stratosphere

Etymology

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

noun

1. (geology, obsolete) 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. 1908, Eduard Suess [aut.], Hertha Beatrice Coryn Sollas and William Johnson Sollas [trs.], The Face of the Earth (Oxford, at the Clarendon Press), volume 3, chapter 1, page 2
   The stratosphere, or younger sedimentary envelope has been formed almost entirely at the expense of the Sal envelope. 1909, Eduard Suess [aut.], Hertha Beatrice Coryn Sollas and William Johnson Sollas [trs.], The Face of the Earth (Oxford, at the Clarendon Press), volume 4, chapter 15, page 546
2. (meteorology) The region of the uppermost atmosphere where temperature increases along with the altitude due to the absorption of solar ultraviolet radiation by ozone. The stratosphere extends from the tropopause (10–15 kilometers) to approximately 50 kilometers, where it is succeeded by the mesosphere.
   Variation in height of the stratosphere (isothermal layer). 1909, Scientific Abstracts, A., volume 12, page 208 (heading)