But notwithstanding all this, owing to the slow conductivity of the
ground for heat, more heat will pass into it during the longer summer
of aphelion than during the shorter one of perihelion; for the amount
of heat which passes into the ground depends on the length of time
during which the earth is receiving heat, as well as upon the amount
received. In like manner, more heat will pass out of the ground
during the longer winter in aphelion than during the shorter one in
perihelion. Suppose the length of the days on the one hemisphere (say
the northern) to be 23 hours, and the length of the nights, say one
hour; while on the other hemisphere the days are one hour and the
nights 23 hours. Suppose also that the quantity of heat received from
the sun by the southern hemisphere during the day of one hour to be
equal to that received by the northern hemisphere during the day of
23 hours. It is evident that although the surface of the ground on
the southern hemisphere would receive as much heat from the sun during
the short day of one hour as the surface of the northern hemisphere
during the long day of 23 hours, yet, owing to the slow conductivity
of the ground for heat, the amount absorbed would not be nearly so
much on the southern hemisphere as on the northern. The temperature
of the surface during the day, it is true, would be far higher on the
southern hemisphere than on the northern, and consequently the rate
at which the heat would pass into the ground would be greater on that
hemisphere than on the northern; but, notwithstanding the greater rate
of absorption resulting from the high temperature of the surface, it
would not compensate for the shortness of the day. On the other hand,
the surface of the ground on the southern hemisphere would be colder
during the long night of 23 hours than it would be on the northern
during the short night of only one hour; and the low temperature of the
ground would tend to lessen the rate of radiation into space. But the
decrease in the rate of radiation would not compensate fully for the
great length of the night. The general and combined result of all those
causes would be that a slight accumulation of heat would take place on
the northern hemisphere and a slight loss on the southern. But this
loss of heat on the one hemisphere and gain on the other would not go
on accumulating at a uniform rate year by year, as Adhémar supposes.
Of course we are at present simply considering the earth as an absorber
and radiator of heat, without taking into account the effects of
distribution of sea and land and other modifying causes, and are
assuming that everything is the same in both hemispheres, with the
exception that the winter of the one hemisphere is longer than that of
the other.
What, then, is the amount of heat stored up by the one hemisphere and
lost by the other? Is it such an amount as to sensibly affect climate?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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