The earth has been warmed by the radiation from the sun for millions of years?

Question

The earth has been warmed by the radiation from the sun for millions of years, yet its average temperature has remained steady. Why?

Answer 1

Earth is heated by the radiation From the Sun which increases its temperature from 2.7Kelvin(cosmic background temperature). This causes the Earth to increase its temperature above 2.7Kelvin. but as soon as the Earth temperature increased from 2.70 to 2.71Kelvin it started radiating its energy out to the space. Eventually the Earth's average temperature stabilized at around 290Kelvin. and any further energy gain from the Sun is re-radiated to the space.

Answer 2

The temperature of the earth is determined by radiative heat exchange. We receive energy from the suns radiation but we lose by radiation of energy into space, mostly infrared. When the earth was formed about 4 billion years ago, it was much hotter that it is now. Since the radiation a body emits increases with temperature we lost more radiation than we gained and so we cooled until a balance was reached. There have been fluctuations in temperature since then but only a small amount compared to the coldness of space or the heat of the sun, but large enough to have significant effects on life on earth.

Answer 3

The Earth has not been warmed by the sun so much as kept from cooling. The collision of the components that came together to make the Earth released a huge amount of energy.

Answer 4

Try billions of years.

The planet radiates heat as infrared radiation, which results in a more or less steady temperature. That's also why it cools off at night.

Answer 5

while 1 half is taking in heat from the sun, the dark side is cooling

Answer 6

The atmosphere is pretty good at reflecting and reradiating heat. Unlike Venus.