The Temperature of the Upper Atmosphere

Abstract

As one who subscribed to the “Confession of Monaco,” may I be allowed to say that no definitions of the names stratosphere and isothermal layer were supplied at the conference as those present understood the terms? The meaning of a word has often divided the orthodox from the heterodox, and for the benefit of Dr. Chree, and also of “heretics in England,” I will endeavour to make the matter clearer. Balloon ascents show that, apart from irregularities near the surface, the temperature of the air decreases with height fairly regularly up to a certain point; above this point the regular decrease ceases, and for still greater heights the temperature changes are very small; sometimes there is a small increase, sometimes a small decrease, and sometimes the temperature remains almost constant up to the greatest height reached by the balloon. At any one place and time it thus appears that the atmosphere is divided into two layers, which differ markedly from one another in their vertical temperature distributions.