# Tag Info

79

The IPCC do mentions solar minimums and maximums, as part of extremely careful treatment they do of the reconstructions and predictions for the changes in solar irradiance. The Assessment Report 5, Working Group 1, Chapter 8, have a whole section (~4 pages) dealing with solar irradiances. If the IPCC don't mention grand solar maximums/minumums that often, ...

40

I think the main question has already been answered. But I would like to add to the fallacy that: History shows solar activity is the main driver of our climate, among other factors. The Sun is undoubtedly the main source of energy for the planet and its climate. However, variations in solar activity are not the main cause of variations in climate. The ...

23

The phenomenon is called seasonal lag. There's a more extensive answer elsewhere on this site but the basic idea is that temperature lags behind insolation by several weeks, because it takes time to change the mean temperatures of the land, the atmospehere, and especially oceans change their mean temperature. This diagram tries to show the lag, along with ...

21

The main proxy that we have of past solar intensity comes from its proven correlation to the number of sunspots, which have been recorded since the invention of the telescope in the early 1600's. And the plot looks like this: We have no evidence of any significant correlation between the solar cycle and earthquakes or volcanic activity. You won't find ...

16

The sun is really far away. Thus its rays are essentially parallel at the earth's orbit. So, while the diagram you posted is clearly a bit off in terms of the relative size and distance between the sun and the earth, the parallel rays are about right.

15

Atmospheric escape is a topic with a long research history. It is complex and is being addressed with both measurements and simulations. For example, the question of atmospheric escape is still actively researched at Mars, and the MAVEN (Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution) spacecraft mission is for example dedicated to this topic. Mars is a planet ...

12

Since atmospheric retention is largely dependent on escape velocity and temperature, removal of the Earth's magnetic field should not have a greatly noticeable effect, as current research shows that Earth's magnetic field changes the location of atmosphere loss due to the solar wind rather than eliminating it. Earth's temperature is not likely to change ...

11

The sun is about 100 times the size of the Earth (in diameter), and the distance from the sun to Earth is about 100 times the diameter of the sun. Below is an image showing the sun, Earth, and the distance between them to scale. It looks at first like nothing more than a black bar. This image in the original is 4000 pixels (the limit of my Pixlr Editor) by ...

10

You need a radiative transfer model and global climate model to do it with greenhouse gases. you can derive the temperature without greenhouse gases as discussed below: The absorption is highly variable depending on wavelength and can be seen in this graphic: Radiative transfer through the atmosphere is specific to pressure, temperature, and wavelength. ...

10

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 a while ago when enunciating his Third Law of Planetary Motion. There are many ways to write a formula to calculate Earth's speed around the Sun. But for your ...

10

It is an interesting question, and despite that latitude is the main control of the amount of solar radiation that reaches the top of the atmosphere at a given location, the answer will be determined by how exactly weather patterns distribute across the different latitudes. Therefore, a solid answer will require to be supported in data. A good dataset for ...

10

tl;dr: The Earth receives 40,000 tons of dust from space every year, but looses 95,000 tons of Hydrogen and 1,600 tons of Helium every year as well. After all additional effects are balanced, the Earth looses about 50,000 tons a year. It seems a similar question was asked in Astronomy Stack Exchange, and this short answer links to the BBC News article Who, ...

7

Total solar eclipses are rare. Globally, they only happen every 18 months. In any given spot, they are much, much rarer, with a recurrence period of many hundreds of years. Solar eclipses are localised in time and space. Although model resolution may be just about small enough (in time) to resolve the totality, it only has a limited impact. One could ...

7

But if you scale up the Sun to it's real size compared to the Earth, Is pretty big. But then to be realistic in that manner you would also have to scale up the distance from the earth to the sun. But you don't have to even do that, as there is a much simpler way of seeing how large the sun is from the perspective of a position on the earth. Be on or very ...

7

As mentioned by Barry in the comments, you just have to substract 6 degrees of latitude to get the ring around areas were it never gets DARKER than civil twilight or darker for 24 or more hours (or 12° for nautical twilight and 18° for astronomical twilight). That would be: "Never darker than civil twilight circle": : 60° 33′ 46.7″ (orange in the figures ...

6

Given the known average distance to the Sun, and the radii of Sun and Earth, the basic trigonometry is simple. If the Earth and Sun were exactly the same size, and there was no atmospheric refraction, then exactly half the planet, or 180 degrees, would be illuminated. But since the Sun is so much bigger, again assuming no atmospheric refraction, then ...

