Troposphere The word troposphere comes from tropein , meaning to turn or change. All of the earth's weather occurs in the troposphere. The troposphere has the following characteristics. The layer ends at the point where temperature no longer varies with height. This area, known as the tropopause, marks the transition to the stratosphere.
Winds increase with height up to the jet stream.
The moisture concentration decreases with height up to the tropopause. The air is much drier above the tropopause, in the stratosphere. The sun's heat that warms the earth's surface is transported upwards largely by convection and is mixed by updrafts and downdrafts. The lower density of molecules higher up would not give us enough to survive. In the Cycles overview, we learned that water is an essential part of the earth's system.