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Jeff Zeidel
260331333
Climate and Climate Change
Assignment 1
1. A process that could decrease the earth’s temperature is evaporation. The reason
behind this is because the faster moving molecules (warm ones) move out of the drops of
water leaving the slower (colder) molecules behind, which leads to a cooling process.
Clouds as well can play a cooling effect. The clouds prevent the suns radiation from
getting to the earths surface. The clouds act as a reflector and send the radiation back into
space. “They radiate away more then they retain”. Ice (ice albedo) plays a process in
keeping the earths temperature cool if there is an increase in ice. The way it works is
similar to the way the clouds keep the earths surface cool. The suns radiation makes its
way down to the earths surface but then is reflected back up by the ice. There are several
possibilities that could cause an ice age, atmospheric composition, changes in the suns
orbit around the earth, tectonic plates, wind and ocean currents, solar output and
volcanoes.
2. Firstly, Venus is closer to the sun which in turn receives much more radiation from the
sun then earth. Also another factor that plays a huge role in Venus being more hot then
the earth is the fact that all the water on Venus has been evaporated. The evaporation of
water is a greenhouse effect and it works to allow heat to enter the atmosphere and
prevents heat from leaving thus keeping it warmer.
3. The North Pole is colder then the equator even when receiving 24 hours of sunlight
because the light being received at the equator is much stronger than at the poles. The
North Pole region receives less intense solar energy as it receives its light from oblique
angles as opposed to perpendicularly like the equator region.
4. The reason why Antarctica and Sub-Sahara Africa have on average the same annual
upwelling of radiation while one receives more radiation then the other (Sub-Sahara
Africa receiving more), is because the composition of Antarctica has a higher albedo then
Africa. What I mean by this is that snow (aprox .9) and ice (aprox 0.5-0.7) have a higher
reflecting effect then sand (0.4). Though Antarctica is receiving less radiation then Africa
it is send more back due to its high albedo. For example: Africa receives 100 units of
radiation with an albedo of 0.4 (100 x 0.4= 40) while Africa only receives about a half of
what Africa does (50units) with an albedo of 0.8 (50 x 0.8 = 40).
5. The earth radiates more then it receives from the sun due to the albedo effect. The
average albedo of the earth’s surface is 0.3 = 30% reflection. On top of that green house
gases play a factor as well. The way it works is due to the green house gases keeping the
warm radiation in the atmosphere thus creating an imbalance in the radiation budget.
With the imbalance the earth will then need to release more long wave heat to keep the
balance (example done in class).
6. Our seasons are regulated by the amount of solar energy received at the earth’s surface.
This amount is determined by the angle at which the sunlight strikes the surface and by
how long the sun shines on any latitude. Sun that strikes the earth perpendicularly is
much stronger than sun that strikes the earth on an angle. Therefore because these two
places are on different parts of the globe and our earth moves in an elliptical path, they
will be perpendicular to the sun at different times of the year making different months
hotter in different places.
7. Since the equator receives the majority of direct heat from the sun because it’s surface
is closer to the sun compared to the other latitudes of earth it has an abundance of hot
surface air. This hot air is pushed up into the circulation from the cold air flowing in from
the oceans. This air circulates back down to earth into three cells, the tropical forests are
found in Hadley cell at 30 degrees latitude, closest to the equator. This circulation of hot
dry air is directly from the equator which results in the heating of these tropical forests.