Celestia Forums

Can somebody tell how Celestia is calculating the effective temperature of surfaces?
I assume that the "Stefan-Boltzmann-Law" is used. With what solar constant? -> 1368 W/m^2 ?
Shouldn't Celestia calculate a value of 255 K (instead of 257 K) for Earth?

Adirondack

Celestia takes into account global warming.

Sorry (not trying to be at all helpful)

Celestia takes into account the albedo, in the temperature calculation. Since Earth reflects some light, its temperature is a bit lower than what we get with the black body formula alone. This explains the small difference you noticed.

Celestia doesn't take into account the atmosphere effect (warming, etc), since it heavily depends on the chemical composition, gravity, rotation, etc.

255K or 257K, these are very cold temps! 257 is almost 18 degrees below freezing. I thought the figure would at least be above freezing..
BTW, the temperature of planets in Celestia is indirectly computed from the Sun's temp. Planet_temp = sun_temp * sqrt(sqrt(1 - albedo)) * sqrt(r_sun / 2*D) where r_sun=sun's radius, D=distance from sun.

Global warming accounts for the difference. Despite the bad press, global warming is actually a good thing. It is only when there's too much of it that it becomes a problem.