Annual Cycles, Best wishes for 2024
Our lives, like the seasons, tend to be affected by an annual cycle dictated by the revolution of the Earth about the Sun that takes one year. We are inclined to celebrate events on this time scale, events like Christmas, which occurs each year towards the end of this cycle measured by the calendar year.
Where my daughter is now living, in Seattle, it is cold at this time of the year not because the Sun has moved away but because the Earth’s spin axis is titled with respect to its orbital plane. This is what causes the seasons. Seattle, at latitude 47°39′00.00″ North, reliably receives much less insolation – much less sunlight at this time of year because the North hemisphere of the Earth is tilted away from the Sun.
The Sun warms the Earth and can warm us, but it doesn’t much warm the atmosphere. Income solar radiation passes through the atmosphere without warming it.
When a cloud passes over head on a warm day, if we are paying attention, we will notice that it is immediately cooler. We will tend to feel immediately cooler because we are warmed directly by the Sun, it is not the case that the Sun first warms the atmosphere.
The Sun warms the Earth and some of this energy is radiated back towards space as long wave radiation which is a weaker form of radiation. Carbon dioxide will emit long wave radiation, first emitted from the Earth that was warmed by the Sun, which begs the question how carbon dioxide is going to warm the Earth?
The climate system is complex not just because many processes and exchanges occur, but because different components act on widely different timescales and interact in highly non-linear ways.
I will miss my daughter this Christmas, but I am grateful to have visited with her in November albeit for just a few days.
She took me to her new (new to us) local bookshop, Magus Books. I am always happy in a bookshop.
I hope you manage to do something that you enjoy this end of year; that you can take some time to read a book, or plant a flower, or enjoy a meal with friends and family.
Happy Christmas and best wishes for 2024 – the year ahead!
The feature image shows me with Caroline and the Sun’s rays shining through, creating light and shadows in Seattle in November.
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VOWG
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MERRY CHRISTMAS. May the new year see the ruination of all those who think covid is a thing and climate change will kill us.
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Jerry Krause
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Hi Jennifer,
Thank you for your Christmas and New Year wishes. I have a present for you. Maybe you know this story but I assume you have not.
Richard Feynman began a lecture about The Brownian Movement: “The Brownian movement was discovered in 1827 by Robert Brown, a botanist. while he was studying microscobic life, he noticed little little particles of plant pollen jiggling around in the liquid he was looking at in the microscope, and was wiae enough to realize that these were not living, but were just little pieces of dirt moving around in the water.” (The Feynman Lectures On Physics)
Have a good Christmas Day and a 2024 New Year.
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