The Atmosphere's Temperature Profile Reverses Twice

Lab Brief #4

🎯 Your mission

Master the concept. Use it tomorrow.

⚡ The twist

Today's mountain was yesterday's ocean floor.

What you'll learn

Temperature does not simply fall with height. It drops through the troposphere, rises through the stratosphere because ozone absorbs ultraviolet there, falls again through the mesosphere, and rises in the thermosphere. Each reversal creates a stable layer that caps the one below it, and that is why weather is confined to the troposphere — rising air meets warmer air at the tropopause and stops. It is also why volcanic ash that reaches the stratosphere stays aloft for years.

Key words

troposphere
The lowest atmospheric layer, where temperature falls with height and effectively all weather occurs.
tropopause
The temperature reversal at the top of the troposphere, which caps rising air and confines weather below it.

Make a hypothesis first

Guess: where will the water go first?

Say your guess out loud — then find out if you were right.

Step 1 of 4 · Read

Think about what you just learned: say what "troposphere" and "tropopause" mean in your own words before you start.

Step 2 of 4 · Do

Plot a table of atmospheric temperature against altitude from 0 to 100 km and mark the two reversals. Then annotate the graph with where jet aircraft cruise, where the ozone layer sits and where the highest storm clouds top out.

Step 3 of 4 · Observe

Record what actually happened, including anything that did not match what you expected.

Step 4 of 4 · Record

Write a conclusion that answers the question this lesson opened with, and state your uncertainty.

Question 1 of 3

Temperature rises through the stratosphere because ozone there absorbs:

How sure are you?😐 maybe

Question 2 of 3

Weather is confined to the troposphere because rising air is stopped by the:

How sure are you?😐 maybe

Question 3 of 3

Volcanic ash reaching the stratosphere stays aloft for years because that layer is:

How sure are you?😐 maybe

Mind = blown

🌋 There are 1,500 active volcanoes on Earth right now.

Nice work!

You got 0 of 3 right.

Next: Shallow Water Turns a Tsunami into a Wall All lessons

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✨ More to explore

🌍 Where you see this in real life: This is shaping the ground you walk on, slowly, every single day.

🏆 Stretch challenge (try it this week): Find a rock outside and try to guess how old it is.

👨‍👩‍👧 For the dinner table: “What's the slowest change you can think of?”

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The Atmosphere's Temperature Profile Reverses Twice

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