5 ms·
Count me as wrong. One of the things I learned about weather is that the winter cold is largely an effect of surface heat radiating into the sky at night. The p
by johngossman 3y ago
Count me as wrong. One of the things I learned about weather is that the winter cold is largely an effect of surface heat radiating into the sky at night. The paper indicates that atmospheric circulation is enough to compensate for that and keep the dark side warm. Not a climatologist: but how do you explain the Earth’s poles then? One of the charts shows the dayside average at 300K and night at 250K. That second number is warmer than our Arctic in winter.
- s1artibartfast 3y ago>One of the things I learned about weather is that the winter cold is largely an effect of surface heat radiating into the sky at night. I wouldnt say "largely". My understanding is that the hours of daylight is more significant than hours of night, though obviously related. A cursory review seems to indicate that daytime flux at the surface is on the order of +250 W/m^2, whereas nighttime flux is much lower ~ -50 W/m^2
- o11c 3y agoHm, but daytime flux is highly angle-dependent, whereas nighttime flux is angle-independent ...
- s1artibartfast 3y agoAnother way to think about it is that radiative surface cooling isnt just at night. a black body radiates continuously 24 hours a day. The only thing that changes throughout the day is the amount if inbound solar flux.
- Jerrrry 3y agoThe poles receive sunlight at a near 90 degree angle, ignoring the axial tilt. Direct sunlight vs. spread over an area.
- throwuwu 3y agoOn a tidally locked planet the polar region is effectively the terminator line. There is also a greatly reduced Coriolis effect due to the very slow rotation. The insolation of the day side is a lot higher as mentioned in the article and is continuous rather than intermittent. All of that would lead to increased convection. Imagine the difference between a kettle being heated on a burner vs a kettle being heated by a blowtorch that rotates around it. The behaviour of the fluid in each will be quite different. Not a perfect model by any stretch of the imagination but maybe more intuitive.
- lostmsu 3y agoIMHO, with kettles as you described variability of temperatures with rotating blowtorch will be lower. I don't think convection will be much different between two cases.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- sapling-ginger 3y agoThe Coriolis effect deflects the warm moist from the equator eastward, such that there is a wall of eastward wind right around the polar circles the blocks heat from reaching the poles. In a locked planet, the atmospheric current is more direct, so the heat distribution is more effective.