Geography 1300A/B Lecture Notes - Lecture 3: Emissivity, Radiant Energy, Electromagnetic Spectrum

• School: Western University
• Department: Geography
• Course: Geography 1300A/B
• Professor: James Voogt

Document Summary

The radiation budget describes the receipt and loss of radiation energy by the earth-atmosphere system. We can define this budget at different scales: global scale (earth surface & atmosphere) often defined for annual time periods, local scale (for a specific surface type); can be for much shorter time scales. Shortwave radiation is represented by the symbol k. Longwave radiation is represented by the symbol l. The arrows indicate the direction that the radiation is travelling relative (down - incident at the surface; upwards moving away from the surface) Stephe(cid:374) bolt(cid:373)a(cid:374)"s la(cid:449) relates temp to long wave radiation. Incident solar radiation at the earth"s surfa(cid:272)e: k (units: w m-2 in words: flux density of radiation) This energy can be: absorbed, reflected, transmitted (for some surface types) For opaque surfaces we have a net budget: K* represents absorbed solar radiation (net shortwave radiation) (*= net radiation, what comes in and what comes out)