For typical well-mixed structures, the dominant processes are:
- Gas giant interiors: efficient convection through most of the deep fluid envelope; radiative transfer releases the heat near the photosphere.
- Rocky interiors: slow solid-state mantle convection over geological time, with heat conduction dominant across the rigid lithosphere. A liquid core can also convect; being solid does not prevent creep-driven heat transport in the mantle.
- Weakly irradiated giant atmospheres at –: usually convection in the planetary troposphere, becoming radiative near and above the tropopause. The transition pressure and cloud or compositional effects vary between planets.
- Strongly irradiated hot Jupiter atmospheres at –: usually a stable radiative region; the deep radiative-convective boundary can lie at substantially larger pressure. Atmospheric winds also redistribute energy horizontally.
Representative temperatures must specify the level: Earth has about at the surface (about effective emission temperature); Jupiter has about near one bar (about effective temperature); hot Jupiters commonly have photospheric temperatures of order –; and the Sun's photosphere is about . Upper layers, nightsides, deep interiors and the solar corona have different temperatures. These are characteristic values, not constant temperatures throughout each atmosphere.
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