Talk:Troposphere

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Contents 1 Equation 2 Hi guys 3 altitude and temperature 4 Merge from troposphere and reworking of this article 5 Strongly consider changing the first figure

[edit] Equation

find surface area of troposphere

i believe the volume would be 11494.04032

V=4/3pie(r2^3-r1^3)

equation- where did you get those seemingly random numbers?

[edit] Hi guys

do u like space i think it is boaring and i have to do an oral presentaion about the atmosphere it sucks i hate homework.

[edit] altitude and temperature

"copied from wikipedia:reference desk"

Why does temperature decrease with an increase in altitude (in the troposphere of course) ? I found a mention of it in Earth's atmosphere. It says the phenomenon is called expansive cooling but thats a red link. Jay 18:08, 16 August 2005 (UTC)

Well, guessing from the name, I would say it has something to do with atmospheric pressure. The pressure is lower at high altitudes, and according to the ideal gas law, as pressure goes down, temperature decreases as well. Meelar (talk) 18:16, August 16, 2005 (UTC)

The red link should have pointed to Joule-Thomson effect (it does now). However, I don't think this is correct (the thermodynamics in that section of Earth's atmosphere look decidedly iffy to me), so I will try to do a quick explanation here. The troposphere is not heated directly by the sun: any radiation from the sun which can be absorbed by the atmosphere has already been filtered out in the thermosphere and (especially) the stratosphere. The troposphere is heated directly by the Earth's surface. The heating effect decreases as you move away from the Earth's surface, and so the temperature decreases. Anyone else want to fill out the vast simplifications I've made there? Physchim62 00:48, 17 August 2005 (UTC)

Check out this neat graph here from the atmosphere article --HappyCamper 01:23, 17 August 2005 (UTC)

Maybe this might help answer part of the question? --HappyCamper 01:23, 17 August 2005 (UTC)

Not really, except to show that there is no relation between pressure (roughly proportional to mass density, especially given the log scale) and temperature for the Earth's atmosphere. Enlighten us, please, Happy Camper, I've known you more inspired ;P Physchim62 01:59, 17 August 2005 (UTC)

Was in a rush yesterday, see below... :) --HappyCamper 10:23, 17 August 2005 (UTC)

Nice plot: you can really see the different layers in the temperature. I remember a particularly painful exam which included basically this question, but all it taught me is that you shouldn't expect people to learn anything new (like say whether expansive cooling alone can explain the observed temperature drop) in a high time pressure environment. --Laura Scudder | Talk 07:26, 17 August 2005 (UTC)

I don't really know much about the atmosphere, but I think one major contributor to the temperature inversion in the second layer (the stratosphere) is the presence of ozone at the bottom of it. Ozone is highest in concentration in this area. Its absorption of ultraviolet light is essentially dissipated as heat which I think rises away from the earth instead of sinking down to the earth. What I don't understand is how this causes the temperature to go up so significantly. Ozone must be dissipating a tremendous amount of energy! I'm not sure what happens at the top. I guess the temperature that is being plotted is the "kinetic temperature". The density of matter at that region is so low that this particular notion of temperature probably would be less meaningful. I guess what's really important to recognize is that the atmosphere is not at all homogeneous. I might also add that commercial airlines' flight routes will fly in the stratosphere because the air mass there is quite stable. --HappyCamper 10:23, 17 August 2005 (UTC)

You're right about the contribution of ozone to stratospheric warming, although I would guess that oxygen and nitrogen play their part as well, at their particular absorption frequencies. What is clear is that N2 and O2 are not heated in the troposphere, as there is no longer any radiation of the correct wavelength. Yes, the ozone layer absorbs (and hence eventually dissipates) a tremendous amount of energy! Half of it is re-emitted towards the Earth's surface (the greenhouse effect), half of it into space. And yes, I assume they are defining temperature in the upper atmosphere with regards to the speed distribution of the few gas molecules which are there. Physchim62 02:00, 18 August 2005 (UTC)

Ooooh! Check this link out! [1] All sorts of chemical species in the atmosphere here. --HappyCamper 02:06, 18 August 2005 (UTC)

I hope the revised article now explains this properly. The cooling with increasing altitude is due to adiabatic expansion. Let me know if this is still not clear.--NHSavage 10:06, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Merge from troposphere and reworking of this article

I am currently reworking the troposphere article and I feel that the tropopause article would be better as a section of this I will merge the contents from there. The draft is at: User:NHSavage/sandbox. Comments please.--NHSavage 09:14, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

Now done reworking. I have also decided not to merge tropopause here. Comments still welcome.--NHSavage 10:05, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Strongly consider changing the first figure

The scales of the atmospheric cross-section are way off. Although the caption makes a brief note of this, the figure really should be replaced with a better one with a) a linear or logarithmic vertical scale; and b) a line indicating the Earth's surface (rather than the globe of the Earth, which to some readers will suggest that the Earth's atmosphere is far thicker than it truly is).