Abstract: Using Arakawa’s “σ‐p” coordinate, a two-dimensional global tropospheric model was reformed and extended up to stratosphere in the vertical level. The developed model not only has good stability in computation, but also the good performance to simulate the general feature of the mean temperature, mean zonal and meridional motion and their seasonal variation. It is also proved that the extension of the vertical level onto the stratosphere in a general circulation model is able to improve the description of the upper tropospheric circulation