5

In addition to the rarity, there is also the problem of additional computations. To find out if there is a solar eclipse, you need extra calculations. Since the introduction of additional calculations can slow down the model, especially since radiation is oft quoted as the most expensive physics parameterization, introduction of the astronomy may provide ...

5

Water has a large thermal capacity. which is why the temperature change between seasons is gradual rather than sudden, especially near the oceans. For water to lose heat time is required. By changing the albedo of the ocean just prior to a hurricane/cyclone/typhoon passing over a section of water will not give the water enough time to cool down to have ...

5

The Measurement and Instrumentation Data Center (MIDC, http://www.nrel.gov/midc/) provides Irradiance and other Meteorological Data from several stations. Have you also check in: https://mapsbeta.nrel.gov/nsrdb-data-viewer/? Some of the data maybe until the end of 2012 used to be in http://rredc.nrel.gov/solar/old_data/nsrdb/. Good luck!

5

Did Jupiter really make Earth (in)habitable? Perhaps, but it's tough to tell. I wrote up an answer for a question on Physics getting at some more specific issues here; bear with me if I re-use a little bit of it. How is it physically possible for such a migration to occur? Planetary migration in the Solar System is described by the Nice Model (or, ...

5

As others have pointed already in the comments, there is no earthquake data extending that far back. But we do have data for the last century. In a similar way to my answer to this question. Here I've plotted the yearly count of all of the earthquakes worldwide from 1900 to 2018 of magnitude greater of 7,7.5, 8, or 8.5 found in the USGS Earthquake Catalog ...

4

It's not that hard to make an estimate. CO2 traps about 2 watts per square meter. Direct sunlight at 1 Astronomical Unit is about 1,360 watts per square meter, but spread out over the earth, average night and day it's about 1/4th of that about 340 watts per square meter. (note, Casey's point is valid, it's probably better to use the number of watts that ...

4

1) No, there are many places in the ocean that receive more sunlight hours than many deserts. For instance, the west coasts of southern Africa and central South America. These locations are influenced by the very cold antarctic currents and high pressure from Hadley cells. 2) That very much depends on location. In general, a warm ocean will be cloudier ...

4

Doesn't look like the ECMWF does. Perhaps part of it has to do with the fact the weather changes due to eclipses are usually fairly friendly/tame. This GOES 16 satellite loop from the southeast US during the eclipse shows a large percentage of the cumulus buildup dissipating as solar input dropped. And this great meteogram from the Oklahoma Mesonet (this ...

4

The Sun is also regarded as a black body. Any body that radiates energy following Planck's law of black-body radiation, and absorbes energy at all wavelengths can be considered as a black body. This is an idealization, but if Earth is approximated to a black body, the Sun can be considered one as well. The case of the sun is not very different to that of ...

4

"Is there any interaction between the Earth's atmosphere and high velocity protons in the solar wind (e.g. protons combining with atmospheric oxygen to form hydroxide) which is capable of balancing the hydrogen loss?" I found Hydrogen ions in the solar wind react with oxygen in interplanetary dust grains to form little packets of water, potentially supplying ...

4

This question can be answered in many different ways that take into account, or ignore, the many factors that affect the total output of a fix solar panel over a year. In general, all answers will agree that the solar panel will have to face the north in the southern hemisphere, and the south in the northern hemisphere. This is because that is the direction ...

3

One can account for greenhouse gas effect for Earth's temperature in simple energy balance model in following manner. Assume that fraction $f$ of longwave radiation emitted by Earth's surface is captured by green house gases in the atmosphere. Suppose Earth's surface temperature is $T_e$ and temperature of the atmosphere is $T_a$. The energy received from ...

3

It mainly depends on where you are "coming from," rather than where you are "going to." In September, you are "coming from" a hot summer. The earth has been hot recently, and will take some time to cool down (in your part of the world. In March, you are "coming from" a cold winter. The earth has been cold recently, and will take some time to heat up. "...

3

I am not sure about the size of Krakatoa eruption but the eruption of Mt. Pinatubo in Indonesia around 12th June 1991 is considered as the largest eruption in the past 100 years. Global average of decrease in solar radiation after 4 months of eruption was about 2.7 +/- 1 W/m^2. Global average surface reaching solar radiation is about 198 W/m^2. In other ...

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