Where did the change begin?
Labs / Geography
Layers of the Atmosphere
Drag the amber probe up through the troposphere, stratosphere, mesosphere, and thermosphere. The air cools as you climb, warms again inside the ozone-rich stratosphere, cools once more, then soars past 1000 °C in the near-vacuum thermosphere — while the pressure and density collapse toward nothing.
Labs / Geography / Layers of the Atmosphere
Layers of the Atmosphere
Drag the amber probe up through the troposphere, stratosphere, mesosphere, and thermosphere. The air cools as you climb, warms again inside the ozone-rich stratosphere, cools once more, then soars past 1000 °C in the near-vacuum thermosphere — while the pressure and density collapse toward nothing.
Why it matters
Why explore this?
Geography explains how places, people, and Earth systems affect one another. This model lets you change one factor and watch its effects spread across space.
Explore
Try the model
Alt 0.0 kmT 15 °CP 1013 hPaρ 1.225 kg/m³Layer Troposphere
Investigate
Questions to test
Predict first, try it in the model, then use what you observe to answer.
What to try
- The air keeps cooling as you climb the troposphere — so why does it suddenly start warming again in the stratosphere?
- Switch to the Pressure curve. By what altitude has half the atmosphere's air been left below you?
- The thermosphere reads hundreds of degrees — would it actually feel hot to an astronaut floating there? What does the Density curve suggest?
- Where does an airliner cruise compared with the ozone layer and the jet stream — and why fly right at the top of the troposphere?
- The ISS orbits near 400 km, far above this chart. If there is still a trace of air that high, what must happen to its orbit over time?
Explain
Make sense of what happened
Connect the pattern to place: identify where the change begins, where its effects appear, and which process links those locations.
Check
Before you leave
What spatial pattern appeared?
Which process connects the cause and effect?
If you can answer all three using evidence from the model, you understand the main idea. If not, return to Explore and change one setting at a time.