Climate basics

Wikipedia: The law of conservation of energy is an empirical law of physics. It states that the total amount of energy in an isolated system remains constant over time (is said to be conserved over time). A consequence of this law is that energy cannot be created nor destroyed. The only thing that can happen to energy in a closed system is that it can change form, for instance chemical energy can become thermal energy.

The Earth, the atmosphere and the Sun can be thought of as an isolated system. So the energy coming from the Sun (visible light and invisible radiation) to the Earth is equal to the energy reflected back (via the the atmosphere, troposphere, through clouds) into space, plus energy emitted as invisible radiation, plus energy stored as heat in the atmosphere, land and plants and the oceans. (Remember the Albedo of the Earth.)

So the big question is: Where does the CO2 fit in – all 0.003% of it of atmospheric gases? As the human emissions of CO2 supposedly lead to higher temperatures where does the energy for this come from? Is there a CO2 layer that traps the heat? Does CO2 have a thermal capacity?

Keep following this space – we have have scientists working on these questions.

Del på FaceBookDel på Nettby Post til Twitter

Tags: , , ,

Leave a Reply