

We don't have a word for the study of sunlight.  We should. - winstonford
https://medium.com/@winstonford/planetary-vocabulary-b0dffa9d6cc6

======
Nadya
To be pedantic - it falls under optics. The study of light. Light is light,
even sunlight.

Sunlight is just the name we give to the infrared, ultraviolet, and visible
_light_ we receive from the sun's electromagnetic radiation.

...Although I do like the sound of luxology or solluxology...

~~~
winstonford
Fair enough. It also falls under heliophysics. I would argue that we need
something more specific.

------
dalke
Solar astronomer. Solar spectrologist. Optics, which has been part of physics
since Newton.

For that matter, solar x-rays and extremely low frequency radio waves are both
part of sunlight, but play little role in climatology.

"we lack a single word for the study of this thing. Doesn’t this seem odd?"

Ummm, no? "Plant biologist", "organic chemist". Many scientific fields use
more than one word to describe them. Some people even use "water scientist" or
something similar, instead of "hydrologist". Here are a few:

"Jay Famiglietti is Senior Water Cycle Scientist" \--
[https://science.jpl.nasa.gov/people/Famiglietti/](https://science.jpl.nasa.gov/people/Famiglietti/)

"In addition, a full time Water Scientist position has been created to assist
Council in the management of the project" \--
[http://www.gloucester.nsw.gov.au/environment/water-study-
pro...](http://www.gloucester.nsw.gov.au/environment/water-study-project-
new/home/water-study-project-home)

"Mount Rainier Jr. Water Scientist Report" \-
[http://www.nature.nps.gov/geology/gip/web_products/MORA_2010...](http://www.nature.nps.gov/geology/gip/web_products/MORA_2010_GIP_Walters_Junior_Ranger_Program.pdf)

It's silly for the aliens to be hung up on word boundaries. Teach them German
or another language which permits words like Stromtarifrechner ("electric bill
calculator") for what in English requires three words.

As to the topic at hand, the problem isn't due to a change in incoming
sunlight, it's due to an increase in greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, which
decrease planetary cooling. This is part of climatology, which is one word. Or
"earth system science" (three words) or systems ecology (two words).

> when the body comes under attack, we run a temperature. .... “Planetary
> temperatures are common when a species, typically a young one, upsets the
> balance. In some cases the new species integrates quickly and restores
> balance. In other cases the temperature creates challenges that reduce its
> population, and sometimes the species is wiped out completely. It’s very
> similar to the process in the human body.”

That's a strawalien. Elevated body temperatures as a response to infection
appears to be an evolutionarily acquired trait, though we aren't sure if it
has a direct benefit or is a side-effect of some other response. It's not
similar to a planetary ecology, which is decidedly non-Darwianian.

In no cases did the species integrate quickly to the new balance? In no case
did the new species trigger decreased temperatures, of the Snowball Earth
kind? With all their experience in the great galaxy, I find it hard to believe
they only came across one type of ecosystem perturbation.

~~~
winstonford
Thx for the feedback.

One word or more, water science is well represented in many languages, no
doubt about that.

Temperatures like inflammation and congestion may serve a purpose to a point,
beyond which they are counter productive and destructive.

