Show me the mechanism where the air at 40,000 feet (or 200,000 feet) is disconnected from the column of air below it.
ALSO, the question I asked before included "And what wider system are they part of?"
Clouds and balloons are held up by the density of the air below them. Don't believe me? What happens when a weather balloon pops. It weighs less after the gas escapes (gas has mass after all), yet it plummets to the ground.
