Browse

The Earth’s weather and climate are the result of the redistribution of heat. The major source of heat to the surface of the Earth is the sun, principally through incoming visible radiation most of which is absorbed by the Earth’s surface. The ocean redistributes this radiation and the atmosphere with the excess radiated back into space as longer wavelength, infrared radiation. Clouds and other gases, primarily water vapour and carbon dioxide, absorb the infrared radiation emitted by the Earth’s surface and ...