Administration

The Stratosphere 1981 Theory and Measurements; WMO Global Ozone Research & Monitoring Project Report No. 11 A meeting of experts on the state of the Stratosphere held at Hampton Virginia USA 18-22 May 1981 organized in collaboration with the United Nations Environment Program

1982 · 79941 — Greenbelt Maryland: NSA/Goddard Space Flight Center 1982. Presumed First Edition First printing. Wraps. Very good. Various paginations approximately 1.25 inches thick. Cover has some wear and soiling. Name of previous owner written in ink at type of spine. The Goddard Space Flight Center of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration organized a workshop held on May 18-22 1981 centered around three working groups corresponding to the three chapters in this report--a Trace Species Working Group; a Multidimensional Aspects Working Group; and a Trends and Predictions Working Group. Over 100 scientists representing most of the institutions in the world engaged in upper atmospheric research attended the workshop. At the end of the workshop each working group prepared a summary document and these have been assembled into this report. The basic theme for the workshop and the report was the comparison of theory and measurement. Appendix A-I includes in part: References Acronyms Stratospheric Instruments and Analysis Chemical Kenetics and Photochemistry and a Reference Solar Spectral Irradiance for use in a Atmospheric Modeling It should be stressed that this is not a consensus document. If more than one conclusion could be maintained by the scientific data then both of these conclusions have been quoted. It is aft all a significant test of the present state-of-knowledge if more than one scientific conclusion can be drawn from the same experimental data.<br /> <br /> The stratosphere is the second major layer of Earth's atmosphere just above the troposphere and below the mesosphere. The stratosphere is stratified layered in temperature with warmer layers higher and cooler layers closer to the Earth; this increase of temperature with altitude is a result of the absorption of the Sun's ultraviolet radiation by the ozone layer. This is in contrast to the troposphere near the Earth's surface where temperature decreases with altitude. The border between the troposphere and stratosphere the tropopause marks where this temperature inversion begins. Near the equator the lower edge of the stratosphere is as high as 20 km 66000 ft; 12 mi at midlatitudes around 10 km 33000 ft; 6.2 mi and at the poles about 7 km 23000 ft; 4.3 mi Temperatures range from an average of 51 °C 60 °F; 220 K near the tropopause to an average of 15 °C 5.0 °F; 260 K near the mesosphere.6 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 60 m/s 220 km/h; 130 mph in the Southern polar vortex. NSA/Goddard Space Flight Center paperback