Winds, rain, thunder and lightning generally occur in what part of the atmosphere

Wind, rain and lightning generally occur in the troposphere of the atmosphere.

The troposphere extends high into the sky from the surface of the Earth to the tropopause, the starting point of the stratosphere. The closer the troposphere is to the ground, the higher the temperature. The further away from the ground, the lower the temperature. The air near the ground rises and gradually cools and falls, forming convection.

The troposphere refers to the layer of atmosphere closest to the earth's surface. It is also the lowest layer of the atmosphere and has the highest density. It contains almost 75% of the air mass of the entire atmosphere, as well as almost all water vapor and aerosols. . The vast majority of clouds and weather systems occur in the troposphere, which is the layer with the most complex weather changes in the Earth's atmosphere.

Tropospheric temperature inversion

In the troposphere, the temperature decreases as altitude increases. On average, for every 100 meters of elevation, the tropospheric temperature decreases by about 0.65°C. The reason why the temperature decreases with the increase of altitude is because the main heat source of the tropospheric atmosphere is the long-wave radiation from the ground. The higher it is from the ground, the less it is heated and the lower the temperature is. However, under certain conditions, the temperature in the troposphere may also rise with altitude, which is called a temperature inversion. Temperature inversion can be divided into radiative inversion, turbulent inversion, advection inversion, subsidence inversion and frontal inversion.

The existence of the inversion layer causes the upper part of the atmosphere to be hotter and the lower part to be colder, hindering the development of air convection. A large amount of smoke, dust, pollutants, water vapor condensation, etc. gather below it, making visibility worse. Air pollution is getting worse; especially over cities and industrial and mining areas, due to the large number of condensation nuclei, dense fog is easy to occur, and some even cause serious air pollution events, such as photochemical smog.