Topical Review

Where does Earth’s atmosphere get its energy?

¹ Colorado State University, Cooperative Institute for Research in the Atmosphere at the NOAA Earth System Research Laboratory/Global Systems Division, 325 Broadway, Boulder, CO 80305, USA
² Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences, University of Colorado Boulder, 4001 Discovery Drive, Boulder, CO 80303, USA
³ University of Colorado, Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics, 3665 Discovery Drive, Boulder, CO 80303, USA

^* Corresponding author: andrew.kren@noaa.gov

Received: 15 February 2016
Accepted: 15 February 2017

Abstract

The Sun is Earth’s primary source of energy. In this paper, we compare the magnitude of the Sun to all other external (to the atmosphere) energy sources. These external sources were previously identified in Sellers (1965); here, we quantify and update them. These external sources provide a total energy to the Earth that is more than 3700 times smaller than that provided by the Sun, a vast majority of which is provided by heat from the Earth’s interior. After accounting for the fact that 71% of incident solar radiation is deposited into the earth system, the Sun provides a total energy to Earth that is still more than 2600 times larger than the sum of all other external sources.