Hi 2TrakjR<br><br>Good question and it takes me back to the "Good Old Days" when this board was just the "Ask John".<br><br>I digress...The atmosphere of the earth actually has 5 different "spheres" or layers to it. The one in which all of our weather occurs is called the Troposphere. It extends up to around 35-50 thousand feet. Directly above that is the tropopause. You can See the tropopause when a strong thunderstorms clouds reach it and become the anvil. Temperatures in the tropopause warm with height, which stops any further upward motion of the air in the thunderstorm.<br><br>Above the tropopause is the Stratosphere and above that is the Mesosphere. Above the Mesosphere is the Thermosphere and then last but not least is the Exosphere. Actually, when I went to school (via horse and buggy!) we were taught about the first four and did not learn about the Exosphere. <br><br>Anyway, each layer is separate and distinct from the other. They each are composed of different elements and compounds and in most cases do not interact with each other. There can be some interaction between the Stratosphere and the Troposphere, but as best we can tell, NO interaction from the other layers with the Troposphere. So, Like Vegas, what happens in the Thermosphere stays in the Thermosphere and does not influence the Troposphere and what we consider to be our weather.<br><br>Here is a nice graphic that helps to clarify all of my muddling!<br><img src="
https://forum.johndee.com/vbulletin/attachment.php?attachmentid=63274&stc=1" attachmentid="63274" alt="" id="vbattach_63274" class="previewthumb"><br><br>-John
