for natural climate change on all time scales……arguably the only form of climate change that the surface temperature that is consistent with the surface temperature record.

There is a palpable disconnect between observation and theory. Surface temperature is linked to geopotential height increases that are common from the surface to the hPa level in turn linked to change in the ozone content of the air……. Does this represent simply a failure to think things through, or something more sinister? The signature of ozone variability is date stamped into the tropical sea surface temperature record.

A brief survey that establishes the diversity that exists in the nature of the way temperature changes at different latitudes. On the face it, completely inconsistent with greenhouse theory. Equally, it is possible to detect the origin of temperature change, natural or otherwise, via a close study of the evolution of temperature over time. This is a critical chapter. It identifies the signature of the mode of natural climate change that is written into the temperature record.

It points to origin and causation. Unfortunately, nobody looks. An impromptu investigation of the forces active in the Arctic stratosphere. What is the most desirable temperature regime for humanity? What would we prefer? An investigation of the relationship between cloud cover and surface temperature.

Change in cloud cover is manifestly a major mode of natural climate variation. This is basic stuff. Here is where the investigation should begin. Focus on natural processes that account for surface temperature change. Heating of the vast land masses of the northern hemisphere in northern summer reduces global cloud cover and as a result the temperature of the Earth peaks in July when the Earth is furthest from the sun.

In January the sun is overhead the most extensive stretch of the global oceans, the south Pacific, the Indian, the Atlantic and the enormous Southern Ocean. At this time atmospheric albedo, via cloud cover, peaks. This has not always been the case and nor will it be the case in future. If we want to understand the climate system we need to be concerned with both the input and the output side of the energy flows. This does not represent rational problem solving behaviour.

Some remarks on greenhouse theory and the inappropriate use of a single statistic to monitor a global average temperature. Here we look at climate change by the decade at different latitudes to escape the gyrations associated with short term oscillations. The interest in this chapter is to ascertain if there is a generalized warming that is like a groundswell, underpinning the whole. That is what would be expected under the greenhouse scenario.

But this cannot explain the warming of ozone rich air in the polar atmosphere during the polar night when contrasting atmospheric density produces the most intense response in terms of wind strength.

These inflows determine the ozone content and temperature of the stratosphere against a relatively stable background of short wave ionizing radiation responsible for photolysis and the creation of ozone. Change in surface pressure across the globe results via the variation in the intensity of polar cyclones in the winter hemisphere. These cyclones owe their warm cores to ozone. A broad interactive zone between 8 and 15 km of altitude exhibits extreme variations in air density giving rise to Jet Streams.

Meteorologists trace the development of the weather that is so generated at the hPa pressure level. There is a good graphic showing the ozone level by month and latitude that your readers may find useful in following your arguments — which I whole heartedly agree with. Like Like. Clearly ozone is almost ubiquitous in most of the troposphere and stratosphere.

Just a thought. Rob, I will have a look. But I reckon its nailed already. Ozone variability is the prime source of natural climate variation. How do you interpret the effects of volcanoes on lower stratospheric temps? Hi Greg, Your comments are most welcome. Volcanoes throw dust into the stratosphere increasing the absorption of radiation and raising its temperature. The concurrent cooling at the surface is not likely to be due to radiation absorbed in the stratosphere but radiation reflected at cloud level due to increased cloud cover in the mid latitudes.

I would look to a reduction in Geopotential height in the mid latitudes associated with a loss in surface pressure there and an increase in surface pressure at the poles promoting an increase in the inflow of mesospheric air increased zonal wind that erodes ozone in the stratosphere. Polar cyclone activity would diminish accounting for the surface pressure changes mentioned above. Lots of testable associations here. Initial cooling will be due to increased cloud and very early on scatter by ejecta.

Sulphuric acid aerosols produce cloud seeding. What is interesting is what happens after the initial blips. The long term counter effect seems undocumented so far in mainstream accounts of volcanic forcing.

As the aerosols are purged TLS drops to cooler than were it was initially. Concurrently the surface warms though with a long time constant which can probably by attributed to thermal inertia of oceans. Indeed there is a close relationship between the temperature of ozone affected air at hPa, hPa, hPa, hPa and higher and the temperature of the surface of the sea and the relationship gets better and better as the focus gets closer in terms of defined latitude bands.

This is the same as saying that there is a relationship between geopotential height and surface temperature. It would be good to have much larger graphics. The size is fine for the text but it would be good to ba able to click to get a bigger clearer version. Zooming with the browser just gets a larger blurred graph. Tell me how to do it and I can try. I am using a snipping tool that has relatively low resolution to create a JPG that will load into WordPress.

It depends what you source image is. By snipping I guess you means screen capture , is that correct? If you are copying from a site that has low res there may not be much to do though always do a browser zoom or view the image alone rather than in the context of HTML which will likely be scaling it to fit.

