The higher we go from the earth's surface, the cooler it is although we are reaching closer to the sun.why ?

Question

Why it so happens?

Answer 1

In the earth's atmosphere, the air is denser near the ground. The air is heated by the sun and warms you up. If you leave the ground and go to 20000 feet, there is much less air and its much cooler. In the vacuum of space there is no air. Bodies like the moon, with little or no atmosphere, tend to be hot on the sun side and cold on the dark side. Planets closer to the sun are much warmer than planets towards the outer edge of the solar system.

Answer 2

Ok, first of all you are not getting any closer to the Sun. You might be doing this at night, for instance.Even if you do it during the day, the Sun is 93 million miles away. What is 93 million plus 1 or 2? It's still 93 million miles away!

The other answerers are incorrect when they claim that the Sun heats the air in relation to its density. The Sun doesn't heat the air *at all* because the air is transparent and does not absorb the light. The sunlight heats the ground, and then the ground heats the air via conduction. This is why the air is cooler at higher altitudes: it is farther away from its source of heat: the ground.

But the temperature doesn't decrease all the way up. The ozone layer at 25 km altitude or so absorbs solar radiation and is a source of heat for the atmosphere. This is why the temperature increases with height in the stratosphere.

Answer 3

The sunlight rays can not warmth the ambience as no organic gases in it may take in seen mild. The heating of the ambience works distinctive: Earth´s floor absorbs a definite share of the mild that hits it, in keeping with it´s Albedo. the floor consequently turns into warmer and starts off emitting infrared mild which in turn heats up the ambience. That´s why the troposphere ( the layer of air that stretches from the floor to a top of roughly 8 - 12 km based on the variety ) turns into cooler with top. as quickly as you leave the troposphere , the air won't get cooler with top, in certainty interior the stratosphere temperatures upward push with the altitude for some km, with the aid of fact the ozone layer absorpts extremely violet mild, in basic terms like the earht itself absorbs seen mild. it incredibly is in basic terms the fast clarification. in case you´re incredibly involved interior the vertical buildup of the ambience, bypass to the subsequent library and seek for books on atmospheric physics

Answer 4

Heat generated is proportional to the mass of air. The higher we go the thinner the air. Thus the mass of air in a given volume is less than in the same volume of air near the surface of the earth. Hence the coolness at higher altitude.
I wouldn't advise you to go too close to the sun with this explanation in your pocket.

Answer 5

ZikZak is correct. To understand why, look up the definitions of:

a) thermal energy
b) heat
c) temperature