How Earth sheds heat into space
Just as an oven gives off more heat to the surrounding kitchen as its internal temperature rises, the Earth sheds more heat into space as its surface warms up. Since the 1950s, scientists have observed a surprisingly straightforward, linear relationship between the Earth’s surface temperature and its outgoing heat. But the Earth is an incredibly messy system, with many complicated, interacting parts that can affect this process. Scientists have thus found it difficult to explain why this relationship between surface temperature and outgoing heat is so simple and linear. Finding an explanation could help climate scientists model the effects of climate change. Now scientists from MIT’s Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences (EAPS) have found the answer, along with a prediction for when this linear relationship will break down. They observed that Earth emits heat to space from the planet’s surface as well as from the atmosphere. As both heat up, say...