Brief communication: Residence time of energy in the atmosphere

In atmospheric chemistry, a parameter called residence time is defined for each gas as inline-formula $M1inlinescrollmathmlT=M/F$ 42pt14ptsvg-formulamathimgdc1272bd12e554e83403bc19a9194274 npg-27-235-2020-ie00001.svg42pt14ptnpg-27-235-2020-ie00001.png , where inline-formulaM represents the mass of the gas in the atmosphere and inline-formulaF is the total average influx or outflux, which in time averages are equal. In this brief communication, we extend this concept from matter to energy which is also a conservative quantity and estimate the average residence time of energy in the atmosphere, which amounts to about 58 d. A similar estimation for the residence time of energy in the Sun is of the order of inline-formula10⁷ years, which agrees with the Kelvin–Helmholtz timescale.