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The temperatures of a planet's surface and atmosphere are governed by a delicate balancing of their energy flows. The idealized greenhouse model is based on the fact that certain gases in the Earth's atmosphere , including carbon dioxide and water vapour , are transparent to the high-frequency solar radiation , but are much more opaque to the ...
The intensity (or illuminance or irradiance) of light or other linear waves radiating from a point source (energy per unit of area perpendicular to the source) is inversely proportional to the square of the distance from the source, so an object (of the same size) twice as far away receives only one-quarter the energy (in the same time period).
The principle of minimum energy is essentially a restatement of the second law of thermodynamics. It states that for a closed system, with constant external parameters and entropy, the internal energy will decrease and approach a minimum value at equilibrium. External parameters generally means the volume, but may include other parameters which ...
Thus, any energy that enters a system but does not leave must be retained within the system. So, the amount of energy retained on Earth (in Earth's climate system) is governed by an equation: [change in Earth's energy] = [energy arriving] − [energy leaving]. Energy arrives in the form of absorbed solar radiation (ASR). Energy leaves as ...
Earth's energy budget (or Earth's energy balance) is the balance between the energy that Earth receives from the Sun and the energy the Earth loses back into outer space. Smaller energy sources, such as Earth's internal heat, are taken into consideration, but make a tiny contribution compared to solar energy.
Any atmospheric circulation system, whether it is a small-scale weather system or a large-scale zonal wind system, is maintained by the supply of kinetic energy.The development of such a system requires either a transformation of some other form of energy into kinetic energy, or the conversion of the kinetic energy of another system into that of the developing system. [3]
About 40 W/m 2 of this transmitted amount is emitted by the surface, while most of the remainder comes from lower regions of the atmosphere. In a complementary manner, the infrared window also transmits to the surface a portion of down-welling thermal radiation that is emitted within colder upper regions of the atmosphere. [3]
The atmosphere envelops the earth and extends hundreds of kilometres from the surface. It consists mostly of inert nitrogen (78%), oxygen (21%) and argon (0.9%). [4] Some trace gases in the atmosphere, such as water vapour and carbon dioxide, are the gases most important for the workings of the climate system, as they are greenhouse gases which allow visible light from the Sun to penetrate to ...