WHY COLDER WHEN YOU GO UP?

How come the higher you go up in the atmosphere the colder it gets? Shouldn't it be warmer because you are getting closer to the Sun?

Little Tahoma Peak

Do you understand how far the Sun is from Earth?

So no, it's not because you're getting closer to the Sun.

The Sun is like 150 million kilometers away from us, so a few kilometers up or down won't make much difference.

The real reason is that the air pressure drops as you go higher, and that makes the air expand and cool down.

It's like when you let some air out of a tire, it feels cold, you know?

The air at the ground level is heated by the Earth, which absorbs the Sun's rays. But as the air rises, it loses contact with the warm ground and cools off.

That's why the mountains are always snowy, even in summer.

You might be talking about the stratosphere.

In the stratosphere, there's a gas called ozone, which absorbs some of the Sun's ultraviolet light and heats up.

So in the stratosphere, the temperature actually increases with height, instead of decreasing.

The stratosphere starts at about 10 kilometers above sea level, and goes up to about 50 kilometers.

But, the higher you go the lower the temp, and it has nothing to to do with getting closer to the Sun.