troposphere

views updated

troposphere The layer of the atmosphere between the Earth's surface and the tropopause, within which the air temperature on average decreases with height at a rate of about 6.5°C/km, though variations that sometimes occur include inversions (temperature increase with height within some limited layer). Most of the atmospheric turbulence and weather features occur in this layer, which contains almost all the atmospheric water vapour and most of the aerosols in suspension in the atmosphere (although there is also an important aerosol layer at about 22 km).

More From encyclopedia.com