Data does not show our planet temperature in a state of balance nor entering
an ice age.

~~~
dalke
Then the word you want is "solar radiometry". The first person to measure the
solar constant was Claude Pouillet, a physicist. Here's some history of
Pouillet from
[http://documents.irevues.inist.fr/bitstream/handle/2042/1694...](http://documents.irevues.inist.fr/bitstream/handle/2042/16943/meteo_2008_60_36.pdf)
:

> Claude Pouillet greatly contributed to the development of climate sciences
> by estimating the solar constant, i.e. the incoming solar radiation at the
> top of the atmosphere (also called total solar irradiance) ... He also
> evaluated the total absorption of solar radiation by the atmosphere.

Alas, it is in French and I am unable to read more than a few words of the
language.

People who work in solar radiometry tend to come from astronomy, metrology,
space science, and physics.

Your conceit (and I use that as the literary term; an "extended metaphor with
a complex logic") is that some E.T.s provide guidance that 1) elevated
temperature in people is 'very similar to the process in the human body'.

At best these E.T. are using Wittgenstein's ladder, a.k.a. "lies to children."
This is about as true as saying that a pain on your stomach from a stomach
ache is the same as a pain from appendicitis, is the same as the pain from
taking a punch in the stomach. They all certainly cause pain in the belly, but
the reasons for the pain, and the ways to resolve the pain, are very
different.

The other part of the conceit is that 2) these E.T.s can say 'Planetary
temperatures are common when a species, typically a young one, upsets the
balance'. This implies that temperature _increases_ are a common result of
upset, but _decreases_ , or other sorts of ecosystem collapse, are not common.

I am not ignorant. I chose 'Snowball Earth' precisely because it is _not_ an
ice age. Certainly these E.T.s must have come across cases on _other_
_planets_ where a new species ended up breaking the greenhouse effect that was
keeping their ecosysem alive, and ended up with a snowball cascade.

Since the statements from this 'wise group' of entites doesn't pass a basic
sniff test, they end up being straw puppets uttering only the words you think
they should say. I feel like your conceit ends up being nothing more than a
wordy attempt to elevate your personal beliefs, instead of the insightful
metaphor you meant for it.

~~~
winstonford
"solar radiometry" is two words, mon ami.

I found your first round of criticism about temperature valid and removed some
of the copy.

Regarding the conceit, see above comment.

If we get to the point where it's relevant to discuss the dangers of a runaway
drop in temperature, that would be refreshing.

As for the conceit again, point taken, again.

Sometimes when I explain a problem to someone, the solution becomes evident.
That's my goal here.

I hope you found some value in the time spent reading and discussing.

~~~
dalke
Well, I found your word for you. It's "actinometry" \- "the measurement of the
heating power of electromagnetic radiation, especially that of solar
radiation"
[http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/actinometry](http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/actinometry)
. See for example
[http://dash.harvard.edu/bitstream/handle/1/3716614/Voskuhl_R...](http://dash.harvard.edu/bitstream/handle/1/3716614/Voskuhl_Recreating.pdf?sequ%20ence=2)
:

> Recreating Herschel's actinometry: An essay in the historiography of
> experimental practice

> In the course of a four-month period of research I worked with a replica of
> the so-called `actinometer', an instrument to measure the intensity of solar
> radiation, which was invented by John Herschel in 1824

The French word "actinométrie" has its own Wikipedia entry, which seems to be
more focused on the sun than used in recent English. See
[http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Actinom%C3%A9trie](http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Actinom%C3%A9trie)
. Get your E.T.s to learn French and there's no problem.

Your insistence on "one word" is about equal to numerology in its usefulness.

Spaces are a question of orthography. In English we happen to use spaces to
write "air raid shelter" instead of "airraidshelter". (Some even write 'air-
raid shelters'.) In German they use "Luftschutzbunker" \- "air protection
bunker".

Had English gone a slightly different way some 1000 years ago, then we would
write "solar radiometry" as "solarradiometry". There's no deep meaning to the
space character on our psyche.

Indeed, the English compound expression "solar radiometry" is the single
German word "Sonneradiometrie". Here's a paper which uses it to describe the
focus of activities in the PTB laboratories -
[http://www.ptb.de/cms/fileadmin/internet/fachabteilungen/abt...](http://www.ptb.de/cms/fileadmin/internet/fachabteilungen/abteilung_7/7.1_radiometrie/PTB-
Mitt-Astrophysik.pdf) .

It's also the Danish word "solradiometri", used in
ftp://ftp.oami.europa.eu/bulletin/ctm/2012/2012_075_PDF/2012_075_DA.pdf .

