MemberlistThe Library Index  FAQFAQ   SearchSearch   RegisterRegister   ProfileProfile   Log in to check your private messagesLog in to check your private messages   Log inLog in 
The Causes of Temperature (Geophysics)
Reply to topic Goto page Previous  1, 2, 3, 4 ... 11, 12, 13  Next
View previous topic :: View next topic  
Martin



View user's profile
Reply with quote

It would be warmer at the equator.
Send private message
Ishmael


In: Toronto
View user's profile
Reply with quote

Anyone entered a mine?
Send private message
Brian Ambrose



View user's profile
Reply with quote

Or been up a mountain.
Send private message
Ishmael


In: Toronto
View user's profile
Reply with quote

As perhaps you can tell, I am highly sympathetic to the Earth's Heat is Mostly Internal thesis. The problem with this thesis is that it still doesn't explain the seasons and if it doesn't explain the seasons, any use of this notion to explain the coldness of the poles must demand special pleading.

Any theory intended to explain air temperature must do three things:

    1) Explain why the poles are colder than the equator
    2) Explain why winter and summer are alternately colder and warmer than one another
    3) Explain why mountain tops are colder than valleys.

As you might have guessed, I happen to have a theory that does it all -- and does so simply and elegantly. But don't wait for me to tell it to you. Try to figure it out on your own! Put forward your best ideas.
Send private message
Mick Harper
Site Admin

In: London
View user's profile
Reply with quote

Something I'm always trying to factor in is the notion of "losing heat". In other words, assume the earth is naturally baking hot because of internal processes but it loses heat rapidly to the cold medium of space. As a spinning ball I assume that whatever bits of the earth get most exposure to space loses the most, and the further you are towards the poles the more exposure per unit area you receive. So far, so good re mountains, mines, cloud cover and latitude. But it breaks down with the seasons.

You could solve the seasons factor without special pleading by supposing (reasonably reasonably) that space is colder outside the orbital plain than inside because the orbital plain is being warmed up by having all those large heavenly bodies pumping out all that heat throughout the disc in which the entire solar system is moving. In which case you'd lose heat less as you successively swung through the ecliptic plain (during what you earthlings call "summer").

But this theory breaks down both with day/night and the "sun on your face" factor. As far as I can see, you'd still have to fall back on a lame "sun back-up" special plead, which would still be revolutionary in overall terms of "what causes temperature on earth" but, as far as I can see, wouldn't overthrow the current paradigm practically.
Send private message
Ishmael


In: Toronto
View user's profile
Reply with quote

Mick Harper wrote:
You could solve the seasons factor without special pleading by supposing (reasonably reasonably) that space is colder outside the orbital plain than inside because the orbital plain is being warmed up by having all those large heavenly bodies pumping out all that heat throughout the disc in which the entire solar system is moving. In which case you'd lose heat less as you successively swung through the ecliptic plain (during what you earthlings call "summer").

This won't even solve the problem of the seasons because neither hemisphere spends more or less time inclined within the eliptic plane in either season.

Picture the Earth centered on the eliptic with north and south intersecting the plane of our orbit at a perfect 90 degree angle. That's the mid point of both Fall and Spring.

Now tilt the Earth back and forth to lend it the experience of winter and summer. You will notice that no latitude spends more time on or near the eliptic in any season. The closest approaches and the farthest retreats occur in both the winter and summer seasons -- but are exactly equal. Summer does not offer a closer approach than does winter. They are both the same.

The only thing that changes is the inclination with respect to the Sun's absolute position. Thus in winter time, in the Northern Hemisphere, the northern latitudes are closest to the eliptic during nighttime hours while, in summer, they are closest to the eliptic during daylight hours.
Send private message
Mick Harper
Site Admin

In: London
View user's profile
Reply with quote

As usual with anything to do with spatial geometry I have great difficulty picturing it all. Can someone else confirm that Ishmael is correct?
Send private message
Komorikid


In: Gold Coast, Australia
View user's profile
Reply with quote

The reason why no one has done the calculations is because all of Metrology is based on 'the average' AMBIENT temperature. There is no current (or past for that matter) standard methodology for determining 'absolute' temperature apart from using a thermometer sited at recognised Met recording site.

The variables associated with ambient temperature are myriad and almost impossible to factor in. As an example the noon temperature in Sydney city on any given day can vary up to 10° C depending where it is taken. And this is just one city.

