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Global Warming?; ...blame those damn clouds!
Topic Started: Jan 24 2006, 02:26 PM (160 Views)
The 89th Key
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http://www.livescience.com/forcesofnature/...rth_albedo.html
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Kincaid
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HOLY CARP!!!
I bet it has something to do with the lack of chlorofluorocarbons in the ozone layer.
Kincaid - disgusted Republican Partisan since 2006.
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ivorythumper
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I am so adjective that I verb nouns!
Quote:
 
High thin clouds are better blankets, while low thick clouds make better coolers


Can one of you science types explain this? It seems counterintuitive for four reasons:

(1) The temperatures higher up are cooler, and so should be able to absorb more heat thus allowing the earth to cool more;

(2) The volume of space in which to absorb heat is exponentially greater the higher up the clouds;

(3) The density of clouds seem like they would prevent more heat from the sun passing through;

(4) Air is an insulator and water is a conductor, so the more water in lower clouds would seem to trap more heat and be less of a cooler and more of a blanket.

:shrug: I dunno, I'm just a dumb architect.
The dogma lives loudly within me.
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Shammy
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Middle Aged Carp
The heat we feel from the sun is a radiant type heat. Think of a radiator. It heats up and the heat is radiated off of it through the room.

The attic in your house is very hot because the heat from the sun is absorbed into the roof and radiated into the small attic space.

This site offers a good explanation of how the clouds play into it.
http://www.nsc.org/ehc/climate/ccucla6.htm
I'd rather fall into chocolate.
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Moonbat
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Pisa-Carp
Quote:
 

1) The temperatures higher up are cooler, and so should be able to absorb more heat thus allowing the earth to cool more;

(2) The volume of space in which to absorb heat is exponentially greater the higher up the clouds;

(3) The density of clouds seem like they would prevent more heat from the sun passing through;

(4) Air is an insulator and water is a conductor, so the more water in lower clouds would seem to trap more heat and be less of a cooler and more of a blanket.


The Earth gains and loses heat through radiation (light, UV, infrared, etc. etc.)

According to the link Shammy provided clouds can play a role in the absorption (energy get's transferd to the Earth) and reflection (energy does not get transferred to the Earth) of incoming (and no doubt outgoing) radiation:

Quote:
 

Clouds themselves play a key role in the radiative regimen of Earth and atmosphere. Clouds can reflect the visible-range light coming toward Earth from the sun – acting in effect as a sunshade, cooling the atmosphere and Earth below them. At the same time, clouds can also absorb the infrared radiation coming from Earth’s surface – acting as a kind of blanket holding heat in and warming the lower atmosphere.


I'm rusty take all with a grain of salt:

When we talk of trapping heat, what we mean is that without the "trapping" species more light would end up getting reflected back into space, rather than being absorbed and ultimately contributing to the thermal motion of matter on Earth.

Clouds do not absorb heat preventing it "getting through", if they absorb it, then the energy has already been transferred to the Earth (ignoring for the moment the possibility of reemission back into space), as the clouds are part of Earth - they interact with the surounding air and that interacts with the ground etc. etc.

Questions of insulator vs. conductor make no difference to the heating and cooling of the Earth itself, they only change how quickly heat gets redistributed.

The article seems to suggest that when comparing a scenario where a cloud is present to a scenario where one is not present. A high thin cloud results in more radiation being absorbed, whereas a low thick cloud results in less being absorbed. Presumably for the low thick cloud the dominant factor is a reflection of a reasonable portion of the incoming solar radiation, whereas for a high thin cloud the dominant factor is an absorption of incoming radiation.

The reasons for difference are no doubt many and complex, factors such as the difference in density and the wavelength of the incoming light probably play a role.
Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem
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Optimistic
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HOLY CARP!!!
People, I think we are all forgetting who the REAL victims of global warming are.

NATION'S SNOWMEN MARCH AGAINST GLOBAL WARMING
http://www.theonion.com/content/node/44676

"Organizers estimated the crowd at nearly 375,000, but D.C. Police Commissioner Charles Stacey estimated turnout at 30,000 whole snowmen, with scattered rounded abdomens accounting for an additional 5,000. Atlanta organizers and police agree that all demonstrators had melted by 11am."
PHOTOS

I must have a prodigious quantity of mind; it takes me as much as a week, sometimes, to make it up.
- Mark Twain


We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
-T. S. Eliot
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