Question About Sun/Weather

I wasn't sure were to put this, thought that this is the most appropriate. This may seem like a really stupid question, but last night was one of the first nights that I started sweating from the heat. Because of this action, I started to ponder about why during the night it is still hot even when there is no sun out. I tried to conjure up a reasonable answer but I arrived at no success. Does anyone know the answer to this?

ehh...heat from the sun trapped inside our atmosphere...which is why if we had no atmosphere, we would go from very hot to very cold during day and night.

The earth itself heats up and retains heat as well. During the hot summer months the Temp. in larger cities will always be higher than the surrounding wilderness area. During the day, streets, buildings, etc. all absorb heat and then cool down at night. As already mentioned, our atmosphere regulates the temp. as well.

The temperature on the surface of the moon generally ranges from 265F (130C) in sunlight to -170F (-110C) in darkness, because there is no air to hold in the heat like here on earth.

As you can see, the change from light to dark is extreme without an atmosphere there to help regulate it.

Think about global warming and how it works. Global warming doesnt happen only on one side of the earth at a given time....The atmosphere retains heat. So on a given day if it was really hot, it will retain a bit more heat than another night, which is why u were sweating. Was that day really hot??..

Yea, I forgot to mention a lot of surfaces, and water on the Earth contains the heat, and this is slowly released during the night...if you ever go swimming at night, it is warmer than the middle of the day as the water is still warm from the sunlight.

like people have said, it's the atmosphere. global warming isn't an issue i believe. we've only been actively studying and recording weather for the past 150 years tops. we know far too little to say what it normal for the world. in the age of dinosaurs, wasn't the average temperature hypothesized to be in the 90s? or am i on crack?

also, if it's sunny during the day and then overcast at night, those clouds will do an excellent job of retaining heat.

With global warming it's better to be safe than sorry. We have been introducting enormous amounts of CO2 to a fragile equilibrium. This CO2 was stored in oil for millions of years. I can imagine that releasing this in such a short time can cause problems. It's true that we haven't studied weather long enough, although we can look at geological evidence. I still think we should try to be on the safe side, not knowing for sure the influence our CO2 has.

Originally posted by amantine
With global warming it's better to be safe than sorry. We have been introducting enormous amounts of CO2 to a fragile equilibrium. This CO2 was stored in oil for millions of years. I can imagine that releasing this in such a short time can cause problems. It's true that we haven't studied weather long enough, although we can look at geological evidence. I still think we should try to be on the safe side, not knowing for sure the influence our CO2 has.

Actually, the amounts of CO2 we release account for a small % of the total. Once, we began to study the recent warming trends, we find that they were actually the catalyst for the increase in CO2 and not vice-versa. In other words, CO2 didn't cause the warm-up, the warm-up caused the increase in CO2.

It'll stay warmer, longer in the winter cloudy night skies than a clear night sky... clouds act like a blanket.

*EDIT- The real question should be, what the hell is the difference between partly cloudy and mostly sunny? Gaah!*

[Edited on 9-3-2004 by soothsayer]

Also being near large bodies of water helps to stabilise the temperature. Coastal regions (or islands) tend to swing a lot less than deep inland regions. As the large bodies of water can retain the heat for much longer, and take longer to heat up.

TheCatalyst, also if you want to research more on this yourself, two good terms to begin with that might help explain it are "Albedo" and "Insolation". Insolation is the incoming solar rays and Albedo refers to the factor at which they are reflected back.

Originally posted by Kano
Also being near large bodies of water helps to stabilise the temperature. Coastal regions (or islands) tend to swing a lot less than deep inland regions. As the large bodies of water can retain the heat for much longer, and take longer to heat up.

yeah, this is true. during the day warmer air over the lands rises, causing cooler air from over the water to come landward to take its place. the warm air then flows out over the water body, cools and settles. at night then this process reverses. it's really neat. sorry kano, felt like explaining it for anyone who may not know.

Originally posted by astrocreep
Actually, the amounts of CO2 we release account for a small % of the total. Once, we began to study the recent warming trends, we find that they were actually the catalyst for the increase in CO2 and not vice-versa. In other words, CO2 didn't cause the warm-up, the warm-up caused the increase in CO2.

CO2 levels have increased 30% since the industrial revolution, CH4 140%, NO2 15% (source). I doubt the warmup causing rising CO2 levels hypothesis. How can a warmup explain the increase in CH4 and NO2? CO2 can explain both the warmup and obviously the CO2 increase. How can warming explain such a CO2 increase in such a short period? If you say the warmup increased CO2, where did the CO2 from fossilized fuels we used go?

Temperature has increased about 0.4 degrees celsius since 1850 (source). Now take a look at this graph:



If you want to discuss this further, I suggest you open a new thread. We're getting a bit offtopic here.

Originally posted by amantine

Originally posted by astrocreep
Actually, the amounts of CO2 we release account for a small % of the total. Once, we began to study the recent warming trends, we find that they were actually the catalyst for the increase in CO2 and not vice-versa. In other words, CO2 didn't cause the warm-up, the warm-up caused the increase in CO2.

CO2 levels have increased 30% since the industrial revolution, CH4 140%, NO2 15% (source). I doubt the warmup causing rising CO2 levels hypothesis. How can a warmup explain the increase in CH4 and NO2? CO2 can explain both the warmup and obviously the CO2 increase. How can warming explain such a CO2 increase in such a short period? If you say the warmup increased CO2, where did the CO2 from fossilized fuels we used go?

Temperature has increased about 0.4 degrees celsius since 1850 (source). Now take a look at this graph:



If you want to discuss this further, I suggest you open a new thread. We're getting a bit offtopic here.

No need to start a new one. A simple search will reveal many already underway with some great links to information such as this one right here.


www.abovetopsecret.com...

[Edited on 9-3-2004 by astrocreep]

Ok, well thanks for all the information!

Originally posted by TheCatalyst
Ok, well thanks for all the information!

No problem whatsoever. Thats why I'm here. I hope you read some of the info posted on the refered thread. If not, may i suggest this one;

www.cfa.harvard.edu...

Its probably the only truly scientific long term study that takes into account just about every piece of info there is to get on whether this phenom is truly happening or whether we're just being given what the model predicted and told its reality. Many stats we hera quoted for global warming are actually what is supposed to be true under the model and now we know that the actual data is quite a bit different.