Carbon dioxide has a strong impact on climate, but water vapour determines weather conditions.
Troposphere (Surface air of Earth. It's biotic atmosphere.)
It is in this first layer that the atmosphere, in contact with the Earth, is the warmest. The Earth's surface captures the Sun's rays and becomes a radiating body that warms the air, setting it in motion by simple thermodynamic action.
This produces large-scale rising air currents that warm the upper levels, while moving gigantic volumes of air horizontally. These movements are what we call weather systems.
As a result, most weather activity occurs in this lowermost layer of the atmosphere, the great variety of phenomena that affect us from day to day all around the world.
The intense concentration of water vapour, associated with strong rising air currents, leads to clouds and precipitation, thunderstorms, hurricanes and tornadoes.
Just below the tropopause, the shear caused by the strong contrast between the troposphere and stratosphere generate the very powerful winds called jet streams, and gives them their sometimes complex structures.
These narrow and powerful streams of air, which originate only in the north of the Northern Hemisphere, are so influential that they are part of what is called the general circulation, that is the trajectory of the Earth's air masses.
Tropopause (Upper Troposphere)
The first thermal boundary. The tropopause marks the end of the biosphere and is the coldest part of the lower atmosphere.
The average altitude of this layer is about 11 km (36,000 feet). Above the poles, it is about 8 km (26,000 feet) from the surface, while at the equator is at about 18 km (59,000 feet).
The tropopause shifts according to temperature and is highest in summer. It changes altitude abruptly near the jet streams.
