•Warming the Earth

and the
Atmosphere
Temperature and Heat Transfer
• Temperature is the quantity that tells us
how hot or cold something is relative to
some set standard value.
• We know that air is a mixture of countless
billions of atoms and molecules.
If they could be seen…
• They would appear to be moving about in
all directions, freely darting, twisting,
spinning, and colliding with one another
like an angry swarm of bees.
• Moreover, we would see that all the
atoms and molecules are not moving at
the same speed, as some are moving
faster than others.
• The energy associated with this motion is
called kinetic energy, the energy of
motion.
• The temperature of the air (or any
substance) is a measure of its average
kinetic energy.
• Simply stated, temperature is a measure
of the average speed of the atoms and
molecules, where higher temperatures
correspond to faster average speeds.
• Suppose we continue to slowly cool the air. Its
atoms and molecules would move slower and
slower until the air reaches a temperature of –
273°C (–459°F) which is the lowest
temperature possible.
• At this temperature, called absolute zero, the
atoms and molecules would possess a
minimum amount of energy and theoretically
no thermal motion.
• The atmosphere contains internal energy, which
is the total energy stored in its molecules.
• Heat, on the other hand, is energy in the process
of being transferred from one object to another
because of the temperature difference between
them.
• After heat is transferred, it is stored as internal
energy. In the atmosphere, heat is transferred by
conduction, convection, and radiation.
Temperature Scales
• At absolute zero, we can begin a temperature
scale called the absolute, or Kelvin scale.
• Lord Kelvin (1824–1907), a famous British
scientist who first introduced it.
• Two other temperature scales commonly
used today are the Fahrenheit and Celsius
(formerly centigrade).
Temperature Scales
• The Fahrenheit scale was developed in the early
1700s by the physicist G. Daniel Fahrenheit,
who assigned the number 32 to the temperature
at which water freezes, and the number 212 to
the temperature at which water boils.
• A thermometer calibrated with this scale is
referred to as a Fahrenheit thermometer, for it
measures an object’s temperature in degrees
Fahrenheit (°F).
Temperature Scales
• The Celsius scale was introduced later in the
eighteenth century. The number 0 (zero) on this
scale is assigned to the temperature at which pure
water freezes, and the number 100 to the
temperature at which pure water boils at sea level.
• The space between freezing and boiling is divided
into 100 equal degrees. Therefore, each Celsius
degree (°C) is 180/100 or 1.8 times bigger than a
Fahrenheit degree.
Formula for converting °C to °F
°C = 5⁄9 (°F –32)

Converting from °C to K

K = °C + 273
Figure 1.
Comparison of
Kelvin, Celsius,
and Fahrenheit
scales.
Latent Heat—the Hidden Warmth
• We know that water vapor is an invisible gas that
becomes visible when it changes into larger liquid or
solid (ice) particles.
• This process of transformation is known as a change of
state or, simply, a phase change.
• The heat energy required to change a substance, such
as water, from one state to another is called latent heat.
• But why is this heat referred to as “latent”? To answer
this question, we will begin with something familiar to
most of us—the cooling produced by evaporating water.
Why is this heat referred to as “latent”?

• Since temperature is a measure of average

molecular motion, the slower motion suggests
a lower water temperature.
• Evaporation is, therefore, a cooling process.
Stated another way, evaporation is a cooling
process because the energy needed to
evaporate the water—that is, to change its
phase from a liquid to a gas—may come from
the water or other sources, including the air.
Why is this heat referred to as “latent”?

• The energy lost by liquid water during

evaporation can be thought of as carried away
by, and “locked up” within, the water vapor
molecule.
• The energy is thus in a “stored” or “hidden”
condition and is, therefore, called latent heat.
• It is latent (hidden) in that the temperature of
the substance changing from liquid to vapor is
still the same.
Why is this heat referred to as “latent”?

• However, the heat energy will reappear as

sensible heat (the heat we can feel and
measure with a thermometer) when the
vapor condenses back into liquid water.
• Therefore, condensation (the opposite of
evaporation) is a warming process.
Why is this heat referred to as “latent”?

