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Stott's 2003 work largely revised his assessment, and found a significant solar contribution to recent warming, although still smaller (between 16 and 36%) than that of greenhouse gases. [50] A study in 2004 concluded that solar activity affects the climate - based on sunspot activity, yet plays only a small role in the current global warming. [74]
Global distribution of incoming shortwave solar radiation averaged over the years 1981–2010 from the CHELSA-BIOCLIM+ data set [1] The shield effect of Earth's atmosphere on solar irradiation. The top image is the annual mean solar irradiation (or insolation) at the top of Earth's atmosphere (TOA); the bottom image shows the annual insolation ...
Earth's atmosphere absorbs only 23% of incoming shortwave radiation, but absorbs 90% of the longwave radiation emitted by the surface, [9] thus accumulating energy and warming the Earth's surface. The existence of the greenhouse effect (while not named as such) was proposed as early as 1824 by Joseph Fourier . [ 10 ]
One potential method, solar radiation management (SRM), seeks to reflect the sun's rays back into space, with the most well-known proposal being to blast sulphur dioxide - a coolant - into the ...
Global warming occurs when earth receives more energy than it gives back to space, and global cooling takes place when the outgoing energy is greater. [3] Multiple types of measurements and observations show a warming imbalance since at least year 1970. [4] [5] The rate of heating from this human-caused event is without precedent.
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 fraction of incident solar radiation is reflected by clouds and aerosols, oceans and landforms, snow and ice, vegetation, and other natural and man-made surface features. The reflected fraction is known as Earth's bond albedo (R), is evaluated at the top of the atmosphere, and has an average annual global value of about 0.30 (30%). The ...
In the 1980s, the terms global warming and climate change became more common, often being used interchangeably. [29] [30] [31] Scientifically, global warming refers only to increased surface warming, while climate change describes both global warming and its effects on Earth's climate system, such as precipitation changes. [28]