ASTA01H3 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Photon, Orbital Period, Ultraviolet
Document Summary
It turns out that liquid water, plate tectonics, volcanism and the green house gases play a collaborative role in regulating earth"s climate. Earth"s climate is much warmer than it should be based on its distance from the sun due to the green house effect (-15 c vs. 16 c). Visible light passes through the earth"s atmosphere and gets absorbed by the ground which will then re-radiate it in infrared. Green house gases absorb this infrared radiation and re-emit it, thus heating the lower atmosphere. The green house gases temporarily trap the heat. These gases include h2o, co2, ch4 and o3. While the green house effect makes our planet comfortably warm, it has made a living hell on the surface of venus (our sister planet has 200,000 times more carbon dioxide in its atmosphere). Length of the day: 243 days (longest of any planet) Atmospheric composition: 96. 5% co2, 3. 5% n2, 0. 015% so2, 0. 007% argon, 0. 002%
