temperature inversion

Corey agreed, saying that during a temperature inversion, “sound from a concert venue that travels up into the warmer air layer and bends downward after passing over buildings and other obstacles reaching the ground miles away from the concert.”

Computer modeling yielded another surprise: the brown dwarf likely has a temperature inversion, a phenomenon in which the atmosphere gets warmer with increasing altitude.

"We were pleasantly shocked when the model clearly predicted a temperature inversion," said co-author Ben Burningham from the University of Hertfordshire.

Stefanie Sullivan, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service, attributed the poor air quality first and foremost to the “shallow” marine layer causing what is known as temperature inversion: Instead of temperatures decreasing with height, they increase.

The best model favored a temperature inversion, where the atmosphere got warmer with increasing altitude.