Does the Earth accumulate the energy it receives from the Sun, or does it reflect all of it back into space?

Question

I understand that the sun gives energy primarily in the form of sunlight, which contains various wavelengths of electromagnetic radiation. If the earth absorbs some of the energy, does the earth’s “total energy” accumulate?

In: Planetary Science

Answer 1

Earth reflects part of the energy through ice and clouds and warms up through the remaining energy that it receives from the Sun. This heat is then again emitted as infrared light, because the received energy is distributed over a large volume, so the energy density is not high enough to emit visible light.