All Met temperatures are based on ambient temperatures. The variables that create ambient are so varied from place to place and even from one location in the same place that any calculations become astronomical. The only way to tell if there is a variation is to rely on the absolute temperature. The easiest analogy is to take a city street anywhere in the world completely exposed to sunlight at noon on a cloudless day. Now sit inside a white VW Beetle (any white car would do but a Beetle is sufficiently universal for everyone to imagine) and stay there with windows up cocooned from the outside elements for 15 minutes. Now measure the temperature. Now do the same thing on any city street at any latitude under exactly the same conditions and you'll find the difference in temperature is negligible be it Singapore, Sydney or Stockholm. The rate of heat absorption and reflection is virtually the same. The reason I know this is because I have witnessed the phenomenon myself in Los Angeles, Skagway and Bangkok within the same summer.

So any comparisons between Lagos and London are completely meaningless if they are based on Met ambient figures, which are the only figures available for comparison. No one has done the calculations on 'absolute' temperature because no one can.
Send private message
EndlesslyRocking



View user's profile
Reply with quote

Ishmael wrote:
As you might have guessed, I happen to have a theory that does it all -- and does so simply and elegantly. But don't wait for me to tell it to you.

Back in the day, on New Year's Eve, I can remember leaving for the bar to celebrate and it was about -23C out. By the time I stumbled home, it was a positively balmy +6C.

What does the theory say about that? Why is such a phenomenon observed in so few places on the planet?
Send private message
Ishmael


In: Toronto
View user's profile
Reply with quote

" >
EndlesslyRocking wrote:
What does the theory say about that? Why is such a phenomenon observed in so few places on the planet?

Where are you on the Earth? Or rather, where was the bar?
Send private message
EndlesslyRocking



View user's profile
Reply with quote

I was where the chinooks occur.

Another question, if the earth was replaced with something exactly like it, except there was no land, just ocean and icebergs, would the icebergs concentrate at the poles, or would they just float randomly around the ocean?
Send private message
Komorikid


In: Gold Coast, Australia
View user's profile
Reply with quote

Another question, if the earth was replaced with something exactly like it, except there was no land, just ocean and icebergs, would the icebergs concentrate at the poles, or would they just float randomly around the ocean?

They already float randomly about in the ocean. The entire North Pole is just floating ice no more than several metres deep floating randomly around the Arctic Ocean. There have even been times when the North Pole was totally free of ice. There is a famous photograph of an US submarine sitting in open water at the North Pole taken in the 1960's.
Send private message
Ishmael


In: Toronto
View user's profile
Reply with quote

Komorikid wrote:
They already float randomly about in the ocean. The entire North Pole is just floating ice no more than several metres deep floating randomly around the Arctic Ocean. There have even been times when the North Pole was totally free of ice. There is a famous photograph of an US submarine sitting in open water at the North Pole taken in the 1960's.

Hmmm....then it's my bet that a planet without land would be a planet without ice (given our current climate at least). I'd say the ice is forming in the north where water touches land -- it grows there and reaches out into the sea to sometimes meet and form a sheet over the ocean.
Send private message
Mick Harper
Site Admin

In: London
View user's profile
Reply with quote

Yeah, but what would happen in a world where one pole is covered exactly by a circular continent of permanent ice but the other pole was covered exactly by a circular body of water at the precise temperature so that ice is forever forming but never settling permanently? No wait, that's what we've got...
Send private message
Komorikid


In: Gold Coast, Australia
View user's profile
Reply with quote

Yeah, but what would happen in a world where one pole is covered exactly by a circular continent of permanent ice but the other pole was covered exactly by a circular body of water at the precise temperature so that ice is forever forming but never settling permanently? No wait, that's what we've got...

The problem with this scenario is the North Polar ice is LANDLOCKED. The ice is encircled by land so it cannot shift. What would happen if BOTH poles were in areas where there was no land to interfere. If both polar ice packs were free to move the consequences would be very different.
Send private message
Display posts from previous:   
Reply to topic Goto page Previous  1, 2, 3, 4 ... 11, 12, 13  Next

Jump to:  
Page 3 of 13

MemberlistThe Library Index  FAQFAQ   SearchSearch   RegisterRegister   ProfileProfile   Log in to check your private messagesLog in to check your private messages   Log inLog in 


Powered by phpBB © 2001, 2005 phpBB Group