• The heat energy released when water

vapor condenses to form liquid droplets is
called latent heat of condensation.
• Conversely, the heat energy used to
change liquid into vapor at the same
temperature is called latent heat of
evaporation (vaporization).
Did you know!
• Nearly 600 calories* are required to
evaporate a single gram of water at room
temperature.
– *By definition, a calorie is the amount of heat required to raise the
temperature of 1 gram of water from 14.5°C to 15.5°C. In the SI system, the
unit of energy is the joule (J), where 1 calorie = 4.186 J.

• With many hundreds of grams of water evaporating

from the body, it is no wonder that after a shower
we feel cold before drying off.
 Figure 2. Heat energy absorbed and released.
Left to Right - The processes of melting, evaporation, and sublimation (ice to vapor)
Right to Left - The processes of freezing, condensation, and deposition (vapor to ice)
 Figure 3.
Every time a cloud forms, it warms the atmosphere. Inside this developing thunderstorm, a vast amount of stored
heat energy (latent heat) is given up to the air, as invisible water vapor becomes countless billions of water
droplets and ice crystals. In fact, for the duration of this storm alone, more heat energy is released inside this
cloud than is unleashed by a small nuclear bomb.
Conduction
• The transfer of heat from molecule to molecule
within a substance is called conduction.

• Heat transferred in
this fashion always
flows from warmer
to colder regions.
• Generally, the Figure 4. The transfer
greater the of heat from the hot
temperature end of the metal pin to
difference, the the cool end by
more rapid the molecular contact.
heat transfer.
Table 1. Heat Conductivity* of various substances
Convection
• The transfer of heat by the mass
movement of a fluid (such as water and
air) is called convection.
• This type of heat transfer takes place in
liquids and gases because they can move
freely and it is possible to set up currents
within them.
Convection
• In meteorology, this vertical exchange of heat is called convection,
and the rising air bubbles are known as thermals.

Figure 5. The development of a thermal. A thermal is a rising bubble of air that carries heat energy
upward by convection.
Did you know!
• In this way, a convective circulation, or
thermal “cell,” is produced in the
atmosphere.
• In a convective circulation the warm, rising
air cools. In our atmosphere, any air that
rises will expand and cool, and any air that
sinks is compressed and warms.
• Although the entire process of heated air
rising, spreading out, sinking, and finally
flowing back toward its original location is
known as a convective circulation,
meteorologists usually restrict the term
convection to the process of the rising and
sinking part of the circulation.
• The horizontally moving part of the
circulation (called wind) carries properties
of the air in that particular area with it. The
transfer of these properties by horizontally
moving air is called advection.
 Figure 6. Rising air expands and cools; sinking air is compressed and warms.

 Hence, any air that rises always expands and cools.

