50
Up = cold
Because altitude. Much like how Mt Kilimanjaro has snow on it despite being close to the equator.
Obviously I figured it'd be much colder, but I've been in -55°f wind chills and it took me being at 8000+ feet elevation, in a northern latitude, in the peak of a record setting winter, for us to hit that. So, yeah I expected freezing temps up there, but -52.6°f is making my brain hurt. It's just so crazy that I figured it had to include some other weather phenomenon, not just altitude.
Yeah, it's not as simple as the comments suggest.
I think a good start are those articles: Athmosphere of Earth, Albedo, Greenhouse effect, together with the facts
- the thinner the gas (less atoms per m³), the less temperature it transfers
- athmosphere filters light: which is why we see the sky as blue and why a very clear hot day has a high UV index (though most of the dangerous radiation gets reflected)
- space temperature works via radiation; the habitable band around earth has 80 to 120°C in direct sun exposure, while it's freezing -120 to -150°C in earths shadow; mainly through infrared radiation
I guess the short version is; a balance between infrared reflectivity and direct transfer, with heat house effect also playing a role. But the ground absorbing the majority of the radiation/temperature, is the main reason in the Troposphere.
8000 feet standing on a mountain isn't the same as being 8000 feet above the ground. It's likely that what you've experienced is some combination of air from lower altitudes being carried by wind blowing up the mountain, and the ground absorbing sunlight and warming up the air.
Without either of those things, the temperature in open sky is likely to be colder than a mountaintop at similar altitude
Also, aircraft go far higher than 8000 feet. Crusing altitudes can be more like 20,000 or 30,000
Oh, I'm not disagreeing, and I assume that speed was not helping, I just had no idea that it got that cold. I was hoping, if you can call it that, that the incident was due to some freak weather phenomenon
The speed is actually helping keeping their air plane warmer due to aerodynamic heating.
This is why flying is an over-rated super power. It'd be cold and wet and windy and require heavy gear. None of this undies on the outside spandex stuff.
Chronicle is the only "super powers" movie to ever address this. Iron Man did too, but only when it helped the plot.
It's super impractical. Also, how fast are you going to be able to fly? Because at 100km it's so windy that after an hour you'd be sore from the resistance. It's more comfortable to drive lol. Probably faster too. It really only has a local use case. Trans Atlantic for example would take days and suck beyond comprehension. Also, it's boring as hell up there.
I wanna counter your point a bit, like if im the only one flying it would suck. But like imagine if there were oasis in the middle for flying people. You would plan your journey from europe to south asia, sure it would take a week or maybe multiple, buy you'll be stopping at different towns, meeting the locals and enjoying their food.
Imagine there could be like seasonal migrations when the weather is too cold or too hot. And then there would be nomads, tellong everyone about their nomad lifestyles.
I suppose. But the discomfort is still a deal breaker
They were warned about problematic weather :(
Every 1000ft you go up, the temperature drops by about 2c
People need to watch the tracker app in a plane flight and pay attention to the outside temperature.
What do you figure the wind chill of a few hundred mph may be?
Irrelevant to those of metal blood.
I was once on a fancy airliner that had readouts on the seat backs. One thing you could see was temperature. I believe it was -175F or so. This was also over Florida BTW. Only reason I know about this!
That's an erroneous readout. Modern aircraft have various limits on air temperature, but none in the negative triple digits.
You're right! Looks like it's more like -70F at 36,000 feet.
The adiabatic lapse rate is the reason. Its 2°C per 1,000ft or 3.5°F. If the plane is cruising at 30,000ft that's a temperature difference of 105°F from the plane to the ground.
Did some flying for awhile, gets cold up there.
Edit: Actually yeah, if the comment above that the plane was 37k-41k is correct. Let's says 40k for easy math, thats a 140°F temp difference. If the temp at altitude is -52°F then it would be 88°F on the ground. Math checks out!
How many foots is a leg?
TLDR shit is cold up there
Because that's about how cold the air is at cruising altitude.
While on the same machine, the turbine blades that melt at 1250 degrees operate at 1500 degrees.
It's all magic
As a professional aircraft mechanic, I can confirm. It's all magic
wat?
Turbine blades are pure aluminum, which melts at 1220 degrees. They operate inside the compression chamber of the turbine to move gases that are around 1500 degrees. There's a whole art to making them single crystals and optimizing flow rates so they don't melt, or explode, or melt and explode. And a lot of work goes into making sure when they do melt and explode, they don't turn into supersonic bullets. Just barely though, because armor is heavy.
thanks for the explanation. So because of the single crystal(??) they don't melt since it changes the melting point?
The crystallization is mainly about strength so they don't snap or deform at a billion rpm, because typical aluminum would shatter under the load. They don't melt because of magic. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QtxVdC7pBQM
Space is very cold. It's -270something C. The temperature on Earth is much higher. The rays that make it through to our atmosphere bounce off the ground, warming it up from the bottom up. That's why you need a jacket when you climb up a mountain because it's getting colder the higher you go. Imagine a mountain higher than anything we have. Eventually, you'll get to -50 C.
Space is hot, but space is empty. Of the very small number of particles you'll collide with in deep space, they're very hot on average, but so few and far between that you'll lose heat faster to radiative cooling than you'll gain from those particles, provided you're a good distance from a star. Radiative cooling is pretty slow, though. And even though you'll kind of freeze if you jump out of a space ship mid-flight, it's not because of the temperature. It's because you're made of water, mostly. The sudden depressurization will let you the surface water boil off and drop your temperature very quickly.
-273.15C is absolute zero. Nothing in space is absolute zero. Most material is far above absolute zero. However, with so few particles to interact with, bodies will eventually radiate heat until absolute zero. It's a long way away though, and will happen about as fast as most other things flying through space, including planets and stars. That'll be known as the heat death of the universe. Won't be anything living to see it.
Its because the atmosphere is heated by the ground, not the sun.
Air is transparent. Sunlight will go right through it without transferring much heat at all. Instead the sunlight keeps going until it hits the earth.
The ground or water absorbs the heat from the sun, which heats the air just above it, which then rises and mixes with the colder air around it.
The heated air can only rise so far, so most of that heat stays near the ground, hence the temperature gradient between the surface and airplane cruising altitudes.
If you’re talking about the Learjet that crashed (RIP), I think it was cruising around 37-41k feet. I don’t know the scientific reason for why it’s so cold up there.
The ground is opaque and dense so sunlight heats it effectively and it holds onto that heat well. Air is transparent and not very dense so it doesn't heat well nor does it hold that heat.
Warm places are warm near the ground, but as you gain altitude it becomes cold quickly no matter where you are.
this post was submitted on 02 Nov 2026
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