Lesson Objectives

• Describe how energy is transmitted.
• Describe the Earth’s heat budget and what happens to the Sun’s energy.
• Discuss the importance of convection in the atmosphere.
• Describe how a planet’s heat budget can be balanced.
• Describe the greenhouse effect and why it is so important for life on Earth.

Vocabulary

• albedo
• electromagnetic waves
• greenhouse effect
• insolation
• insulation
• latent heat
• reflection
• specific heat
• temperature

Introduction

Wind, precipitation, warming, and cooling depend on how much energy is in the atmosphere and where that energy is located. Much more energy from the Sun reaches low latitudes (nearer the equator) than high latitudes (nearer the poles). These differences in insolation –- the amount of solar radiation that reaches a given area in a given time — cause the winds, affect climate, and drive ocean currents. Heat is held in the atmosphere by greenhouse gases.

Energy, Temperature, and Heat

Energy

Energy travels through space or material. This is obvious when you stand near a fire and feel its warmth or when you pick up the handle of a metal pot even though the handle is not sitting directly on the hot stove. Invisible energy waves can travel through air, glass, and even the vacuum of outer space. These waves have electrical and magnetic properties, so they are called electromagnetic waves. The transfer of energy from one object to another through electromagnetic waves is known as radiation.

Different wavelengths of energy create different types of electromagnetic waves (Figure below).

• The wavelengths humans can see are known as “visible light.” These wavelengths appear to us as the colors of the rainbow. What objects can you think of that radiate visible light? Two include the Sun and a light bulb.
• The longest wavelengths of visible light appear red. Infrared wavelengths are longer than visible red. Snakes can see infrared energy. We feel infrared energy as heat.
• Wavelengths that are shorter than violet are called ultraviolet.

Can you think of some objects that appear to radiate visible light, but actually do not? The moon and the planets do not emit light of their own; they reflect the light of the Sun. Reflection is when light (or another wave) bounces back from a surface. Albedo is a measure of how well a surface reflects light. A surface with high albedo reflects a large percentage of light. A snow field has high albedo.

One important fact to remember is that energy cannot be created or destroyed — it can only be changed from one form to another. This is such a fundamental fact of nature that it is a law: the law of conservation of energy.

In photosynthesis, for example, plants convert solar energy into chemical energy that they can use. They do not create new energy. When energy is transformed, some nearly always becomes heat. Heat transfers between materials easily, from warmer objects to cooler ones. If no more heat is added, eventually all of a material will reach the same temperature.

Temperature

Temperature is a measure of how fast the atoms in a material are vibrating. High temperature particles vibrate faster than low temperature particles. Rapidly vibrating atoms smash together, which generates heat. As a material cools down, the atoms vibrate more slowly and collide less frequently. As a result, they emit less heat. What is the difference between heat and temperature?

• Temperature measures how fast a material’s atoms are vibrating.
• Heat measures the material’s total energy.

Which has higher heat and which has higher temperature: a candle flame or a bathtub full of hot water?

• The flame has higher temperature, but less heat, because the hot region is very small.
• The bathtub has lower temperature but contains much more heat because it has many more vibrating atoms. The bathtub has greater total energy.

Heat

Heat is taken in or released when an object changes state, or changes from a gas to a liquid, or a liquid to a solid. This heat is called latent heat. When a substance changes state, latent heat is released or absorbed. A substance that is changing its state of matter does not change temperature. All of the energy that is released or absorbed goes toward changing the material’s state.

For example, imagine a pot of boiling water on a stove burner: that water is at 100°C (212°F). If you increase the temperature of the burner, more heat enters the water. The water remains at its boiling temperature, but the additional energy goes into changing the water from liquid to gas. With more heat the water evaporates more rapidly. When water changes from a liquid to a gas it takes in heat. Since evaporation takes in heat, this is called evaporative cooling. Evaporative cooling is an inexpensive way to cool homes in hot, dry areas.

Substances also differ in their specific heat, the amount of energy needed to raise the temperature of one gram of the material by 1.0°C (1.8°F). Water has a very high specific heat, which means it takes a lot of energy to change the temperature of water. Let’s compare a puddle and asphalt, for example. If you are walking barefoot on a sunny day, which would you rather walk across, the shallow puddle or an asphalt parking lot? Because of its high specific heat, the water stays cooler than the asphalt, even though it receives the same amount of solar radiation.

