The stratosphere specifically the lower stratosphere passage has-it seems to have dried up. Water vapor is a greenhouse gas, and the cooling effect on the earth’s climate because this drying can contribute a little slowdown in the resurrection of global temperatures seen over the past ten years. The stratosphere is above the troposphere, the lowest and most populous layer of the atmosphere. The limit between the two, tropopause, about 18 km above your head if you are in the tropics, and a few kilometers lower if you are in a higher latitude (or climbing mountains). In the troposphere, the air at a higher height is generally cooler than the air below it, an unstable situation where warm air and often moist underneath without stopping slamping into the cooler air above. The resulting commotion creates
Clouds, storms, and most other world weather. In the stratosphere, the air becomes warmer at a higher height, which provides stability. Stratosphere-which extends up to about 55 km, where the mesosphere begins, is made less susceptible to the lack of water vapor, and thus clouds and precipitation that leads.
This is because the top of the troposphere is usually very cold, causing water vapor to freeze into ice crystals that float and fall, rather than proceed to the stratosphere.
A little water manages to get past this cold trap. But as Dr. Solomon and her colleagues note, satellite measurements show that rather less has been doing so over the past ten years than was the case previously.
Plugging the changes in water vapor into a climate model that looks at the way different substances absorb and emit infrared radiation, they conclude that between 2000 and 2009 a drop in the Stratospheric water vapor of less than one part per million slowed the rate of warming at the Earth’s surface by about 25%. Such a small change in Stratospheric water vapor can have such a large effect precisely because the Stratosphere is already dry.
It is the relative change in the amount of greenhouse gas, not its absolute level, which determines how much warming it can produce.
I) What is the order of layers in the atmosphere, starting from the lowermost and going to the topmost?
Tropopause, Troposphere, Mesosphere, Stratosphere
Troposphere, Tropopause, Stratosphere Mesosphere
Troposphere, Tropopause, Mesosphere, Stratosphere
Troposphere, Stratosphere, Tropopause, Mesosphere
Ans(B)
II)Why is the situation in the troposphere defined as unstable?
a)Because, unlike the Stratosphere, there is too much water vapor in the Troposphere
b)Because the Troposphere is not directly linked to the Stratosphere,
but through the Tropopause which creates much of the world’s weather c)Because of the interaction between warm and cool air which is unpredictable in nature and can lead to storms
d)Because this layer of the atmosphere is very cloudy and can lead to weather-related disruptions
Ans:(C)
III) What is the passage has been cited as the main reason affecting global temperatures?
a)Relative change in water vapor content in the Stratosphere
b)Drop-in Stratospheric water vapor of less than one part per million
c)The extreme dryness in the Stratosphere
d)Absorption and emission of infrared radiation by different substances
ANS:(B)
This is all about The stratosphere specifically the lower stratosphere passage