The tropospheric temperature gradient (first explained by physicist Josef Loschmidt in the 1870's) is called the "lapse rate" by climatologists, but it has nothing to do with any "rising parcels or air" that are supposedly warmed by conduction at the surface interface. In fact, there is nothing to hold together any such "parcels" in calm conditions because molecules move at about 500 meters a second (1,800 Km/hour) between collisions and can easily leave the boundary of any imaginary parcel. Instead, the gradient forms autonomously at the molecular level, even within a vertical sealed, insulated cylinder.
We have the state of maximum entropy (called “thermodynamic equilibrium”) when the sum of mean molecular gravitational potential energy (GPE) + kinetic energy (KE) is the same at all heights in a local region of the troposphere. If that were not the case, then there would be unbalanced energy potentials. Since GPE varies with altitude, but only KE determines temperature we have a non-zero temperature gradient.
But this physics is apparently beyond the understanding of climatologists who wondered why the gradient existed and guessed it must be due to radiation from cold water vapor, carbon dioxide, methane etc. causing heat from such cold regions of the atmosphere into the warmer surface, in contradiction of the Second Law of Thermodynamics, as explained here.
It's a pity that trillions of dollars are being wasted because climatologists don't understand basic physics, as I just proved.
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