Energy From the Sun

Most of the energy that reaches the Earth’s surface comes from the Sun (Figure below). About 44% of solar radiation is in the visible light wavelengths, but the Sun also emits infrared, ultraviolet, and other wavelengths.

When viewed together, all of the wavelengths of visible light appear white. But a prism or water droplets can break the white light into different wavelengths so that separate colors appear (Figure below).

Of the solar energy that reaches the outer atmosphere, UV wavelengths have the greatest energy. Only about 7% of solar radiation is in the UV wavelengths. The three types are:

• UVC: the highest energy ultraviolet, does not reach the planet’s surface at all.
• UVB: the second highest energy, is also mostly stopped in the atmosphere.
• UVA: the lowest energy, travels through the atmosphere to the ground.

The remaining solar radiation is the longest wavelength, infrared. Most objects radiate infrared energy, which we feel as heat (Figure below).

Some of the wavelengths of solar radiation traveling through the atmosphere may be lost because they are absorbed by various gases (Figure below). Ozone completely removes UVC, most UVB, and some UVA from incoming sunlight. O₂, CO₂ and H₂O also filter out some wavelengths.

Solar Radiation on Earth

Different parts of the Earth receive different amounts of solar radiation. Which part of the planet receives the most insolation? The Sun’s rays strike the surface most directly at the equator.

Different areas also receive different amounts of sunlight in different seasons. What causes the seasons? The seasons are caused by the direction Earth’s axis is pointing relative to the Sun.

The Earth revolves around the Sun once each year and spins on its axis of rotation once each day. This axis of rotation is tilted 23.5° relative to its plane of orbit around the Sun. The axis of rotation is pointed toward Polaris, the North Star. As the Earth orbits the Sun, the tilt of Earth’s axis stays lined up with the North Star.

Northern Hemisphere Summer

The North Pole is tilted towards the Sun and the Sun’s rays strike the Northern Hemisphere more directly in summer (Figure below). At the summer solstice, June 21 or 22, the Sun’s rays hit the Earth most directly along the Tropic of Cancer (23.5°N); that is, the angle of incidence of the sun’s rays there is zero (the angle of incidence is the deviation in the angle of an incoming ray from straight on). When it is summer solstice in the Northern Hemisphere, it is winter solstice in the Southern Hemisphere.

Northern Hemisphere Winter

Winter solstice for the Northern Hemisphere happens on December 21 or 22. The tilt of Earth’s axis points away from the Sun (Figure below). Light from the Sun is spread out over a larger area, so that area isn’t heated as much. With fewer daylight hours in winter, there is also less time for the Sun to warm the area. When it is winter in the Northern Hemisphere, it is summer in the Southern Hemisphere.

Equinox

Halfway between the two solstices, the Sun’s rays shine most directly at the equator, called an “equinox” (Figure below). The daylight and nighttime hours are exactly equal on an equinox. The autumnal equinox happens on September 22 or 23 and the vernal or spring equinox happens March 21 or 22 in the Northern Hemisphere.

Heat Transfer in the Atmosphere

Heat moves in the atmosphere the same way it moves through the solid Earth (Plate Tectonics chapter) or another medium. What follows is a review of the way heat flows, but applied to the atmosphere.

Radiation is the transfer of energy between two objects by electromagnetic waves. Heat radiates from the ground into the lower atmosphere.

In conduction, heat moves from areas of more heat to areas of less heat by direct contact. Warmer molecules vibrate rapidly and collide with other nearby molecules, transferring their energy. In the atmosphere, conduction is more effective at lower altitudes where air density is higher; transfers heat upward to where the molecules are spread further apart or transfers heat laterally from a warmer to a cooler spot, where the molecules are moving less vigorously.

Heat transfer by movement of heated materials is called convection. Heat that radiates from the ground initiates convection cells in the atmosphere (Figure below).

Heat at Earth’s Surface

About half of the solar radiation that strikes the top of the atmosphere is filtered out before it reaches the ground. This energy can be absorbed by atmospheric gases, reflected by clouds, or scattered. Scattering occurs when a light wave strikes a particle and bounces off in some other direction.

About 3% of the energy that strikes the ground is reflected back into the atmosphere. The rest is absorbed by rocks, soil, and water and then radiated back into the air as heat. These infrared wavelengths can only be seen by infrared sensors.

The basics of Earth’s annual heat budget are described in this video (4b): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mjj2i3hNQF0 (5:40).

