Talk:Troposphere

"Best" portion of the atmosphere?

The very first sentence says "The troposphere is the best portion of Earth's atmosphere". I was wondering if the adjective "best" is not a somewhat unusual choice in this description? Thanks. Todd (talk) 20:41, 1 January 2016 (UTC)

Equation

find surface area of troposphere

i believe the volume would be 11494.04032

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

—Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.34.160.75 (talk) 20:36, 22 January 2008 (UTC) 

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)

I have added a correct explanation of the reason for the decrease of temperature with height to the main article. Let me know if it's still not clear. 209.131.85.201 20:00, 3 August 2007 (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)

The ideal gas law is not necessarily valid for the troposphere. If the air is moist, then when it cools, water can condense out of it: this situation is not covered by the ideal gas law. As for the heating of the surface, what you describe is heat being transported from the Earth's surface to the atmosphere by conduction, but convection is much more important as a source of heat transport in the troposphere. So that's not the right answer either. 209.131.85.201 20:00, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

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

File:Atmosphere model.png

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)

~Kash72.227.74.110 00:45, 12 April 2007 (UTC) So the major gases presented in the Earth's troposphere are Nitrogen and Oxygen?

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)

Added some indication as to how to solve the hydrostatic equation and also linked to linear differential equations Tprosser 08:02, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

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).

Revisions to Pressure and Temperature section

I forgot to leave an "edit summary" for the changes that I made this afternoon. I added a lot of references, added a correct explanation of the decrease of temperature with height, and deleted some incorrect material. (For instance, the incorrect argument was given that rising air has to do work against gravity, which causes it to lose energy, and thus the temperature decreases. This is incorrect, because the work done by gravity is exactly balanced by work done by the buoyant force, if the atmosphere is in hydrostatic equilibrium -- the condition expressed by the displayed equation in the pressure section.)

There are still a lot of missing references and unsupported facts in the article.

209.131.85.201 20:00, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

The formulae for pressure and temperature appear to use a constant for density (ρ), at first sight this is misleading if not erroneous since density is a fn of height. This should be made clear --Damorbel (talk) 08:30, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

WikiProject class rating

This article was automatically assessed because at least one WikiProject had rated the article as start, and the rating on other projects was brought up to start class. BetacommandBot 10:05, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

"As the air parcel expands, it pushes on the air around it, doing work; but generally it does not gain heat in exchange from its environment, because its thermal conductivity is low (such a process is called adiabatic). Since the parcel does work and gains no heat, it loses energy, and so its temperature decreases."

Since the process is adiabatic, how can the parcel be losing energy? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.104.19.246 (talk) 16:41, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

the earth

the earth is very cool.it is made up of 4 different layers —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.44.198.190 (talk) 01:21, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

Bad Graphs

This article is about the troposphere, not the atmosphere. The graphs do not have sufficient resolution to display any meaningful information about the troposphere. Can we get some pictures that show properties such as temperature and compostion of the atmosphere from sea-level to say 20km altitude; and not to outerspace! So, I'm deleting the pictures, and starting over, I'll keep my eye open for something to upload or make one myself. THanks.--Charlesrkiss (talk) 16:01, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

I'm pasting this image (that I cut from the article) and its caption here, since it seems on topic for this heading. The text in the image is illegible, and it adds no information about the subject.

File:EarthAtmosphereBig.jpg

Earth atmosphere diagram showing the exosphere and other layers. The layers are to scale. From Earth's surface to the top of the stratosphere (50km) is just under 1% of Earth's radius.

An image that was better done and shows more detail of the troposphere would be nice. Huw Powell (talk) 01:14, 24 January 2016 (UTC)

Clouds

An article on troposhere which does not have a single mention of the word "cloud" in it - really?

Dead Link

This link was on the page but now seems to be dead:

• The vertical structure of the atmosphere Template:Dead link

About Atmospheric levels

This article writes in Atmosperic Levels section: 1) Low Level is from zero to 2400m altitude 2) Mid Level is 1800 to 7600m altitude 3) Upper Level is the highest of the three level and starts from 850hpa and above.

The 3rd is a wrong statement compared with the first two because 850hpa surface lies approximately at about 1500 meters altitude, thus upper level starts below mid level which starts from 1800m altitude and ends to 7600m altitude. Upper level cannot be "the highest level" if starts below mid level.

National Weather Service Glossary defines "upper level" as "the portion of the atmosphere that is above the lower troposphere, generally 850 hPa and above." In the same Glossary is mentioned that "local cooling of the air in middle levels of the atmosphere (roughly 8 to 25 thousand feet), which can lead to destabilization of the entire atmosphere if all other factors are equal" not as a definition of a "mid level" but inside the definition of "mid level cooling". Obviously these two definitions of middle and upper atmosphere levels are not agree each other. Finally this Glessary does not define "Low Level" or "Lower Level" at all.