If you add a larger image to WordPress it will scale it to fit layout, so I like to provide a link to the full sized image as well. If you read my articles, you can click on the graphs to get them alone and full size. Its not screen capture.

Very useful. You outline what you want and it captures just that portion. If there is a particular diagram where you would like the detail I can repeat the exercise and try for a better result. Thanks for the advice and I will try to improve. We see that the attenuation of the energy available in certain wave lengths between um and um rises to as much as.

You have discovered my lack of an education in maths and science. But that does not affect ones ability to observe change, make associations and think things through. Does the error disqualify the argument? Ozone is unarguably a greenhouse gas that absorbs at near the peak of energy emission in terms of wave length by the Earth system.

Wherever that ozone molecule is located it will absorb at nm. It was a technical error that you may want to correct. The wavenumber thing does not affect the argument. One thing that was questionable and needs justifying with numbers was the claim that Earth unquestionably out plays the sun. I have not checked but would guess that even the tail of the solar spectrum out-weights the terrestrial peak. Greg, Yes, the Earth is a sphere that rotates about the sun and it spins on an axis that is tilted to the plane of its orbit.

I would see the infra-red terrestrial radiation being a stronger contributor to the temperature of the atmosphere than ultraviolet from the sun at lower elevations more than at higher elevations. As to which of these two influences dominates at a given altitude and according to variation in hemisphere and latitude that is a question that nobody addresses. There is no doubt that during the hours of darkness and during the polar night it is infra-red from the Earth that dominates as a contributor to atmospheric warming via ozone and other absorbers.

Observation will answer this question and the proportional contribution of infra-red will be different according to hemisphere, season and time of day. If there is a computer model that can answer that question it will have to be pretty special. I wont trust it. Stuff the models, I will work this out by observing relationships. And this is a very important issue because it is in the dead of winter that surface temperature varies most strongly. The infrared spectrum that carries the entire burden of the radiation returning to space.

That energy out is pretty tightly focussed about the wave length that excites ozone. Other compounds also absorb in the infrared but there is little water near the poles in winter. Only water and ozone are not well mixed. It is to these two that we must look to explain the forces behind the movement in the air. There are still the same number of molecules at work. This sort of thing is understood to a high degree of accuracy from military research, not climatology.

It can be taken seriously. To understand the role of ozone in the troposphere one has to comprehend the movement of the atmosphere in high latitudes in winter. Ozone proliferates for a number of reasons and a strong gradient in atmospheric density establishes across the polar vortex, ozone on one side, virtually no ozone on the other.

Antarctica, by virtue of the distribution of land and sea is the archetypical model. Warming of the air at and above hPa is material to the development of polar cyclones that elevate warmed air to the top of the atmospheric column. What goes up must come down.

Some comes down over Antarctica but most of it comes down in very broad high pressure cells of descending air in the mid latitudes. That air is compressed as it descends, its dry and relatively cloud free.

However there is a lot of flow in the air across the latitude bands and some intermixing that gives rise to cloud. Add ozone to the mix and you see the cloud evaporate. Increase the volume of air descending and the area affected by high surface pressure and low cloud cover expands. In the southern hemisphere there is a lot of water to absorb the energy from the sun.

If you look at the temperature of the air at these altitudes the greatest fluctuation occurs at the highest pressure level…. No, its not mysterious at all. Response is always greatest closest to the stimulus. Spectral broadening can be significant when the spectral absorption is near saturation.

This is the case for CO2. The molecules start to mask each other and adding more makes less and less difference. Spectral broadening means that they are spectrally spread out and can have more effect.

At a few ppm the same thing will not apply much to O3. The one I used has disappeared. Greg, ozone absorption is pressure sensitive. I have read that as much energy is absorbed by ozone in the troposphere as in the stratosphere. Ozonsonde data in mid and low latitudes shows sensitivity at 6 ppm when there are well differentiated layers of different ozone content adjacent in the vertical dimension. In the lower latitudes of the southern hemisphere under a high pressure regime there is an ozone hole between 10km and 23 km as severe as the Antarctic in October.

But below 10km ozone partial pressure can vary up to 6 ppm perhaps due to descent from the stratosphere. Gordon Dobson remarked on the dryness of this sort of air, a signature of its origin. Off to bed. All I have to do is inspect the radiosonde data.

The way I see it is like this. The ozone molecule loads up. Its a pass the parcel exercise. Same applies in the thermosphere. Verging on a rant here. Ease up on the polemic and concentrate on presenting your argument about ozone.

Firstly you are confounding two things. Does back radiation exist the physics of absorption, emission and transmission is well studied. The latter depends above all on feedback reactions of the climate system to changes in radiation. Convection , sure, changes in cloud cover, many factors which have not been properly investigated because of dogma, as you rightly say. In an observationally based study, I show that volcanic forcing has been incorrectly scaled down since early s in order to maintain higher climate sensitivity to radiative forcing.

