Eli5: How is it possible that deserts are super hot at day time and below freezing point at night time?
In: Earth Science
If you’re in space on the night side of the planet, you would see it “glow” in infrared (using an infraded camera). So you can compare the whole earth to a dim light bulb the size of a planet (assuming . The energy to keep that light bulb on (heat) is the energy you lose into space. in place with lots of stuff to accumulate heat during the day (from sunlight), you’ll lose a couple of degrees during the night, which in a desert, you lose the same amount of energy, but you have very few thing to store heat, so you lose more degrees for the same amount of energy sent to space (radiated).
Latest Answers