The Earth’s heat balance is the balance between heat entering and leaving the Earth. Insolation from the sun is the primary source of heat, but there are also secondary sources such as biological and chemical processes. Heat circulates through various mechanisms, and imbalances balance out over time. Researchers use the heat budget to learn more about climate science and predict future weather patterns. Various instruments are available to measure heat sources and means of allowing the planet to lose heat.
The balance between heat entering and leaving an entity is its heat balance. This term can be used in many contexts, but often refers specifically to the Earth, which receives heat from the sun and loses it in various ways to maintain balance. If the Earth lost more than it gained, it would cool, and if it retained heat, it would warm. Some researchers are interested in the heat balance of specific areas of the Earth, such as the oceans, because it plays an important role in climate.
Much of the Earth’s heat comes from insolation, the incoming radiation from the sun. Some of these bounce off before reaching the planet’s surface, where they are absorbed by the air, water and soil. Over the course of the year, the incoming insolation can vary by region because the Earth moves through space. There are also secondary sources of heat at work, such as biological and chemical processes on Earth that generate heat. Radioactive decay, for example, produces heat.
Heat doesn’t stay in place when it hits the Earth; if it did, some areas of the Earth would become extremely hot, while others would be quite cold. It circulates through a variety of mechanisms. Oceans, for example, radiate the heat they collect, which warms the air above them. Warm air masses begin to move, carrying heat with them. The circulation of these air masses can create a variety of weather conditions that distribute the heat and allow it to slowly radiate out into space.
Region-to-region imbalances balance out over time with the circulation of heat through the atmosphere. Researchers interested in climate science use the heat budget in their calculations and projections to learn more about current weather patterns and to predict what may emerge in the future. As researchers learn more, they sometimes disprove previous hypotheses or uncover new information about the origins of Earth’s climate. The Earth’s heat balance was not always perfectly balanced, and this shifted as conditions changed and contributed to the formation of the atmosphere.
A number of instruments are available to measure incoming heat, heat sources on Earth, and various means of allowing the planet to lose heat to keep conditions stable. Heat budget research can include satellite observations from space as well as experiments and laboratory observations to learn more about the physical, chemical and biological processes associated with heat. Researchers can also use computer modeling for tasks like predicting what might happen when the area of the ice caps decreases.
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