How can I explain to people that the sun does not heat the Earth?

Question

i love the Earth and I believe it is being maltreated. my buddies all say....globa warming happens everyday.

Answer 1

Unfortunately the fundamental logic of your question is false as the sun does heat the earth. I believe your agrument is to try and prove man-made global warming which is a tougher nut to crack. There is no set-in-stone average temperature for the last 1000 years so there is no way to know if our contribution has had any more affect on the earth than the natural heating and cooling cycle which most climatologists agree is much longer than 10,000 years. There is also evidence that we are coming out of a shorter cooling cycle as manmade silver mines from 100 years ago are being uncovered by receding glaciers. As a matter of fact, in the 50's and 60's scientists were convinced that were were entering a mini-iceage and current temperatures are not appreciably higher than in 1950.

This is of course the cliff notes version of a cliff notes version of the abridged version of the global warming topic. Which is too say very brief answer for a very detailed topic.

So to answer your first question. There is no way to prove that the earth does not derive heat from the sun.

Answer 2

The Sun does heat the Earth just as it heats all the planets and moons in the solar system, it's basically the only source of heat and without it every planet and moon would be a frozen wildreness devoid of all forms of life.

Some people are making the mistake of saying that the current warming trend is due to changes in the Sun and in this respect they often point to the warming that has been observed on Mars.

Whilst the Sun does indeed change, the warming of the last 200 years is not attributable to the Sun. We monitor the Sun very closely and can measure precisely how much heat energy is being received from it. There has been almost no change for a long time.

The SI unit used to measure how much heat we receive from the Sun is the Watt per square metre per year. The average is 1366 W/m2/yr, the differnce between maximum and minimum output (called insolation maxima and insolation minima) is just 1.3 W/m2/yr. Even if the Sun changed from minimum to maximum output overnight the effects on our planet would be small and it would be hundreds and thousands of years before the cumulative effect began to have a significant effect upon our climate.

References to warming on Mars are frequently taken out of context and if your friend mentions this to you it may well be worth directing him to the original reports from which this notion stems, here's one of them - http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2003/07aug_southpole.htm

Obviously any reports of warming on Mars are going to come from NASA and NASA have made it abundantly clear that whilst some parts of Mars may be warming there are others that are cooling, the Sun is not to blame and it's not related to warming on Earth - points which are all too often conveniently overlooked by climate change skeptics.

Historically the Earth has warmed and cooled of it's own accord and the Sun is always the source of heat (well, about 99.9999% of it). These natural warming and cooling cycles are occasioned by a complex series of cycles that both the Sun and Earth go through. Over long periods of time the interaction of these cycles do cause the planet to warm up and cool down but the current rate of warming is far beyond anything that could be explained by natural cycles alone. If you want more info about these cycles then do a search for Milankovitch Cycles, Orbital Forcing and Solar Variation

More on these subjects from Wikipedia -
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milankovitch_cycles
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orbital_forcing
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_variation

Answer 3

Well.. actually, the sun DOES heat the earth, but I see your dilemma... try this analogy of the global warming problem.

Imagine you are at the beach and it is unbearably hot. You are sitting under a wonderful umbrella that provides you with enough shade to enjoy the warmth and ocean breeze and not get horribly burned in the process. Your skin isn't heating up and turning red and blistering because you are protected from the direct sunlight.

Now imagine that someone has burned a hole in your umbrella.. it isn't very big, but it is letting in more sunlight... causing your cooler holding your ice and sodas to heat up faster... awww... your ice has melted and your sodas are hot...

Now imagine that the hole is getting bigger, and now YOU are under the direct sunlight, no longer protected from the direct rays. OOOH... YOU are getting hotter, warming up, skin getting red, headed for the worse sunburn of you life.

Welcome to global warming. WE are destroying the earth's "umbrella" causing us to be exposed to the effects of too MUCH heat from the sun... and there is no where for us to go to get away from it.... you are stuck with a hole in the ozone umbrella that will eventually allow the sun to REALLY heat up the earth, melt all the ice, and ruin a perfectly good day at the beach. And sorry, but your buddies are right... it is happening every day.

Answer 4

Sometimes I like to view the famous photograph "Earthrise" taken from the moon. It shows the Earth just hanging in space.

http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/imagegallery/image_feature_102.html

Think about that for a while.




If you look closely, you'll see there is a blue layer above our air and clouds. God has designed our earth home to be in exactly the right place, with exactly the right elements to sustain life. If we were further away from the Sun, we would freeze. If we were closer, we'd burn up. He placed us in just exactly the right place in the universe for our comfort and protection. We do have a responsibility to take care of our home. However, we humans don't have the power to completely destroy the earth. Do you love the earth more than the God who made it?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Global_Warming_Swindle

http://www.greatglobalwarmingswindle.co.uk/

"Global Warming" is false.

Answer 5

You mean how can you show changes in the sun are not causing global warming.

Scientific data proves that changes in the sun are only about 10% of the problem. Look at these links:

http://www.globalwarmingart.com/wiki/Image:Climate_Change_Attribution.png

http://solar-center.stanford.edu/sun-on-earth/FAQ2.html

and this news story:

"While evidence suggests fluctuations in solar activity can affect climate on Earth, and that it has done so in the past, the majority of climate scientists and astrophysicists agree that the sun is not to blame for the current and historically sudden uptick in global temperatures on Earth, which seems to be mostly a mess created by our own species."

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,258342,00.html

Answer 6

Well the sun rays are hitting the earths surfaces. They bounce back but 90% of the heat still reamins inside the ozone layer of the earth. The green house gas Carbon dioxide has formed a thin layer in the earths layer that does not allow all the heat to escape. This is what is causing the earth to heat up. I am glad that you love the earth. ^!^

Answer 7

Wrong statement . All the heat the earth gets comes from the sun ,even though it is a very small fraction of the sun's output. The green house gas is not able to generate any heat. That bad CO2 is a joke ,CO2 is so heavy that it is right on the ground . If CO2 is reflecting any thing it would out to space. CO2 is so heavy it is right on the ground and if it were as bad as u think there would be people dieing but GOD put plants here to recycle the CO2 into O2.

Answer 8

The sun heats the earth? How else would you explain the seasons and day and night?

Answer 9

Perhaps you should lay the groundwork for your idea by first discussing the idea that the sun revolves around the earth and the sheer flatness of the earth makes heating it impossible. You, of course, will be a walking anachonism and your friends will think you a lunatic, but that is your choice.

Answer 10

all the earth's energy ultimatly comes from the sun: wind, tides, photo-sysnthysis, oil. even natural radio-activity was created in the heart of a star and captured by our sun.

read last hours of ancient sunlight

Climate change is both more complex, but less complicated, than you seem to think; and this is why it is difficult to expain to your buddies. not helped by the poor public education & information generally available.

Try http://www.climatecrisis.org for some basic introductions & http://www.climatechallenge.gov.uk/communicate.html for ways of communicating the climate change issues.

good luck trying to engage people in environmental issues