Evaluating the Efficacy of Controlled-Environment Agriculture (CEA) Models as Physical Proxies for Radiative Forcing and Surface Energy Partitioning

Intensification of human activities is the primary reason behind ongoing climate change. While the 'greenhouse analogy' is generally used in climate change discourses, its physical accuracy remains contested due to the different roles of convective suppression and radiative trapping. This research paper uses a 2.5 m2 Controlled-Environment Agriculture (CEA) hydroponic enclosure to investigate the thermodynamic similarities between greenhouses and the planetary atmosphere. This study integrates the principles of radiative heat transfer with fluid mechanics and surface physics (primarily the relation between hydrophobicity and latent heat transfer) to quantify the role of energy balance equations in temperature equilibrium. Based on the findings, the experiment showed a trapped longwave radiation increase of ΔF = 50.2 ± 1.4 W/m2 (Ptrapped = 125.4 ± 3.5 W), combined with a reduction in cooling from evaporation (ΔQlat = 65.1 W/m2), these factors caused the surface temperature to rise by 4.4 K. these outcomes demonstrate that Controlled- Environment Agriculture (CEA) systems provide an accurate model for studying how het is distributed on planetary surface through energy balance and radiation, as long as physical atmospheric limits are properly maintained.