The resulting maps look much like topographic maps drawn for the surface of the Earth. Temperature and Height Unlike pressure, temperature does not decrease steadily as altitude increases. Instead, it goes through a series of inversions. An inversion is a section of the atmosphere in which the temperature levels out and may even begin to increase. The tropopause is the inversion that ends the troposphere at roughly 10 km.
Temperature decreases within the zones as altitude increases.
At the tropopause the temperature levels out and then begins to increase in the next layer. The stratopause is the inversion that ends the stratosphere at roughly 50 km. After the temperature levels out here, it begins to decrease. The last of the inversions is the mesopause, which is the transition from the mesosphere into the ionosphere. Here the temperature levels out around -35 C and then begins steadily increasing.