Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
In 2002, Lean et al. [41] stated that while "There is ... growing empirical evidence for the Sun's role in climate change on multiple time scales including the 11-year cycle", "changes in terrestrial proxies of solar activity (such as the 14C and 10Be cosmogenic isotopes and the aa geomagnetic index) can occur in the absence of long-term (i.e ...
One of the first to publish on these effects was Milutin Milanković; the cyclic effects of axial tilt, eccentricity, and other orbital parameters upon global climate were named Milanković cycles. Although individual mechanisms (such as axial tilt and sun angle) are thought to be understood, the overall impact of orbital forcing on global ...
The effect of Sun angle on climate results in the change in solar energy in summer and winter. For example, at latitudes of 65 degrees, this can vary by more than 25% as a result of Earth's orbital variation. Because changes in winter and summer tend to offset, the change in the annual average insolation at any given location is near zero, but ...
Earth constantly absorbs energy from sunlight and emits thermal radiation as infrared light. In the long run, Earth radiates the same amount of energy per second as it absorbs, because the amount of thermal radiation emitted depends upon temperature: If Earth absorbs more energy per second than it radiates, Earth heats up and the thermal radiation will increase, until balance is restored; if ...
A climate model is a representation of the physical, chemical and biological processes that affect the climate system. [172] Models include natural processes like changes in the Earth's orbit, historical changes in the Sun's activity, and volcanic forcing. [173]
Some scientists say blocking a portion of the sun's rays could help buy humanity the time it needs to go green, but skeptics say the risks are too extreme to even consider the idea.
Another albedo-related effect on the climate is from black carbon particles. The size of this effect is difficult to quantify: the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change estimates that the global mean radiative forcing for black carbon aerosols from fossil fuels is +0.2 W m −2 , with a range +0.1 to +0.4 W m −2 . [ 65 ]
'Global heating' is among a range of climate-related terms added to a special update of the Oxford English Dictionary.