We don't have a word for the study of sunlight. We should.
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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...
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/
"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...
"Mount Rainier Jr. Water Scientist Report" - http://www.nature.nps.gov/geology/gip/web_products/MORA_2010...
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.
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.
> 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.
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.
> 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 . 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... .
It's also the Danish word "solradiometri", used in ftp://ftp.oami.europa.eu/bulletin/ctm/2012/2012_075_PDF/2012_075_DA.pdf .