On Sunburn
I just thought I might clear up some mis-understandings that may be out there concerning our sun. This may sound a little strange, but there are some important things to note here that are important. I remember that as a child, I would reach on top of the pie-safe into a wicker basket to get the appropriate number of quarters to gain admission to the Webster Groves public pool. There was nothing extremely special about this pool. It had an area that was 3 feet deep that slowly went down to 5 feet deep over a 30 to 50 foot distance. There were some 5 foot deep lap lanes. The pool widened out to form the top of a T shape with a 10 feet deep diving area.
I really would have rathered to be inside during the hottest 3-5 pm part of the day watching afternoon cartoons like Rescue Rangers, Gummy Bears, and Duck Takes. We would go down to the pool at 9 or 10 in the morning and stay for a while. Regardless of when we arrived, we would be on our way home by 2pm or so. My justification for this was that I was going to avoid the hottest part of the day and thus the worst of the sun's rays which give me a sunburn.
So, as a child I was wrong about my timing. I don't think that I suffered too bad from my misconception, but I would still like to clear up this point so other fair-skinned children don't suffer like I did. This is how it works. The atmosphere is what protects us from those damaging sun's rays. The more atmosphere that the sun must travel through, the less damaging the rays. So when it is solar noon (the sun is directly above you or as high as it gets in the sky) there is significantly less atmosphere for the sun's rays to travel through. Interestingly enough, when it is hottest in the day, like 4pm-ish, there is significantly more atmosphere protecting us.
As for the heat thing, well the non harmful rays will keep warming the earth as long as there is more energy from the sun's rays coming in than the earth is putting out.
So in conclusion, if we say solar noon is at 12:00pm, the suns rays are just as damaging at 10am as they are at 2pm and 8am as 4pm. It makes for an interesting thought process to realize that the heat of the day and sunburn are related in their source, but not in their effect.
oh... and the customary pictures that grandmas rely on:
I just thought I might clear up some mis-understandings that may be out there concerning our sun. This may sound a little strange, but there are some important things to note here that are important. I remember that as a child, I would reach on top of the pie-safe into a wicker basket to get the appropriate number of quarters to gain admission to the Webster Groves public pool. There was nothing extremely special about this pool. It had an area that was 3 feet deep that slowly went down to 5 feet deep over a 30 to 50 foot distance. There were some 5 foot deep lap lanes. The pool widened out to form the top of a T shape with a 10 feet deep diving area.
I really would have rathered to be inside during the hottest 3-5 pm part of the day watching afternoon cartoons like Rescue Rangers, Gummy Bears, and Duck Takes. We would go down to the pool at 9 or 10 in the morning and stay for a while. Regardless of when we arrived, we would be on our way home by 2pm or so. My justification for this was that I was going to avoid the hottest part of the day and thus the worst of the sun's rays which give me a sunburn.
So, as a child I was wrong about my timing. I don't think that I suffered too bad from my misconception, but I would still like to clear up this point so other fair-skinned children don't suffer like I did. This is how it works. The atmosphere is what protects us from those damaging sun's rays. The more atmosphere that the sun must travel through, the less damaging the rays. So when it is solar noon (the sun is directly above you or as high as it gets in the sky) there is significantly less atmosphere for the sun's rays to travel through. Interestingly enough, when it is hottest in the day, like 4pm-ish, there is significantly more atmosphere protecting us.
As for the heat thing, well the non harmful rays will keep warming the earth as long as there is more energy from the sun's rays coming in than the earth is putting out.
So in conclusion, if we say solar noon is at 12:00pm, the suns rays are just as damaging at 10am as they are at 2pm and 8am as 4pm. It makes for an interesting thought process to realize that the heat of the day and sunburn are related in their source, but not in their effect.
oh... and the customary pictures that grandmas rely on:
posted by The Pagets in Florida at 3:33 PM
1 Comments:
wow, thanks for the info. that was actually very helpful. sad how there are so many things that i should know, but don't... :)
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