Reference no: EM133551769

Question: One can learn a lot from looking at the earth from above. In Lecture 7, we discussed how various materials reflect or absorb solar radiation differently. Now it's your turn! Find an areal or satellite image of some part of the world on the web, other than those depicted in lecture. A great variety of sources exist. Copy or save the image and include it in your response. The image can be directly uploaded to blackboard, or it can be saved in a Word document. For your assignment, complete the following tasks:

1) Describe in words the geographic location covered by the image. What state, country, etc are you in? What is the latitude, longitude, and elevation? Describe the climate and/or ecosystem are you in (i.e. are you in the mountains? Desert? Urban areas? Wetland?).

2) Make a list of the various earth materials that are reflecting light differently. See Lecture 7b for several examples of this. List out which components in your image have high albedo (high reflectivity) and which ones have low albedo (low reflectivity).

3) Which materials might give off the most energy in infrared at night, and why?

4) Discuss which of these materials and albedos can change over time. Consider a time frame of a) over the course of a year, b) over several decades or centuries d) geologic time (hundreds of thousands to millions of years).

To help your classmates out, post the location name of your area in the title of your response so that others will know what has already been chosen.