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An inversion layer occurrs when you have 2 air masses, in this case meeting as layers of air one on top of the other. The 2 layers are usually at different temperatures so one mass of air is denser than the other, and often they may be moving in different, even directly opposite, directions as when a warm fron meets a cool front head on. The different densities cause not only distortion / diffraction to occur at the layer, but there is often not a "clean" separation but turbulence as well (like Jupiters separate atmospheric zones rotating against each other - same thing).
It's like looking through a reflector thats got a warm mirror on a cool night, except imagine tube currents not on a scale of 8 or 10 inches wide and a metre or so in height but dozens or hundreds of miles wide, and quite deep.
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