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The total solar energy absorbed by Earth's atmosphere, oceans and land masses is approximately 122 PW·year = 3,850,000 exajoules (EJ) per year. [12] In 2002 (2019), this was more energy in one hour (one hour and 25 minutes) than the world used in one year. [13] [14] Photosynthesis captures approximately 3,000 EJ per year in biomass. [15]
Earth's energy budget (or Earth's energy balance) is the balance between the energy that Earth receives from the Sun and the energy the Earth loses back into outer space. Smaller energy sources, such as Earth's internal heat, are taken into consideration, but make a tiny contribution compared to solar energy.
The Sun is the star at the center of the Solar System.It is a massive, nearly perfect sphere of hot plasma, heated to incandescence by nuclear fusion reactions in its core, radiating the energy from its surface mainly as visible light and infrared radiation with 10% at ultraviolet energies.
Variations in Earth's orbit, resulting changes in solar energy flux at high latitude, and the observed glacial cycles. Some variations in insolation are not due to solar changes but rather due to the Earth moving between its perihelion and aphelion , or changes in the latitudinal distribution of radiation.
Sunlight is a key factor in photosynthesis, the process used by plants and other autotrophic organisms to convert light energy, normally from the Sun, into chemical energy that can be used to synthesize carbohydrates and fuel the organisms' activities. Daylighting is the natural lighting of interior spaces by admitting sunlight.
Solar flares are intense, localized bursts of electromagnetic radiation from the sun, releasing immense energy over short periods. These events impact Earth's upper atmosphere and can occasionally ...
The Earth's weather is a consequence of its illumination by the Sun and the laws of thermodynamics. The atmospheric circulation can be viewed as a heat engine driven by the Sun's energy and whose energy sink, ultimately, is the blackness of space. The work produced by that engine causes the motion of the masses of air, and in that process it ...
The angular diameter of the Earth as seen from the Sun is approximately 1/11,700 radians (about 18 arcseconds), meaning the solid angle of the Earth as seen from the Sun is approximately 1/175,000,000 of a steradian. Thus the Sun emits about 2.2 billion times the amount of radiation that is caught by Earth, in other words about 3.846×10 26 watts.