 Any air that sinks (subsides), warms by compression.
Radiation
• There is yet another mechanism for the
transfer of energy — radiation, or radiant
energy, which is what we receive from the
sun.
• In this method, energy may be transferred
from one object to another without the
space between them necessarily being
heated.
Radiation
• Because these waves have magnetic and
electrical properties, we call them
electromagnetic waves. Electromagnetic
waves do not need molecules to
propagate them. In a vacuum, they travel
at a constant speed of nearly 300,000 km
(186,000 mi) per second—the speed of
light.
Figure 7. Radiation characterized according to wavelength. As the
wavelength decreases, the energy carried per wave increases.
Radiation
• When comparing the energy carried by
various waves, it is useful to give
electromagnetic radiation characteristics of
particles in order to explain some of the
wave’s behavior. We can actually think of
radiation as streams of particles, or photons,
that are discrete packets of energy.*
– *Packets of photons make up waves, and groups of waves make up a
beam of
radiation.
Radiation
• An ultraviolet (UV) photon carries more
energy than a photon of visible light. In
fact, certain ultraviolet photons have
enough energy to produce sunburns and
penetrate skin tissue, sometimes causing
skin cancer.
Important concepts and facts to understand
radiation
1. All things (whose temperature is above
absolute zero), no matter how big or small,
emit radiation. The air, your body, flowers,
trees, the earth, the stars are all radiating a
wide range of electromagnetic waves. The
energy originates from rapidly vibrating
electrons, billions of which exist in every
object.
Important concepts and facts to understand
radiation
2. The wavelengths of radiation that an object emits
depend primarily on the object’s temperature. The
higher the object’s temperature, the shorter are the
wavelengths of emitted radiation. By the same token,
as an object’s temperature increases, its peak
emission of radiation shifts toward shorter
wavelengths. This relationship between temperature
and wavelength is called Wien’s law* (or Wien’s
displacement law) after the German physicist Wilhelm
Wien, (pronounced Ween, 1864–1928), who
discovered it.
Important concepts and facts to understand
radiation
3. Objects that have a high temperature emit
radiation at a greater rate or intensity than objects
with a lower temperature. Thus, as the temperature
of an object increases, more total radiation (over a
given surface area) is emitted each second. This
relationship between temperature and emitted
radiation is known as the Stefan-Boltzmann law†
after Josef Stefan (1835–1893) and Ludwig
Boltzmann (1844–1906), who devised it.
• The sun emits radiation at almost all
wavelengths, but because its surface is
hot—6000 K (10,500°F)—it radiates the
majority of its energy at relatively short
wavelengths. If we look at the amount of
radiation given off by the sun at each
wavelength, we obtain the sun’s
electromagnetic spectrum.
 Figure 8. The sun’s electromagnetic spectrum and some of the descriptive names of
each region. The numbers underneath the curve approximate the percent of energy the
sun radiates in various regions.
The visible region, and the light that reaches our eye is called visible light. The color
violet is the shortest wavelength of visible light. Wavelengths shorter than violet (0.4
µm) are ultraviolet (UV). The longest wavelengths of visible light correspond to the
color red. Wavelengths longer than red (0.7 µm) are called infrared (IR).
• Since the sun radiates the majority of its energy at much shorter
wavelengths than does the earth, solar radiation is often called
shortwave radiation, whereas the earth’s radiation is referred to as
longwave (or terrestrial) radiation.
Figure 9. The hotter sun not only
radiates more energy than that of the
cooler earth (the area under the curve),
but it also radiates the majority of its
energy at much shorter wavelengths.
(The scales for the two curves differ by
a factor of 100,000.)
Balancing Act—Absorption, Emission, and
Equilibrium

• If the earth and all things on it are

continually radiating energy, why doesn’t
everything get progressively colder?
• The answer is that all objects not only
radiate energy, they absorb it as well. If an
object radiates more energy than it absorbs,
it becomes colder; if it absorbs more energy
than it emits, it becomes warmer.
• The rate at which something radiates and absorbs energy
depends strongly on its surface characteristics, such as color,
texture, and moisture, as well as temperature.
• Any object that is a perfect absorber (that is, absorbs all the
radiation that strikes it) and a perfect emitter (emits the
maximum radiation possible at its given temperature) is called
a blackbody.
• Blackbodies do not have to be colored black, they simply
must absorb and emit all possible radiation. Since the earth’s
surface and the sun absorb and radiate with nearly 100
percent efficiency for their respective temperatures, they both
behave as blackbodies.
• If we assume that there is no other method of
transferring heat, then, when the rate of absorption of
solar radiation equals the rate of emission of infrared
earth radiation, a state of radiative equilibrium is
achieved. The average temperature at which this
occurs is called the radiative equilibrium
temperature. At this temperature, the earth
(behaving as a blackbody) is absorbing solar
radiation and emitting infrared radiation at equal
rates, and its average temperature does not change.
• Unlike the earth, the atmosphere does not
behave like a blackbody, as it absorbs
some wavelengths of radiation and is
transparent to others. Objects that
selectively absorb and emit radiation, such
as gases in our atmosphere, are known as
selective absorbers.
Selective Absorbers and The Atmospheric
Greenhouse Effect

Figure 10. Absorption of radiation by gases in the

atmosphere. The shaded area represents the
percent of radiation absorbed. The strongest
absorbers of infrared radiation are water vapor
and carbon dioxide.
Assignment
1. Distinguish between temperature and heat.
2. How does the average speed of air molecules relate to the air
temperature?
3. Explain how heat is transferred in our atmosphere by:
(a) conduction (b) convection (c) radiation
4. What is latent heat? How is latent heat an important source of
atmospheric energy?
5. How does the Kelvin temperature scale differ from the Celsius scale?
6. How does the amount of radiation emitted by the earth differ from that
emitted by the sun?
7. How does the temperature of an object influence the radiation it
emits?
8. How do the wavelengths of most of the radiation emitted by the sun
differ from those emitted by the surface of the earth?
9. When a body reaches a radiative equilibrium temperature, what is
taking place?
10. Why are carbon dioxide and water vapor called selective absorbers?