 | jimp@specsol-spam-sux.com wrote:
\
> In sci.physics Edward Green wrote:
> > jimp@specsol-spam-sux.com wrote:
>
> > > The more I thought about it, the more problems I came up with.
>
> > <...>
>
> > The more I think about it, the more I become convinced that the
claim
> > "solar irradiance increases evaporation rate under otherwise fixed
> > conditions" is true, but not because of photoejection of individual
> > molecules. It's true because solar irradiance of the liquid
surface
> > will preferentially deposit energy near the surface, raising the
> > temperature of same relative to a fixed nominal system temperature.
>
> You don't get grant funding for statements like "when the sun is
bright,
> it is hotter and water evaporates faster when it is warm".
Well, I hope my analysis is at least a _little_ more sophisticated than
that. I was suggesting that for not spectacularly unreasonable
operational definitions of "hotter", one might observe that an
irradiated open system had a higher evaporation rate than a similar
unirradiated open system, even when both were nominally the same
temperature. One would be overreaching however in requiring some
special quantum mechanism for this though: it's comprehensible in terms
of where energy is being injected into the systems.
Your copper plate experiment was elegant, BTW, but it exceeds the
capabilities of my junk-around-the-house lab. ;-)
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