Because solar energy continually enters Earth’s atmosphere and ground surface, is the planet getting hotter? The answer is no (although the next section contains an exception) because energy from Earth escapes into space through the top of the atmosphere. If the amount that exits is equal to the amount that comes in, then average global temperature stays the same. This means that the planet’s heat budget is in balance. What happens if more energy comes in than goes out? If more energy goes out than comes in?

To say that the Earth’s heat budget is balanced ignores an important point. The amount of incoming solar energy is different at different latitudes (Figure below). Where do you think the most solar energy ends up and why? Where does the least solar energy end up and why? See Table below

The Amount of Incoming Solar Energy

	Day Length	Sun Angle	Solar Radiation	Albedo
Equatorial Region	Nearly the same all year	High	High	Low
Polar Regions	Night 6 months	Low	Low	High

Note: Colder temperatures mean more ice and snow cover the ground, making albedo relatively high.

The difference in solar energy received at different latitudes drives atmospheric circulation.

The Greenhouse Effect

The exception to Earth’s temperature being in balance is caused by greenhouse gases. But first the role of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere must be explained. Greenhouse gases warm the atmosphere by trapping heat. Some of the heat radiation out from the ground is trapped by greenhouse gases in the troposphere. Like a blanket on a sleeping person, greenhouse gases act as insulation for the planet. The warming of the atmosphere because of insulation by greenhouse gases is called the greenhouse effect (Figure below). Greenhouse gases are the component of the atmosphere that moderate Earth’s temperatures.

Greenhouse gases include CO₂, H₂O, methane, O₃, nitrous oxides (NO and NO₂), and chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs). All are a normal part of the atmosphere except CFCs. Table below shows how each greenhouse gas naturally enters the atmosphere.

Greenhouse Gas Entering the Atmosphere

Greenhouse Gas	Where It Comes From
Carbon dioxide	Respiration, volcanic eruptions, decomposition of plant material; burning of fossil fuels
Methane	Decomposition of plant material under some conditions, biochemical reactions in stomachs
Nitrous oxide	Produced by bacteria
Ozone	Atmospheric processes
Chlorofluorocarbons	Not naturally occurring; made by humans

Different greenhouse gases have different abilities to trap heat. For example, one methane molecule traps 23 times as much heat as one CO₂ molecule. One CFC-12 molecule (a type of CFC) traps 10,600 times as much heat as one CO₂. Still, CO₂ is a very important greenhouse gas because it is much more abundant in the atmosphere.

Human activity has significantly raised the levels of many of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Methane levels are about 2 1/2 times higher as a result of human activity. Carbon dioxide has increased more than 35%. CFCs have only recently existed.

What do you think happens as atmospheric greenhouse gas levels increase? More greenhouse gases trap more heat and warm the atmosphere. The increase or decrease of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere affect climate and weather the world over.

This PowerPoint review, Atmospheric Energy and Global Temperatures, looks at the movement of energy through the atmosphere (6a): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p6xMF_FFUU0 (8:17).

Lesson Summary

• All materials contain energy, which can radiate through space as electromagnetic waves. The wavelengths of energy that come from the Sun include visible light, which appears white but can be broken up into many colors.
• Ultraviolet waves are very high energy. The highest energy UV, UVC and some UVB, gets filtered out of incoming sunlight by ozone.
• More solar energy reaches the low latitudes and the redistribution of heat by convection drives the planet’s air currents.

Review Questions

1. What is the difference between temperature and heat?

2. Give a complete description of these three categories of energy relative to each other in terms of their wavelengths and energy: infrared, visible light, and ultraviolet.

3. Why do the polar regions have high albedo?

4. Give an example of the saying “energy can’t be created or destroyed.”

5. Describe what happens to the temperature of a pot of water and to the state of the water as the dial on the stove is changed from no heat to the highest heat.

6. Describe where the Sun is relative to the Earth on summer solstice, autumnal equinox, winter solstice and spring equinox. How much sunlight does the North Pole get on June 21? How much does the South Pole get on that same day?

7. What is the difference between conduction and convection?

8. What is a planet’s heat budget? Is Earth’s heat budget balanced or not?

9. On a map of average annual temperature, why are the lower latitudes so much warmer than the higher latitudes?

10. Why is carbon dioxide the most important greenhouse gas?

11. How does the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere affect the atmosphere’s temperature?

Points to Consider

• How does the difference in solar radiation that reaches the lower and upper latitudes explain the way the atmosphere circulates?
• How does the atmosphere protect life on Earth from harmful radiation and from extreme temperatures?
• What would the consequences be if the Earth’s overall heat budget were not balanced?