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Old October 9th 09, 03:52 AM posted to rec.aviation.soaring
Eric Greenwell
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Posts: 1,096
Default How does sun heat the air?

Jim Logajan wrote:
" wrote:
The sun shines down through the atmosphere, hits things on the ground,
the things on the ground get hot, and then the hot things on the
ground heat the air?

Sun light passing through the air does not heat the air at all? Heats
the air some but not much?

If the air is transparent to solar energy, how is the air able to
pick up so much energy from hot objects on the ground?


Try reading the content of this web page for some basic answers to all your
questions:

http://www.ucar.edu/learn/1_1_1.htm


It's a good article by a good source, but robably more than he wants to
know, as it's not directly concerned with thermal production.

The thermals we like so much use air heated primarily by conduction from
the aforementioned hot objects, but I believe some "micro" (my term)
convection near the ground is important for making the warm layer near
the ground thicker than conduction alone would provide.

--
Eric Greenwell - Washington State, USA
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