sun is supposedly very very hot, can one explain theory 'the higher you go the cooler it becomes'?

Answer 1

The Earth's atmosphere absorbs and holds in most of the heat. The moon's very light atmosphere causes the surface temperature to change dramatically between sunrise and sunset. As you get higher off the Earth the atmospheric gases are less concentrated so that less heat is absorbed. The vacuum of space has no air so it cannot trap heat and is only kept above absolute zero by radiation of the sun and other nearby stars.

Answer 2

There are a few things that make the atmosphere cooler at higher altitudes than at lower ones. First, the Earth's crust absorbs energy (radiation) from the Sun and it is converted to heat. The heated earth (dirt, rocks, etc.) conduct that heat to the nearby air (air close to the ground). That air is warm. As you move away from the ground, you are moving away from the source of heat. In space, outside Earth's atmosphere, there is nothing to hold the heat energy. Temperature is defined as the average kinetic energy of a volume of matter. Since space is a vacuum and there is no matter present (there are small particles flying around, but not close together like the air molecules in our atmosphere), there is nothing to measure. The upper atmosphere radiates its heat energy out into space via radiation heat transfer. That's why it's cooler in the higher altitudes. The equator is warm because it is more directly illuminated by the sun, and therefore, it receives more energy. The opposite is true for the poles. There is a steep angle between the direction the light is moving and the ground at the poles. The projected area of the ground is very small, therefore, the poles are cold. This also accounts for the changing seasons on the Earth. As we orbit the sun, we enter a time when the northern hemisphere is tilted away from the sun and it gets cold.

Answer 3

Diane is half right, but dencity of heat also plays a part. We've all heard of the greenhouse layer that is causeing problems for the planet, well at lot of the earths heat is trapped there, which is while it feels wram.
But heat, being a form of energy, will move around in that space. As the earth spins, the heat is carried and focused around the equator, by center-fugal force (I may not have spelt that correctly) but is is the same force that keeps the water in a bucket if you were swing it over your head. That is why its cold at the poles and hot round the equator.
Now Back to why space is cold. Remember that greenhouse layer, well imagine if that, or the Ozone layer wernt there. All that heat would literaly get sent into space....and the earth would be as cold as space.

Just one other quick way of explaining it - The earth 'contains' heat. The universe has no way of doing this, so all the heat just speads out and disapates due to the vacume of space.

Answer 4

It is only applicable with in earths atmosphere. Out side of earths atmosphere where there is relatively low or zero gravity, up depends on which way your head is pointed and coudl mean towards sun or away from it.

This vertical temperature trend is a consequence of 1) lower atmospheric pressure at higher altitude and 2) heating that takes place at the bottom of the troposphere rather than at the top. The rate of change of temperature with height, is called the lapse rate by meteorologists. In the troposphere, the lowest layer of the Earth’s atmosphere, temperature decreases with altitude. This trend does not continue into the layer above.

Answer 5

Some very interesting but wrong answers.
The higher you go (in elevation) the temperature decreases due to the density of the air. Molecules warmed at ground level rise and become dispersed as they go. The adiabatic lapse rate says that for every thousand feet of elevation, the temperature decreases about 5.6 degrees (F). This, of course, doesn't account for other influences like micro-climates and terrain. This is an over simplification but this is the reason in a nutshell.

Answer 6

The old Icarus/Deadalus story, about flying higher and being closer to the sun will melt the wax on your wings is, of course, not true.

The sun, being 93 million miles away, won't feel hotter if you get 1 mile closer to it. (in fact- we're closer to the sun in the winter than in the summer- for nothern hemisphere)

Oh- it's not a theory that it get's cooler as you go higher- it's reality. About 3-5 degrees per thousand feet. Since you're going higher, air pressure is reduced, and as a pocket of air rises and expands, it cools. PV=nRT

Answer 7

That only works in the troposphere. The atmosphere warms with height in the stratosphere, cools with height in the mesosphere, then warms with height in the thermosphere. The molecules of air don't absorb the sun's radiation directly in the trop, they absorb the infrared radiation (heat) emitted from the earth. The farther away you are from the earth (the infrared source) the less there is to absorb because air below is also absorbing. In the stratosphere, the atmosphere warms with height due to absorption of the sun's UV rays by stratospheric ozone (the ozone layer).
And the adiabatic lapse rate talked about above only applies to a parcel of air rising and cooling with temp, not the actual atmospheric environment itself. A parcel rising adiabatically cools with height because as it rises, it increases in volume (lower pressure) and becomes less dense and as a result cools. This cooling rate is lower for and air parcel that is saturated and condensing water due to the release of latent heat.

Answer 8

Heat is radiated by air. The atmosphere is thicker closer to the earths surface, meaning there is more air.

Heat is more readily transferred at these lower altitudes because there is more air to radiate the heat.

At higher altitudes air is 'thinner' and less able to radiate heat therefore it is colder at higher altitude. Literally there is nothing or very little for the sun to warm up.

Answer 9

Plus the earth absorbs the sun's heat, so more of it is concentrated on the surface. In the air and space, there is nothing to aborb the heat, so it pretty much just keeps moving until it hits something that does!!

Answer 10

Wind sheer. The higher you go the more the wind will remove heat from it's source. When you are low you have more items radiating/reflecting the suns heat.