what form of energy is delivered to the earths surface

The weather and climate on Earth are dictated by the amount of incoming free energy from the Sun. World'southward energy budget explains that if the incoming and outgoing radiation are equal, then the climate is in equilibrium. This balance is achieved or not achieved depending on how this incoming free energy interacts with the Earth and objects on information technology through phenomena such as handful, reflection, absorption, and free energy transformations. Energy can exist converted, transported and stored in a variety of forms. Overall, how energy acts in one case information technology has reached the Earth plays a significant role in Earth'southward climate. Free energy flows are the free energy transformations and move that occur once energy has reached the Globe. These flows describe how energy is distributed and how information technology interacts with objects, determining certain climate properties.^[i]

Figure i. Energy flows on the Earth.^{[2] [3]}

All of the energy that is incident upon the World acts in unlike ways. 30% of this solar energy is reflected, and the remaining 70% moves in different forms and pathways. The majority of the energy that the Earth receives is from the Dominicus, only 0.03% comes from other sources (equally seen in Figure 1). This makes the solar menstruum the nigh dominant free energy period. In full, 174,000 TW of power—that's the energy of roughly 4 meg tonnes of oil every second—is incident upon the World. While this is a small portion of the 410,000,000,000,000 TW of power the Dominicus puts out in all directions, it is even so a swell deal of energy.

Flows on the Earths Surface

Although the solar energy period is the about dominant flow, information technology is not the only source of energy on the Earth. Energy from the apply of nuclear fuels, every bit well every bit energy due to the tides and the thermal free energy from the centre of the Earth all contribute to the full free energy on the Earth. Although these flows contribute much less, they are even so vital to ensure that the Earth is in an energy balance.

Solar Catamenia

Figure 2. Specific pathways inside the dominant solar flow.^{[2] [3]}

From the 174 000 TW delivered to Earth, an average value of [math]1367 \frac{W}{m^2}[/math] is adamant to be the power incident on one square meter located at a fixed location exterior World's atmosphere. However, this value averaged over the entire planet becomes [math]340 \frac{West}{1000^2}[/math]. See this folio for a more thorough derivation of these values. Of this power, approximately thirty% is reflected dorsum into infinite with reflection due to the temper, clouds, the body of water, country and ice.^[3]

The remaining 120 000 TW, or approximately 70% of the initial free energy, that reaches the surface of the Earth comes down and warms the atmosphere.^[3] This portion of the pathway tin exist seen in Effigy ii. In the atmosphere, greenhouse gas molecules absorb this thermal energy, and their temperatures rise. After this absorption, the gases radiate thermal energy back out in all directions. This thermal free energy so radiates back out into space. It is this phenomenon that warms the surface through the natural greenhouse effect.^[4] Approximately 78 300 TW of energy are used to keep the temper warm in this manner, resulting in the boilerplate temperature staying at fifteen°C or 288 Thou. From the original incoming energy, approximately 23% or 40,000 TW^[3] evaporates water and runs the hydrologic cycle. Here, liquid h2o molecules blot incoming free energy and alter phase from liquid to gas. The energy information technology took to evaporate this water is then latent in the motion of the vapour molecules.^[4] The molecules can then condense—creating rain, snowfall, and sleet which drives rivers, runoff and cloud germination—then releases the latent heat into the atmosphere. This allows hydropower to capture energy as well, of which humans use ~ 1 TW.^[5]

Roughly one%,^[3] or 1700 TW is turned into the energy of wind and bounding main currents. This moves air and water all over the planet, which transfers the heat held in the movement of the molecules of the gas or liquid.

A very small corporeality (only around 0.08% or 140 TW) of the initial energy gets captured by photosynthesis, giving energy to plants.^[three] This photosynthesis and then allows plants to absorb carbon from the atmosphere in the form of carbon dioxide.Almost all the free energy used to power life comes from this 140 TW. Plants get their free energy from this photosynthesis then animals either consume plants to get this energy, or eat animals that eat these plants to get this free energy. When the plants and animals die, they may become fossil fuels. However, it takes a significant time (millions of years) for this to occur. Although the germination of fossil fuels isn't straightforward, most of the chemic free energy stored in these plants and animals decays to thermal energy in the atmosphere.^[three] The fossil fuels used past humans amount to nigh fourteen TW (of the 16 TW of primary free energy used by humans).^[five]

Other Flows

In addition to solar menstruum, nuclear flow contributes to the overall free energy on the Earth. Humans apply around i TW of nuclear fuels,^[5] and this free energy does not originate from the Sun. Instead, nuclear fuels are left over from the explosion that started the solar system. This 1 TW is role of the 0.02% that doesn't come from the dominicus.

Every bit well, the geothermal flow is another energy source that doesn't originate from the Sun. The geothermal free energy coming through the Earth's crust is roughly 44 TW or approximately 0.025%.^[3] The rest of the power that doesn't come from the Sun is the ~3 TW or 0.0017% coming from tidal forces acting betwixt the Globe and Moon.^[three] This small period is known as the tidal flow.

Balance

The Globe then radiates power from all of the flows back into infinite in the form of thermal radiation. The Earth stays nearly totally balanced in terms of its temperature due to how the flows interact with each other and how solar energy reaches the World. This is due to World'southward energy budget. Increases in greenhouse gases similar carbon dioxide and methane are leading to slightly less estrus being radiated into space than the corporeality of energy coming in. This difference amounts to roughly [math]one \frac{W}{thou^2}[/math], a very modest difference. Over several decades this [math]i \frac{West}{m^2}[/math] has led to a warming climate particularly warmer oceans, even though information technology is a seemingly insignificant power, equating to the output of roughly i Christmas tree calorie-free for every square meter of Earth's surface.^[3]

For Farther Reading

• Sun
• Climate vs weather condition
• Fuel vs period
• Solar power
• Geothermal energy
• Nuclear energy
• Or explore a random page

References

1. ↑ Kevin E. Trenberth- APS Physics. (Apr 28, 2015). Changes in the Menstruation of Energy through the Earth's Climate Arrangement [Online]. Available: http://www.aps.org/units/fps/newsletters/200904/trenberth.cfm
2. ↑ ^{two.0 ii.i} Created internally by a fellow member of the Energy Instruction team.
3. ↑ ^{3.00 iii.01 3.02 3.03 iii.04 iii.05 iii.06 3.07 3.08 3.09 iii.10} R. Wolfson, Figure 1-08 in Energy, Environment and Climate, 2nd ed. New York, U.s.A.: Norton, 2012, pp. 20–21
4. ↑ ^{four.0 4.ane} NASA Earth Observatory. (March iv, 2015). Climate and Globe's Free energy Budget [Online]. Available: http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/EnergyBalance/printall.php
5. ↑ ^{v.0 5.1 5.2} Information taken from oecd.org (the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development) accessed Oct 30th, 2014

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Last updated: September 27, 2021
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