Radiative Forcing Radiative forcing is what happens when the amount of energy that enters the Earth’s atmosphere is different from the amount of energy that leaves it. Energy travels in the form of radiation: solar radiation entering the atmosphere from the sun, and infrared radiation exiting as heat.
A climate feedback mechanism is a process that either escalates or diminishes the initial warming of Earth's climate. Climate tipping point is the point at which our planet's climate has suddenly shifted from one relatively stable state to another, often irreversibly.
Before the industrial era, radiative forcing was in very close balance, and the Earth’s average temperature was more or less stable. For this reason, researchers calculate radiative forcing based on a “baseline” year sometime before the beginning of world industrialization.
Humans are also adding small particles called aerosols to the air, from smokestacks, airplanes, and the tailpipes of cars. Aerosols make radiative forcing especially hard to measure, because their effects are highly complex and can work both ways.
Radiative forcing by a climate variable is a change in Earth's energy balance between incoming solar radiation energy and outgoing thermal IR emission energy when the variable is changed while all other factors are held constant.
Forcing denotes an external influence on a characteristic of the climate system. Example: Increased emission from the sun leads to an increase of the temperature. Feedback denotes the reaction of the (climate) system to the forcing which, in return, leads to a change in the forcings.
radiative forcing, a measure, as defined by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), of the influence a given climatic factor has on the amount of downward-directed radiant energy impinging upon Earth's surface.
The concept of radiative forcing is fairly straightforward. Energy is constantly flowing into the atmosphere in the form of sunlight that always shines on half of the Earth's surface. Some of this sunlight (about 30 percent) is reflected back to space and the rest is absorbed by the planet.
Radiative feedbacks are the atmospheric mechanisms that balance Earth's energy budget, the balance between incoming solar radiation and heat released from Earth's surface as infrared radiation.
Radiative forcing is calculated in watts per square meter, which represents the size of the energy imbalance in the atmosphere. NOAA also translates the total radiative forcing of these measured gases into an index value called the Annual Greenhouse Gas Index (right side of Figure 1).
Climate feedbacks: processes that can either amplify or diminish the effects of climate forcings. A feedback that increases an initial warming is called a "positive feedback." A feedback that reduces an initial warming is a "negative feedback."
From Academic Kids The generalised concept of radiative forcing in climate science is any change in the radiation (heat) entering the climate system or changes in radiatively active gases. It also has a more specific technical definition - see "ipcc usage" section.
The ice-albedo feedback loop is a positive feedback mechanism in climate change. The term albedo represents how much sunlight is reflected away fr...
Examples of greenhouse gases are carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide, methane, and water vapor. Naturally, the earth's surface absorbs some of the sun's...
Atmosphere-biota interactions are an example of a negative feedback mechanism in climate change. Biota means plant and animal life, and forest gro...