Earth would be a lifeless ball of ice with an average temperature of minus 50 degrees Celsius. In addition, the atmosphere absorbs or deflects incoming swarms of comic rays, charged particles, ultra-violet rays and the like.
Troposphere
The Troposphere contains enough warmth and oxygen to allow us to function, but is only about 10-16 Km thick. 80% of the atmosphere is mass, virtually all the water, and most of the weather, are within this thin and wispy layer.
Stratosphere
When you see the top of a storm cloud flattening out into an anvil shape, it is at the boundary between the troposphere and the stratosphere. A fast lift would get you ther in 20 minutes. However, the pressure change would mean that when the doors opened anyone inside would be dead. The temperature here can be 57- degrees Celsius.
Mesosphere
The Mesosphere rises just over 80 Km above the Stratosphere. Here the temperature is even colder, falling as low as 90 degrees below freezing.
Thermosphere
Here the temperature skyrockets to a boiling 1,500 degrees Celsius as you begin to feel the impact of the Sun with no protective layers between you and it.
Exosphere
From about 500 Km up to 10,000 Km above the Earth, atoms and molecules can escape into space, and charged particles are ejected from the upper atmosphere of the Sun in strong solar winds.
This text was taken from the Book: A REALLY SHORT HISTORY OF NEARLY EVERYTHING.
