Drawing on experimental balloon measurements of atmospheric temperature versus height, Léon Teisserenc de Bort discovered that the stratosphere and troposphere are vertically layered on the basis of thermal inversion.
The details of the rate of change of atmospheric temperature versus height have been of basic importance for many years in trying to determine and predict the processes governing weather. For example, the variation of wind with height also depends upon vertical temperature variation.
Until the violent eruption of the volcano Krakatoa in the Java Sea in 1883, which produced abnormally high atmospheric concentrations of dust, implying the existence of higher-level global temperature and wind patterns, the body of air above the earth’s surface was considered generally a uniform body. William Morris Davis’s 1894 text, Elementary Meteorology, is representative of knowledge of the upper atmosphere before large-scale kite and balloon soundings. Davis simply divides the earth into geosphere (rock), hydrosphere (water), and atmosphere (air). An empirical formula for atmospheric temperature gradient was developed by Austrian meteorologist Julius Ferdinand von Hann in 1874, based on indirect atmospheric measures such as astronomical observations of the duration of twilight and of meteor burns. Davis proposed that successive isobaric (equipressure) surfaces are separated by greater and greater distances indefinitely out into space. Here, the general distribution of temperature with elevation is simply illustrated as a nearly linear decreasing function.
Balloon ascents to measure upper air temperature were first undertaken by John Jeffries and Jean-Pierre-François Blanchard in 1784 and subsequently by Jean-Baptiste Biot
Prior to 1890, balloon observations were, for the most part, limited to heights of only a few kilometers by human oxygen consumption, recording mainly local rather than regional or global temperature behaviors. The first attempts at global isothermal charts were published by Hann in Vienna and Alexander Buchan in Edinburgh in 1887 and 1889, respectively. To overcome the human limitation, kites were first employed by Cleveland Abbe in studying winds under a thundercloud at the Blue Hill Observatory in Massachusetts. Nevertheless, for technical reasons, the maximum altitudes attained by kites were only about 5 miles (8 kilometers).
Because of proven dangers to human life in high ascents, small free rubber balloons carrying recently developed self-recording temperature and pressure recorders were first deployed in 1893 by French aeronomist Georges Besançon
After extensive work in Europe and North Africa with the French government undertaking barometric and other weather observations, in 1897, Léon Teisserenc de Bort founded his own private aeronomic observatory at Trappes near Paris. Earlier, Teisserenc de Bort had pioneered self-recording temperature and barometric pressure sensors; the Austrian physicist Richard Assmann
In April, 1898, Teisserenc de Bort used his improved apparatus to begin a long series of regular balloon soundings from Trappes, France. Among other details, he soon discovered unusual temperature records, first believed to be instrument errors, of constant or even increasing temperature conditions from the extreme upper limits of his balloon’s ascents. After precluding instrument error and repeating many measurements, in 1899, he published a report indicating that temperatures at heights above which the atmospheric pressure falls below 0.1 (100 millibars) cease to decline with altitude but remain constant over a specific height interval, thereafter slowly increasing.
In his papers of 1904 in the noted French journal Comptes rendus physique and his own Travaux scientifiques de l’Observatoire de météorologie de Trappes (1909), Teisserenc de Bort gave mean temperatures versus height measured at Trappes between 1899 and 1903. Out of 581 balloon ascents, 141 attained temperature “isothermal” and “inverted” measurements at height records of 8.7 miles (14 kilometers) or more. His data showed that there is a slow temperature decrease up to about 1.2 miles (2 kilometers) above sea level. This is followed by a more rapid decrease up to about 10 kilometers. A very slow or total lack of decrease was measured between 6.8 and 8.7 miles (11-14 kilometers), with an ambient temperature of about -55 degrees Celsius. He called this the “thermal” zone or boundary.
