stratosphere

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   The region of the uppermost atmosphere where the temperature increases along with the altitude due to the absorption of solar ultraviolet radiation by ozone.

   Variation in height of the stratosphere (isothermal layer).

2. 2
   noun

   Collectively, those layers of the Earth’s crust which primarily comprise stratified deposits.

   So 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.

3. 3
   noun

   the atmospheric layer between the troposphere and the mesosphere

Etymology

From French stratosphère, a word coined by its discoverer, meteorologist Léon Teisserenc de Bort. From strato- + -sphere.