Comment on Would it be possible to use aerosol-based geoengineering technology locally to cool houses?
NeatNit@discuss.tchncs.de 3 months ago
As @FuglyDuck@lemmy.world said, you’re building a greenhouse. Nearly all sunlight that gets through the glass will contribute to heating up what’s inside, and none of the heat will be able to get out. The major reason for the greenhouse effect is that there’s no way for hot air to escape.
Under an open sky, the sun heats up the ground, the ground heats up the air, and the hot air gets blown away by wind and rises through convection, being replaced by colder air from surrounding areas. An equilibrium is reached when the air takes away the same amount of heat per second as the sunlight brings in. But in a greenhouse: the sun heats up the ground, the ground heats up the air, and the air is trapped. It has nowhere to go, so everything continues to get hotter and hotter. The air heats up the glass walls and roof of the greenhouse (the sun helps with that too), until the walls are hot enough to expel all the heat that’s brought in by the sun, in the same way as the non-greenhouse ground would. The end result is that the inside of the greenhouse is way hotter than the outside.
Note that this has very little to do with what chemicals the air is made up of. Even if the gas inside the greenhouse has a “sun blocking effect”, it would still have to absorb all that energy from the sun, and that heat would still be inside the greenhouse.
See other answers for better alternatives :)
volvoxvsmarla@lemm.ee 3 months ago
Thanks, that was exactly what Shower Me needed to hear
NeatNit@discuss.tchncs.de 3 months ago
Happy to hear :)
I should also say, I think I used the term “greenhouse effect” incorrectly. What I described is how a literal man-made greenhouse works, but “greenhouse effect” refers to a phenomenon on the world scale that is reminiscent of greenhouses, but operates on entirely different principles. For that, the composition of the atmosphere is actually relevant, and the term “greenhouse gases” refers to gases that contribute to warming. For an actual greenhouse though, as I said, it doesn’t really matter.
Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world 3 months ago
Everything you described seems to remind me of a car left in the sun all day. Then you open the door, and WHOOSH, all that hot air hits you in the face.
NeatNit@discuss.tchncs.de 3 months ago
Exactly! Windshield reflectors try to make the sunlight bounce back out before it has a chance to heat up the interior.