Teisserenc de Bort’s observations were almost concurrently confirmed by Assmann’s
The effects of diurnal and seasonal changes on upper-level temperatures were also measured. Following the systematic planned simultaneous ascents from many European cities between 1895 and 1899, Assmann assembled a database of more than one thousand of his own observations, with 581 of Teisserenc de Bort, and others from England, Holland, and the Soviet Union, enabling him to compute monthly and annual temperature and wind velocity averages of many altitudes between 0 and 8.7 miles (11 kilometers) over central Europe. Assmann also argued that at about 9 miles (12 kilometers), the upper limit for cirrus clouds, temperature remains constant and later increases slowly. The atmospheric region above these heights of constant temperature was called the stratosphere, the lower region nearest the ground was called the troposphere, and the transition zone was called the tropopause. The mesosphere and thermosphere are above the stratosphere.
Meteorologic sounding heights of more than 15 miles (25 kilometers) were achieved in France and Belgium between 1905 and 1907. The Fifth Conference of the International Committee on Scientific Aeronautics at Milan in 1906 saw an increasing number of measurements confirming the temperature results of Teisserenc de Bort and Assmann
As soon as diverse independent observations had established the troposphere/tropopause/stratosphere, many efforts were made to explain the occurrence of stationary upper-level discontinuities on the basis of the rapidly developing hydrothermodynamics of Vilhelm Bjerknes, Ludwig Prandtl, and others—initially, however, with only very limited success. In 1909, W. Humphreys in the United States and F. Gold in England published what became essentially the generally accepted explanation. In both approaches, it was recognized that it is necessary to consider the thermodynamic balance between absorbed and reemitted solar radiation.
Humphreys’ account is less mathematical
Further direct and indirect studies of the stratosphere and troposphere continued by a variety of means. In studies of ground versus air waves from earthquakes
Subsequent studies of the stratosphere by Earth-orbiting satellites include the mapping of the (polar) jet streams and the twenty-six-month quasi-biennial cycle. The original motivation and basis for these and other studies, however, remain the methods and results of Teisserenc de Bort and Assmann
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Anthes, Richard A., et al. The Atmosphere. 3d ed. Columbus, Ohio: Charles Merrill, 1981. A good general-reader text incorporating almost all meteorologic techniques and findings up to the late 1970’s. -
Davis, William Morris. Elementary Meteorology. Boston: Ginn, 1894. Representative of atmospheric science prior to the experimental results of Teisserenc de Bort and Assmann and the dynamic meteorologic theory of Bjerknes. Widely available. -
Goody, Richard M. The Physics of the Stratosphere. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1954. A technical account devoted to stratospheric processes. Recommended. -
Humphreys, W. J. The Physics of the Air. New York: Dover, 1964. Historical-technical account of upper atmospheric science. -
_______. “Vertical Temperature Gradient of the Atmosphere, Especially in the Region of the Upper Inversion.” Astrophysical Journal 29 (1909): 14-26. The first detailed study to incorporate and explain the stratosphere and tropopause in the context of physical theories of atmospheric heating and thermodynamics. -
Massey, Harrie Stewart Wilson. The Middle Atmosphere as Observed by Balloons, Rockets, and Satellites. London: Royal Society, 1980. General descriptions of many remote sensing methods and typical self-recording instruments. -
Pielou, E. C. The Energy of Nature. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001. An exploration for all readers into the effects of natural energies upon the earth. Includes the chapters “Solar Energy and the Upper Atmosphere,” “Energy in the Lower Atmosphere: The Weather Near the Ground,” and “The Warmth of the Earth: Nuclear Reactions Sustain All Life.” Includes illustrations. -
Seinfeld, John H., and Spyros N. Pandis. Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics: From Air Pollution to Climate Change. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1998. A massive textbook, with more than thirteen hundred pages and hundreds of illustrations, covering the physics and chemistry of Earth’s atmosphere. The authors give special attention to, for example, aerosols, the meteorology of air pollution, and the formation and chemistry of clouds. For advanced students.
Tambora Volcano Begins Violent Eruption
Lyell Publishes Principles of Geology
Clausius Formulates the Second Law of Thermodynamics
Krakatoa Volcano Erupts
Bjerknes Founds Scientific Weather Forecasting
Wiechert Invents the Inverted Pendulum Seismograph
Joseph-Louis Gay-Lussac.