Week 3: Radiation
Lecture PDF
Equations
Key concepts/questions:
Terminology
Reading: Chapter 3 of Moran
Lecture Videos
Lecture PDF
Equations
Key concepts/questions:
- How does the Earth maintain thermal homeostasis?
- How does the lack of an energy balance at any given spot on the planet facilitate weather?
- Why should we care about differentiating between shortwave and longwave radiation?
- What type of radiation is most important in determining daytime high temperatures? How about nighttime low temperatures?
- What is the most important greenhouse gas in terms of how much longwave radiation trapped by the atmosphere and re-emitted back to the Earth?
- Why is the ozone hole most prominent over the southern pole in spring?
- Stefan-Boltzmann law, energy emitted = absolute temperature to the 4th power times Stefan-Boltzmann constant
- Wien's displacement law: peak wavelength of emission = Wiens constant divided by absolute temp of emitting object
Terminology
- infrared (longwave) and visible (shortwave) radiation
- blackbody
- solar constant
- greenhouse gases and effect
- albedo
Reading: Chapter 3 of Moran
Lecture Videos
Week 3: Radiation Laws from John Abatzoglou on Vimeo.
Week 3: Energy Balance from John Abatzoglou on Vimeo.
Energy