Ritacuba Blanco: death of a Colombian glacier
Just a few months ago, the Colombian mountain peak of Ritacuba Blanco was covered in an unbroken layer of white ice and snow, just as it had been for as long as anyone can remember.
Just a few months ago, the Colombian mountain peak of Ritacuba Blanco was covered in an unbroken layer of white ice and snow, just as it had been for as long as anyone can remember.
Environment
May 8, 2024
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In the months ahead, two of NASA's Mars spacecraft will have an unprecedented opportunity to study how solar flares—giant explosions on the sun's surface—could affect robots and future astronauts on the Red Planet.
Planetary Sciences
Apr 29, 2024
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35
A recent study published in the PNAS shows that western Central Asia has experienced a long-term drying trend over the past 7,800 years. This discovery, based on the analysis of a stalagmite from the Fergana Valley in Kyrgyzstan, ...
Earth Sciences
Apr 18, 2024
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As the total solar eclipse on April 8, 2024, draws closer, a vibrant community of enthusiastic amateur radio operators, known as "hams," is gearing up for an exciting project with the Ham Radio Science Citizen Investigation ...
Planetary Sciences
Apr 7, 2024
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Water scarcity and the high cost of energy represent the main problems for irrigation communities, which manage water for this end, making it available to agriculture.
Biotechnology
Apr 2, 2024
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A new study greatly reduces uncertainty in climate change predictions, a move economists say could save the world trillions in adaptations for a hotter future. The study, published in the journal Nature Communications, considers ...
Earth Sciences
Mar 28, 2024
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NASA will launch three sounding rockets during the total solar eclipse on April 8, 2024, to study how Earth's upper atmosphere is affected when sunlight momentarily dims over a portion of the planet.
Space Exploration
Mar 27, 2024
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154
It might look like a roll of chicken wire, but this tiny cylinder of carbon atoms—too small to see with the naked eye—could one day be used for making electronic devices ranging from night vision goggles and motion detectors ...
Nanomaterials
Mar 11, 2024
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167
Land–atmosphere interactions play a crucial role in shaping Earth's climate system, profoundly influencing weather patterns, climate variables, and ecological processes. Despite being located at similar latitudes, the Tibetan ...
Earth Sciences
Mar 6, 2024
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Central Asia has experienced a faster temperature rise than the global land over the past decades, which has brought unprecedented challenges to the survival and flourishing of life. The role of the drivers and their associated ...
Earth Sciences
Feb 29, 2024
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Sunlight, in the broad sense, is the total spectrum of the electromagnetic radiation given off by the Sun. On Earth, sunlight is filtered through the atmosphere, and the solar radiation is obvious as daylight when the Sun is above the horizon. Near the poles in summer, the days are longer and the nights are shorter or non-existent. In the winter at the poles the nights are longer and for some periods of time, sunlight may not occur at all. When the direct radiation is not blocked by clouds, it is experienced as sunshine, a combination of bright light and heat. Radiant heat directly produced by the radiation of the sun is different from the increase in atmospheric temperature due to the radiative heating of the atmosphere by the sun's radiation. Sunlight may be recorded using a sunshine recorder, pyranometer or pyrheliometer. Sunlight takes about 8.3 minutes to reach the Earth. The World Meteorological Organization defines sunshine as direct irradiance from the Sun measured on the ground of at least 120 watts per square metre.
Direct sunlight has a luminous efficacy of about 93 lumens per watt of radiant flux, which includes infrared, visible, and ultra-violet light. Bright sunlight provides luminance of approximately 100,000 candela per square meter at the Earth's surface.
Sunlight is a key factor in photosynthesis, a process crucially important for life on Earth.
This text uses material from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA