The Many-Layered Atmosphere

The above illustration originally appeared in the 1962 book The Earth from the Life Nature Library. It does a masterful job of explaining the complex layers of the earth’s atmosphere, and it puts the scale of each layer in perspective. My first takeaway was how shallow the cloud layers were compared to the upper levels of the atmosphere. This, combined with how small the surface seems when compared to everything above it, is humbling. The original caption for the image follows:

The first 600 miles of the atmosphere, mapped in this cross section, are a complex stack of air layers. The gradations at the left show how temperatures fall and then rise with increasing altitude. At the upper levels, auroras appear like hanging curtains. The spiral swirl is a thrust of particles from the deep radiation zone of the magnetosphere.[1]

[1]: Beiser, Arthur. Life Nature Library: The Earth. New York: Time-Life Books, 1962. 66.