Stratosphere around at midlatitudes, and at about at the poles. Temperatures range from an average of near the tropopause to an average of near the mesosphere. Stratospheric temperatures also vary within the stratosphere as the seasons change, reaching particularly low temperatures in the polar night (winter). Winds in the stratosphere can far exceed those in the troposphere, reaching near in the Southern polar vortex. The mechanism describing the formation of the ozone layer was described by British mathematician Sydney Chapman in 1930. Molecular oxygen absorbs high energy sunlight in the UV-C region, at wavelengths shorter than about 240 nm. Radicals produced
Atmosphere of Earth the energy Earth receives from the Sun. Earth also emits radiation back into space, but at longer wavelengths that we cannot see. Part of the incoming and emitted radiation is absorbed or reflected by the atmosphere. In May 2017, glints of light, seen as twinkling from an orbiting satellite a million miles away, were found to be reflected light from ice crystals in the atmosphere. When light passes through Earth's atmosphere, photons interact with it through "scattering". If the light does not interact with the atmosphere, it is called "direct radiation" and is what you see if you were to