What would happen to temperature on earth if the suns heat were not distributed throughout the atmosphere?
I read your question then I read the answers you have already received and I must say that I am not sure what you are asking. If the earth was showing all the time the same side to the sun, of course, it would be a very inhabitable planet. If there was not atmosphere at all, it would too. But I think your question is about the heat being distributed throughout the atmosphere, hence the air. Well, it doesn’t. Apart from for example the ozone layer in the ionosphere that keeps the most dangerous radiations to reach the earth surface, what warms up the air is in fact its contact with the surface. When the air right above the land or sea is then slowly warmed up by contact, it rises, cools down then stops rising. That is why the so called adiabatic lapse rate is 3 F per 1,000 feet of altitude, all the way to the stratosphere. The air temperature cools down progressively with altitude. Above our troposphere, it is another matter, but until the stratosphere, the sun doesn’t heat at all the a
