GEO 210 Lecture Notes - Lecture 4: Fahrenheit, Kelvin, Celsius
6 Feb 2020
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Document Summary
The impact of temperature on the landscape: organisms have certain temperature tolerances, temperature affects human-built landscapes, temperature affects inorganic components of the landscape. Temperature scales: fahrenheit scale, 32 f, 212 f, celsius scale, 0 c, 100 c, kelvin scale, 273k, 373k. Solar radiation: the earth intercepts less than one two-billionth of energy given off by the sun, however, the radiation is sufficient to provide 99. 9% of the energy that heats the earth/drive our climate. Radiation receipt: solar radiation is received as parallel rays of energy ( line of sight, speed of light , earth"s diameter is 12,765 km, sun"s diameter is 1,390,000 km. The heating of the atmosphere: balance between shortwave incoming solar radiation and outgoing longwave solar radiation, some shortwave radiation reflected by atmosphere or surface, albedo. Land and water contrasts: need heat transfer to prevent constant warming at tropics and cooling at poles, circulation patterns in atmosphere and oceans transfer heat.
