GEOSCI 100 Lecture Notes - Lecture 23: Atmospheric Circulation, Dominant Wavelength, Apple I
9 May 2018
School
Department
Course
Professor
Climate Change
4/19/18
*3 Big Questions:
1. What is climate change?
2. How does the climate system work?
3. What controls climate change?
*Climate Change - a change in statistical distribution of weather on time scales of greater than 10
years
-during the last 138 years, climate change is temporarily variable → complex system
-spatially heterogeneous
-changes on many different time scales, from decades to millions of years
Sun → Energy IN → EARTH → Energy out into space
•1 Joule - energy required to life a small apple 1 meter
•1 Watt = 1 Joule/second
*342 W/m^2 is how much energy from the sun
→ about 70% gets absorbed by the earth
-What does the energy from the sun look like?
*Electromagnetic Spectrum - a way of categorizing “light” energy
Source: https://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/science/toolbox/emspectrum1.html
*most energy = gamma ray
*least energy = radio
*greenhouse gases trap heat (infrared energy)
