Talk:Effect of sun angle on climate

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Also: Insolation. William M. Connolley 23:50, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] A couple of observations

An observation for User:Michael Hardy who originated this article. You talk of a sunbeam one mile wide. Note that this width is a first order (linear) measure. You next say that "One sunbeam one mile wide falls upon the ground at a 90°-angle, and another at a 30°-angle. The one at a shallower angle covers twice as much [second order measure] area with the same amount of light."

Now, I presume that your sunbeams are things which exist within three-dimensional space and, as such, have a cross-sectional area, else you'd not have used the term "area" in your comment. Then, in fact, the one at the shallower angle of 30° will cover the same area with 1/4 the light, not one half. As you probably know, rigorously, this is not even true. It would be more correct to say that the beam at a 30° angle will cover an area 4 times as large with the same amount of light. Of course, I stand to be corrected.

Finally, are you linking from another article to this one? I sincerely hope so since I think it's exceedingly unlikely that someone will hit upon this title in a search. — Dave 00:00, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

You're mistaken about 1/4 versus 1/2. If we imagine the sun shining from the south at noon, the north-south width doubles; the east-west width does not.

As far as links go: just click on "what links here". Michael Hardy 00:09, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

You're correct, of course. Thanks for tuning me up. — Dave 02:03, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] TITLE ?!?

Why this title ??? Is this Wikibooks ? -- 212.144.195.66 21:11, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

Please suggest a better title if you can. Michael Hardy 21:36, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Some numbers would be good

I'm wondering if someone has suitable numbers, or a graph, showing the relationship between J/level m^2 and peak W/level m^2 against latitude. Naively, we would expect it to just be cos(lat), but things like day length and atmospheric scattering might make a significant difference?

The insolation page claims 1kW/level m^2 peak, but that seems to be a very rough approximation.--njh 00:51, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

Wouldn't the amount of daylight hours due to the tilt of the earth's axis also have an effect on climate?

75.28.132.222 08:53, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

Yes. That is a separate topic from that of this article, but perhaps an appropriate link should appear if some other article treats that. Michael Hardy 20:22, 26 February 2007 (UTC)