Sunday, December 6, 2009
Stratosphere Temperatures
Lower stratosphere temperatures since the 1950s. As the lower atmosphere warms, compensation occurs in the stratosphere in the form of cooling. Venus shows this nicely - while its lower atmosphere is above 800 degrees, its upper atmosphere is about 5 times cooler than ours. It's called radiative transfer - the stratosphere isn't going to cool unless the lower atmosphere warms, although it's not a 1-1 ratio: