[split]Photons and MASS in calculations...Split from CO2 home experiment thread.

[Richard111]

Derek, I wonder if we are talking at cross purposes here. Emissivity and evaporation are two entirely separate functions. Seawater radiates at better than 0.99 at around 11 microns.



I found that pic HERE.

You can sea that seawater radiates nicely into the 10 micron window to space. It is almost pure blackbody radiation!

I picked 1mm of evaporation over 12 hours because as I explained I had read that the DAILY GLOBAL AVERAGE EVAPORATION RATE WAS 2mm. but I am well aware that evaporation rates can change hugely with changeing air humidity as well as water temperature and air temperature and down welling IR radiation. I doubt there is any computer program in the world that can calculate the total evaporation rate with all those variables changeing in a chaotic fashion.

So as far as I can see the only way to establish if energy loss from the ocean by EVAPORATION can ever exceed energy loss by RADIATION is to pick an average sea surface temperature. Calculate the radiation flux in joules from a finite area and divide by 2,270 kJ to find how many kilograms of water would have to evaporate.

Thus 15,552,000 joules divided by 2,270,000 joules gives us 6.85 kilograms of water from 1 square metre tells us 6.85 millimetres of water would have had to vaporise just to equal the energy loss from radiation.

Not that I believe anything I have said above is cast in concrete as there are far too many variables to allow such simple calculation. For example down welling IR radiation WARMS the first millimetre of water and encourages evaporation which COOLS the surface water. The amounts vary depending on the INTENSITY of the incoming radiation (think sunny day/clear night) and the temperature of the water and the temperature of the air and the speed of the wind over the surface.

Nothing is as simple as it seems.