Clearly radiative forcing does exist, the question is in the climate reaction to change : climate sensitivity. The maximum temperature at which the work stabilised, depends on the Planck feedback.

Greg, I am aware that I am out on a limb here. That warming should be reflected in the geometry of the isotherms at pressure levels below the warmed layer. I think of the radiative forcing argument in terms of the effect of a blanket that is an insulator. The closer the contact with the blanket the better the retention and the smaller the heat loss.

The atmosphere is gaseous and its mobile in both the vertical and the horizontal with strong thermal gradients in both directions. Add to that the effect of the wind chill factor that reflects the rate of removal of photons of energy via direct contact. It falls down because of the assumptions it makes. I see no effort to incorporate the factors that I have mentioned in the preceding sentences to assess the potential for energy exchange or return of that energy to source so I dismiss this theory as a half baked notion that is a product of people who know little of the geography of the Earth, the importance of its rotation about the sun, the inclination of the spin axis or the habits of the winds.

And how those habits have changed over time to modify the thermal gradient between the equator and the poles. I see no evidence of an interest in climate history or the identification of those parts of the globe where change seems to originate and no interest on why that might be so. There is this silly concentration on a single aggregated global statistic. Stupid stuff. But there is a heap of other stuff that leads me to dismiss it based on my observations of the way that things happen.

CO2 advances monotonically. Temperature has both advanced and retreated over the period where we have good data. Its rate of increase is different according to hemisphere, latitude and month of the year.

So, my message is to go back to the start of the investigation and examine the patients spots. I think I have every right to be indignant. I am actually very angry at what is going on. I agree with your last statement. Not the same thing. Agree, climate in the tropics is insensitive to radiative forcing because other modes of cooling dominate. Evaporation, condensation aloft, uplift. Radiation peaks over high pressure cells in the winter hemisphere.

If there is a residual warming effect due to back radiation I will happily accept it thank you very much. But inspect the temperature profile at different elevations and see if you can detect it happening. Test bench is offered by a warm tropopause, warmer in winter by about the same margin as the surface cools between summer and winter. The concept is that cooler air can slow down the radiative cooling of warmer air.

The blanket on my bed can not be warmer than I am but it stops me getting cold. I think there may be something interesting in what you are saying but be careful not to undermine it with such ill-founded comments. If you can slow down the radiative cooling and the incoming flux does not change the equilibrium temperature will rise. This should not be confused with the second law of thermodynamics which states that heat can not flow from a colder object to a warmer object with which it is in thermal contact.

Yes we can slow down the radiative cooling if we immobilize the atmosphere. When it leaves it does not come back and it takes it does so without giving.

If something slows down radiative cooling it will cause warming. That warming may itself increase something like convection to compensate. The radiative cooling is still reduced. As a general rule on feedbacks which is what you are suggesting they never totally remove deviation from equilibrium that caused them, they just reduce it.

It is mostly annulled by a feedback, : convection or changes in cloud cover. A strong feedback reduces more of the perturbation than a weak one.

The residual may be undetectable in a noisy system. Glad to think that you are thinking about blankets. Yes, think about insulation and how to make it effective.

If there is any insulation to be had in the atmosphere tell me where it is…. I could use some of the good stuff. Your Hollmover diagrams show that the strongest warming happens over the Australian continent, yet there is barely a trace of this in the stratosphere.

The cold zone seems to align with the cold, clear air of the Andes rather than the Pacific coast. This is seen in the stratosphere plot. You seem to take this as proof that the same thing applies globally while your own evidence shows otherwise.

Lke yourself, I consider that the Stratsphere and ozone are key elements in understanding recent climate change. Greg, you are a tonic. Thanks immensely for taking my writing seriously. In my experience very few people care to engage. Perhaps its a lack of confidence. Ozone, an unusual type of oxygen molecule that is relatively abundant in the stratosphere, heats this layer as it absorbs energy from incoming ultraviolet radiation from the Sun.

Temperatures rise as one moves upward through the stratosphere. This is exactly the opposite of the behavior in the troposphere in which we live, where temperatures drop with increasing altitude. Because of this temperature stratification, there is little convection and mixing in the stratosphere, so the layers of air there are quite stable. Commercial jet aircraft fly in the lower stratosphere to avoid the turbulence which is common in the troposphere below.

The stratosphere is very dry; air there contains little water vapor. Because of this, few clouds are found in this layer; almost all clouds occur in the lower, more humid troposphere.

Polar stratospheric clouds PSCs are the exception. PSCs appear in the lower stratosphere near the poles in winter. They are found at altitudes of 15 to 25 km 9. They appear to help cause the formation of the infamous holes in the ozone layer by "encouraging" certain chemical reactions that destroy ozone.

PSCs are also called nacreous clouds.