153
votes
Accepted
What place on Earth is closest to the Sun?
This is an interesting question, but it lacks a key factor that is crucial to the answer: TIME.
The point on Earth closest to the Sun varies through time, so the question can be asked about any ...
- 17.6k
38
votes
Does human body temperature impact climate change?
Does human body temperature impact climate change? Directly? It's not even a blip. The Earth's population is 7.6 billion. With each person radiating about 80 watts (basal metabolism), that's about 600 ...
- 23k
10
votes
What place on Earth is closest to the Sun?
It is impossible to know. Solar flares can have more than 500,000 kilometers. So if we consider them part of the sun, the moment when the earth is closer to the sun can be very different from ...
- 109
10
votes
Accepted
Changes in Earth's orbital and rotation speeds
The Earth moves faster around the Sun when it is near its perihelion (the closest point of its orbit to the Sun). And it moves slower when it is further away (aphelion), just as Kepler realized quite ...
- 17.6k
9
votes
Accepted
How to run earth system, land surface and climate models?
As alluded to in some of the comments, all of the CMIP5 models will have been run on supercomputers, and it takes a lot of effort to get one of them running on a new platform, even for a team who know ...
- 3,920
8
votes
Half of Earth with most landmass
You would have to cut somewhere along this circle:
The only landmass here is New Zealand, eastern Australia, eastern PNG, western North America and some Pacific islands. I'm pretty sure you can tweak ...
- 23k
8
votes
Accepted
Where can I find detailed description of different VARIANT-IDs in CMIP6 metadata?
The variant_labels are defined in the CMIP6 Data Reference Syntax (DRS) document and are made up of the realization_index, initialization_index, physics_index and forcing_index.
A link to this DRS ...
- 96
7
votes
The free oxygen (O$_2$) in the atmosphere is largely a result of what process?
You are correct in thinking that oxygen comes from photosynthesis. In fact it is so much associated with photosynthesis, as opposed to any inorganic process, that the presence of oxygen in the ...
- 14.2k
7
votes
How to run earth system, land surface and climate models?
We are moving all of CESM to open source - in particular here is the latest version of the Community Terrestrial Systems Model (CTSM)
https://github.com/ESCOMP/ctsm
Formerly known as CLM, CTSM ...
- 71
6
votes
Accepted
Do ocean level rise estimates account for mantle elasticity and plate mass changes?
Sea level rise estimates use changes in relative mean sea level. The definition being:
Relative sea level is the sea level related to the level of the continental crust. Relative sea level changes ...
- 15.4k
6
votes
Why does Meteorology rely on a spherical model of the earth, rather than a flat earth, to function?
Meteorology relies heavily on a spherical model of the earth. If you consider one of the major "forces," the Coriolis force, it is derivable only from a spherical earth.
Now, there are ...
- 8,684
4
votes
Would life on Earth survive without the Sun?
Popular science has a good write up on this. In short, everything on the surface is doomed in a year or two. Life in the Oceans would last several hundred thousand years. After that, it's probably ...
- 303
4
votes
Why doesn't the earth become superheated?
A body has to emit as much thermal energy as it absobs to remain in thermal equilibrium. The Earth has been doing the same since its formation, i.e, it absorbs solar shorwave radiation by its ...
4
votes
What place on Earth is closest to the Sun?
The point on the surface of the Earth where the Sun is currently immediately overhead is called the Zenith Point. Its Latitude and Longitude correspond to the Declination and Greenwich Hour Angle of ...
- 41
4
votes
Luis Alvarez's K-T Impactor Calculation
The volume of a sphere is $\small\sf{\frac4 3\pi R^3}$, where $\small\sf{R}$ is the radius.
The volume of Earth with the 4 cm deep iridium rich layer is,
$\small\sf{V_{Ei} = \frac 4 3\pi (6.378\...
- 24.1k
4
votes
Accepted
Dedicated book to understand climate and ocean science
there are very different books on this topic. Therefore, a concrete selection is somewhat more complex.
But to gain a good insight into biogeochemical processes, I would recommend the book:
...
- 1,774
3
votes
How to run earth system, land surface and climate models?
You can take a look at the Predictive Ecosystem Analyzer (PEcAn) - it is a statistical framework and workflow system that supports parameterization and analysis of a number of land surface, crop, and ...
- 998
3
votes
What are the basic rules of how light and seasons affect landscape and objects lighting?
I suspect that the answers you seek lie as much in computer graphics and human perception as they do in physics or earth science - for example, colours on a cloudy day won't actually be significantly ...
- 5,820
3
votes
Accepted
How much energy released by the Theia-Gaia impact?
Here's a quick-and-dirty estimate.
The gravitational self-energy of a uniform-density sphere is
$$
U = \frac35 \frac{GM^2}R
$$
Let's assume Theia had the same mass and density as Mars, and that Gaia ...
- 441
3
votes
Reason for rotting smell after first rain of the season?
When rain displaces pore gasses in the soil, bubbles of soil gas are released into the atmosphere. It's impossible to be precise about the composition because it is so variable from place to place. It ...
- 14.2k
3
votes
Is Earth's atmosphere 1600 km thick?
I agree with the comments; some upfront research would be good here, even at a basic level. A good place to start is this Wikipedia article, which gives not only atmospheric heights but also other ...
- 3,556
3
votes
What would happen to the earth if we removed nearly all of the air?
We already have a model of an atmosphere-stripped Earth at hand, it's called Mars. Essentially, the loss of air on Mars meant more things didn't happen any longer than did happen. Erosion and ...
- 3,556
3
votes
After global warming, does an ice age occur because the polar caps have melted and caused more water to absorb the gloabl warming
Seems a valid enough question. But what stand out to me is that the area of Earth covered by water doesn't appear to change by a notable percentage in a rough estimate of a world without ice:
(found ...
- 8,684
2
votes
Accepted
Why doesn't the earth become superheated?
The hotter the Earth gets the more it re-radiates energy back into space.You can see a tiny fraction of this energy by looking at the new moon. The feint glow is just a small part of the re-radiated ...
- 14.2k
2
votes
Would life on Earth survive without the Sun?
The answers posted thus far have correctly pointed out that natural life would cease to exist without photosynthesis provided by the sun, and natural heat sources from the Earth would only be enough ...
- 13.4k
2
votes
How does the Sun heat the Earth?
It is the warmth of the atmosphere that you feel on your skin. The atmosphere is warmed from the surface of the Earth. Visible light from the sun hits the surface of the Earth and some of it is ...
- 13.4k
2
votes
Earth's Internal Heat Engine
For this question, Wikipedia is probably your best recourse.
To summarize, the heat in the earth's core comes from two places: it is left over from the formation of the earth and it is still being ...
- 3,366
2
votes
Accepted
Half of Earth with most landmass
It's a moot point, and probably varies somewhat according to the state of the tide. Visually, however, the 'pole of maximum ocean' is about half-way between two atolls in the south Pacific: Tautua, 9&...
- 14.2k
2
votes
Does human body temperature impact climate change?
Human metabolic heat doesn't add energy that was not already there.
The metabolic heat human bodies produce comes from energy supplied by the food we eat. The energy in that food came from solar ...
- 1,797
2
votes
Does human body temperature impact climate change?
All the new energy added to the earth’s environment comes from outside our planet. The sun is the biggest contributor, then other factors like meteors, radiation from other energy sources in our ...
- 21
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