Just a little tid-bit
Today Earth is at Aphelion.
Because we are in an elliptical orbit around the sun we have a closest and farthest point.
Perihelion, which is the nearest point and Aphelion the farthest point. (Perigee and Apogee)
We are at out most distant point today. The distance being 152,104,136 km.
The Sun is appearing 1.7% smaller in the sky today than when at Perihelion.
Radiated solar heat in something like 3.5 - 3.6% less than yearly average.
Our next closest approach (Perihelion) will occur January 4, 2009 at 15:00UTC.
Radiated solar heat in something like 3.5 - 3.6% less than yearly average.
Thanks for the info Ron, this seemingly small amount must actually be a lot less energy recieved by the planet? Does that make sense?
Yes, make perfect sense Kevin.
Small changes are small changes. But small changes over large areas or time can be significant.
Take an extremely small change of a angle. Lets say only micro seconds of arch at the origin.
Given enough distance the angle becomes huge.
Look at a very small changes in temperature. As example, only 0.5°f. Doesn’t seem like much.
Just playing with numbers for a moment.
Imagine a square lake with the dimensions of 30 miles by 15 miles by 2 miles deep.
Lets say we raise the temperature by 1°f.
A temperature change like that in the lake is very small. I don’t think one could even feel a 1°f change.
Lets look at the big picture.
Converting the lake dimensions to feet.
The lake is 158,400 ft long by 79200 ft by 10560 ft.
Looking for volume.
S1 x S2 x D1 = 132,478,156,800,000 cu ft.
Take the volume and convert it to imp gallons of water will yield 825,184,640,620,000 gals. (1ft³ = 6.22883 imp gallons)
Now we have to convert from Imperial gallons to pounds weight.
This will give 8,270,202,034,559,471. Lbs of water in a lake of that dimension. (1 imperial gallon = 10 lbs)
If we use the standard measurement of BTU. It takes 1 BTU to raise one pound of water 1°f .
We know the weight of water in the lake now, and we want to raise it 1°f.
The required amount of BTUs to make that 1 degree change = 8,270,202,034,559,471 BTUs
Once we have the BTU energy requirement the neat thing is we can now convert the BTUs to other energy equivalents.
As example 8,270,202,034,559,471 BTUs will = 69,030,000,000 gallons of gasoline.
A total of 8,270,202,034,559,471 BTUs will = 135,300,000,000 lbs of Hydrogen.
So a 1°f change did have quite a wallop in the big picture.
Now imagine a lake 100 miles long or 1000 or even 100,000 miles or an Ocean(s), you can see the energy change in a very small percentage can be absolutely huge.
All these numbers vary with density and temperature but they give a rough idea.
Thanks Ron, I wish I had your command of math, I have to start thinking more like that somehow!