I think that National Weather Service Glossary is not an accurate Glossary and needs more work to define better the terms. Also the level of troposphere must be written in a better way in Wikipedia. --91.140.98.49 (talk) 23:34, 5 June 2011 (UTC)--91.140.98.49 (talk) 09:44, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

I generally agree with the comment above. The levels section is basically apples and oranges, and the sources used for Lower, Mid and Upper are talking about different things, and you can't suggest they're stacked this way in the troposphere. The Low and Mid level heights as listed generally correspond to the heights used for clouds, and High (not upper) clouds would be found above 7km or so (depending on latitude...) The term Upper Air usually refers to conditions away from the surface, above ca. 1500m, whereas the upper atmosphere is above about 85 km. The section is useless at best and misleading at worst. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 204.77.41.253 (talk) 19:35, 7 September 2011 (UTC)

The section on composition doesn't actually state the elemental composition, or contain the words 'oxygen' or 'nitrogen'. That to me seems like a serious deficiency. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 206.45.162.228 (talk) 21:17, 7 December 2013 (UTC)

May we have some consistency about where the tropopause can be found? The articles on the Stratosphere and Troposphere differ. JMcC (talk) 11:25, 17 April 2014 (UTC)

Composition

The composition section should actually list the composition instead of merely stating that it is uniform. Crap article — Preceding unsigned comment added by 169.233.3.191 (talk) 06:11, 26 February 2015 (UTC)

proportion of mass in the troposphere

The article says that 75% of the mass of the atmosphere is in the tropsphere. The reference for this is quoted as saying that 4 5ths of the atmosphere are in the troposphere. That's 80%, not 75%... Is there a reason to directly contradict the reference cited? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.228.176.27 (talk) 13:38, 23 May 2015 (UTC) This is not good. Wikipedia can't get the proportion wrong. We need to fix this. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Tempaccount-424895-4328 (talk • contribs) 01:21, 22 September 2015 (UTC)

Composition - only lacking composition

Now what use of a "Composition" section, if one can't learn from it the composition of the troposphere? I'd suggest adding a sentence to this section that would actually contain the information regarding the troposphere's composition (nitrogen-78%, oxigen-20%, carbon-dioxide-1%, other trace elements, etc). 176.63.176.112 (talk) 17:35, 28 December 2016 (UTC).

Now I se it has been an issue at least since 2015. Anyway, I have just added the composition. i took the data from the Atmosphere (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmosphere_of_Earth) wikipedia article; I hope it has reputable sources. 176.63.176.112 (talk) 17:47, 28 December 2016 (UTC).

But this is about the composition of the troposphere...? Good idea anyway. 2A02:8108:8F80:7FB4:14AE:802C:4204:D8B2 (talk) 13:20, 28 November 2023 (UTC)

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Awful article, in critical need of revision

The lead states that "The average height of the troposphere are...". Well, us English speakers (readers) know that "the X are" is only correct if X is plural; "height" is not plural. But that is not why this is awful. The troposphere is - and apparently this will be news to the editors - a layer of atmosphere having substantial dimension (call it a height or depth). The "average height" depends on what you're averaging. If you're averaging distance between the Earth's solid/liquid surface and the tropopause (which has a depth itself) then it would be roughly HALF of its total height/depth. (The article on the tropopause claims it begins at about 17 km (on average) over the equitorial Earth, yet here the claim is the Troposphere averages 18 km there. This is an obvious contradiction. Anyway, we could also take the "average" by mass (or pressure/density) and would get (two other) different values. Either way, the average is NOT the average maximum. If you're going to use the term "average" please explain WHAT is being averaged. The statement that average height is X MUST imply that 50% of X is above X and 50% is below, which is not what is meant here. Sad.75.90.39.77 (talk) 19:13, 15 August 2018 (UTC)

This page should be renamed Earth's Troposphere

Also Venus has a troposphere. We need both a Troposphere page and a Earth's Troposhere page. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sinucep (talk • contribs) 14:53, 29 August 2019 (UTC)

sky

there are four layers in the atmosphere Benjaminpaluska (talk) 18:32, 28 October 2019 (UTC) benpaluska

Layers of atmosphere

ട്രോപോസ്ഫിയർ സ്ട്രാറ്റോസ്ഫിയർ മെസോസ്ഫിയർ തെർമോസ്ഫിയർ എക്സോസ്ഫിയർ ഐ നോസ്ഫിയർ 45.115.91.189 (talk) 12:45, 11 November 2022 (UTC)

Get the distances right

1 & 2) The illustration with the layers shows one set of data, contradicted massively by the bulleted list in the caption, which is again contradicted by the caption's last paragraph (±50 km is very far from 50–60 km; ± can't possibly mean a >20% variation - from below 50 to 60). This is a record even for Wiki.

3) Besides, the bulleted list is fundamentally wrong, as it states next to each section that it is "at X km", while its actual intention seems to be to indicate the utmoust height of the respective section, so it should probably read "up to X km". But it's all unsourced, and guessing ain't knowing.

4) I'd always start from the bottom, not from above. It's not only logical, but even the names relate to the distance from the Earth's surface going up.

A cosmic-level mess.

"The atmosphere of the Earth is in five layers:

(i) the exosphere at 600+ km;

(ii) the thermosphere at 600 km;

(iii) the mesosphere at 95–120 km;

(iv) the stratosphere at 50–60 km; and

(v) the troposphere at 8–15 km.

The distance from the planetary surface to the edge of the stratosphere is ±50 km"

Arminden (talk) 11:56, 25 December 2024 (UTC)