• Stratosphere

    Pronunciation

    Origin

    - + sphere + -

    Full definition of stratosphere

    Noun

    stratosphere

    (plural stratospheres)
    1. (geology, obsolete) Collectively, those layers of the Earth’s crust which primarily comprise stratify deposit.
      • 1908, Eduard Suess aut., Hertha Beatrice Coryn Sollas and William Johnson Sollas trs., The Face of the Earth (Oxford, at the Clarendon Press), volume 3, chapter 1, page 2So great is the part played by stratified deposits in the structure of the earth’s crust that we might be tempted to speak of the stratosphere of the earth in contradistinction to the scoriosphere of the moon.
      • 1909, Eduard Suess aut., Hertha Beatrice Coryn Sollas and William Johnson Sollas trs., The Face of the Earth (Oxford, at the Clarendon Press), volume 4, chapter 15, page 546The stratosphere, or younger sedimentary envelope has been formed almost entirely at the expense of the Sal envelope.
    2. (meteorology) The region of the uppermost atmosphere where temperature increases along with the altitude due to the absorption of solar ultraviolet radiation by ozone. The stratosphere extends from the tropopause (10–15 kilometers) to approximately 50 kilometers, where it is succeeded by the mesosphere.
      • 1909, Scientific Abstracts, A., volume 12, page 208 (heading)Variation in height of the stratosphere (isothermal layer).
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