On a bright, sunny day, a plant might only be able to utilize 20 percent or less
of absorbed sunlight.
And by knocking down trees,
which absorb sunlight, a mammoth could cause more sun to be reflected, increasing the cooling albedo effect on the permafrost.
Scientists have in the past focused on above - ground characteristics, primarily leaf traits and the efficiency with which
plants absorb sunlight for photosynthesis, he said.
Another source of uncertainty comes from the direct effect of aerosols from human origins: How much do they reflect and
absorb sunlight directly as particles?
They are the most efficient production scale solar cells
for absorbing sunlight and creating electricity, but are also the most expensive to produce.
I am inclined to believe that the tape is actually running hotter because it is heating up
from absorbed sunlight.
Your body
absorbs sunlight using cholesterol, which helps convert sunlight into a form of vitamin D that your body can use.
They could store a charge from wind energy at night and
absorb sunlight hitting their rooftop solar cells if parked during the day.
After a nuclear blast, however, loads of black smoke would settle into the upper atmosphere and
absorb sunlight before it reaches our planet's surface.
The black
pan absorbs the sunlight and heats up the water to support evaporation, and each device provides up to 1.5 liters of clean water per day.
Soot particles, also known as black carbon aerosols, affect climate
by absorbing sunlight, which warms the surrounding air and limits the amount of solar radiation that reaches the ground.
They found that in regions where the amount of snowfall was low and any snow that did settle was sublimating away, enough dust would have accumulated to change the surface albedo sufficiently so that the
Earth absorbed sunlight and thawed (Journal of Geophysical Research — Atmospheres, DOI: 10.1029 / 2009jd012007, in press).
Dark upper surfaces, in particular, help modern - day marine reptiles such as leatherback turtles
absorb sunlight while they bask at the surface.
«You can't use today's commercially available switchable glass for this application because in the darkened state the windshield
still absorbs sunlight and becomes hot,» said Goossen.
The formation of binary minor planets, tumbling action, and period change are most likely due to the YORP effect, which is a thermal process
where absorbed sunlight, re-radiated as heat, can affect the minor planet's rotation period and even spin axis orientation.
That's exactly what a group of chemical engineers and biochemists attempted in a new study, embedding single - walled carbon nanotubes — microscopic tubes thinner than a human hair that can
also absorb sunlight and convert it to electron flow — in living chloroplasts.
The Arctic is warming more than twice as fast as the rest of the planet, because as ice melts at the top of the world, there is less of it to reflect sunlight back into space, so more of it is absorbed by ocean waters;
more absorbed sunlight means even warmer temperatures, which means more ice melt a circular process known as Arctic amplification.
Abdelkefi's team discovered that a wing's black upper
surface absorbs sunlight very efficiently, causing it to be around 10 °C warmer than the lower surface.
The researchers have found that when the fulvalene diruthenium
molecules absorb sunlight, they switch to a higher energy state, in which they can remain stable indefinitely.
Four - pronged impact Like carbon dioxide, black
carbon absorbs sunlight and infrared radiation, trapping heat in the atmosphere — including the boundary layer closest to Earth's surface.
The dark layer of cryoconite and the creatures in the
hole absorb sunlight, warming the walls around them and melting a wider hole.
Increasing levels of ozone, in turn, trap more heat, exacerbating the urban heat island effect: Cities are normally about five to 10 degrees hotter than surrounding suburbs because asphalt and
cement absorb sunlight, generating a vicious cycle of escalating pollution and heat.
The darkest blue indicates deeper water, but it's also this shade for another reason: the rich blue hue comes from dye added to speed up the rate at which the
water absorbs sunlight and warmth, aiding evaporation.
The fine
material absorbs sunlight almost as well as carbon dioxide — a well - known greenhouse gas — and may contribute to accelerated snowmelts and increased global temperatures.
A second way is that carbon particles can float around in the spaces between water droplets,
similarly absorbing sunlight and converting it to heat.
If the greenhouse effect (that checks the exit of longwave radiation from Earth into space) or the amount of
absorbed sunlight diminished, one would see a slowing in the heat uptake of the oceans.
The researchers foresee a substantial additional local warming influence from this change in landscapes, with the darker
foliage absorbing sunlight that would otherwise be reflected back to space.
Partly because of the thinning ozone layer, which
normally absorbs sunlight and turns it into heat, but part of it is a temporary trapping of heat lower down in the atmosphere by man - made greenhouse gases (Ramaswamy et al., 2006).
With ice cover shrinking in the Arctic during the summer months, less sunlight is reflected off the icy surface, which means the
ocean absorbs the sunlight instead.