Radiative Forcing Functions
A number of different inputs can give rise to radiative forcing. In addition to the downwelling radiation due to the greenhouse effect, the IPCC First Scientific Assessment Report listed solar radiation variability due to orbital changes, variability due to changes in solar irradiance, direct aerosol effects (e.g., changes in albedo due to cloud cover), indirect aerosol effects, and surface characteristics.
Read more about this topic: Climate Sensitivity
Famous quotes containing the words forcing and/or functions:
“If we consider what happens in conversation, in reveries, in remorse, in times of passion, in surprises, in the instructions of dreams, wherein often we see ourselves in masquerade,—the droll disguises only magnifying and enhancing a real element, and forcing it on our distinct notice,—we shall catch many hints that will broaden and lighten into knowledge of the secret of nature.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“When Western people train the mind, the focus is generally on the left hemisphere of the cortex, which is the portion of the brain that is concerned with words and numbers. We enhance the logical, bounded, linear functions of the mind. In the East, exercises of this sort are for the purpose of getting in tune with the unconscious—to get rid of boundaries, not to create them.”
—Edward T. Hall (b. 1914)