Global Warming?

[Parkre]

I have always thought that global warming was not caused by CO2 but by actual heat generated by....well everything. You car engine produces massive quantities of heat, your body, your air conditioner (the unit outside your house), oven, not to mention refineries, workshops, powerplants, etc. Most of these didn't exist 200 years ago, not to mention there weren't nearly as many people either. One of the reasons powerplants aren't super effecient is because they are allowed to raise the river (or souce of water around them) more than a certian amount of degrees because of the surrounding ecosystem.

Now multiply everything: Billions of Cars, 6 billion humans, 1000s of powerplants, 10,000s factories, the list goes on. And you know what people? That heat has to go somewhere. To our rivers, oceans, and air.

NOW include all the black asphalt, across the world, all the concrete, buildings, everything.


Put everything together and what do you get? The real reason for global warming.



P

 

[Wreckage]

I always thought that "Cow Farts" was the best explanation for global warming.

I'm sure there are several sources for global warming, most of them our fault. With billions of people on the planet it's hard not to have an impact on the environment. Of course Mother Nature has shown that she can pluck us right off the planet anytime she wants to.

 

[HVAC]

It is thought that "greenhouse" gas production along with ozone depleting material production (combined) will simulateously allow more heat in the form of UV radiation to reach the earth (through loss of the protective ozone layer) and trap the heat by not allowing as much IR radiation to leave the earth (greenhouse gas effect).

The phenomena of heating the earth through waste heat loss due to inefficient use of fuel (gasoline or diesel engines, coal plants, forest fires, etc.....) will indeed heat the earth, but is not part of the argument about global warming. The argument is about production of greenhouse gases or production of ozone depleting materials.

 

[Peter]

Look at the magnitude of scale. The amount of energy coming down from the sun (and getting trapped in the atmosphere thanks to greenhouse gases) is many orders of magnitude more than the amount of oil, gas and wood we humans are burning.

 

[Parkre]

I realize that most of energy comes from the sun and that we would die without it.

I completely understand the theory/law (whatever) behind the CO2/greenhouse effect.
And I am not saying it has no impact, I believe it does. But I think that generating massive amounts of heat is definately overlooked. If everyone was a 100 watt light bulb...blah blah blah........just imagine a powerplant heating up a river by 10-12 degrees (which it is allowed), 24/7, millions of gallons, then dumping into the ocean....several times over. Especially when the average temp of the oceans are rising.

 

[f95toli]

Originally posted by: Parkre
I realize that most of energy comes from the sun and that we would die without it.

I completely understand the theory/law (whatever) behind the CO2/greenhouse effect.
And I am not saying it has no impact, I believe it does. But I think that generating massive amounts of heat is definately overlooked. If everyone was a 100 watt light bulb...blah blah blah........just imagine a powerplant heating up a river by 10-12 degrees (which it is allowed), 24/7, millions of gallons, then dumping into the ocean....several times over. Especially when the average temp of the oceans are rising.

Yes, but most of that energy comes from the sun (the exception being fossil fuel and nuclear power plants), so it doesn't "add" anything.

 

[coomar]

the specific heat of water is huge for a reason, that 100 watt bulb is going to have a lot of work cut out for it

 

[herm0016]

if you look up energy specs for the sun, over the past millions of years it has continued to produce more and more energy. the true reason for global warming is the sun is producing more energy. also science has produced data that says the earth looses o-zone and warms up in regular cycles, such cycles are also part of teh cause of global warming, evidence has been found in ice cores in antartica that tell a story of much less ozone than we currently have.

 

[Calin]

Originally posted by: HVAC
It is thought that "greenhouse" gas production along with ozone depleting material production (combined) will simulateously allow more heat in the form of UV radiation to reach the earth (through loss of the protective ozone layer) and trap the heat by not allowing as much IR radiation to leave the earth (greenhouse gas effect).

The phenomena of heating the earth through waste heat loss due to inefficient use of fuel (gasoline or diesel engines, coal plants, forest fires, etc.....) will indeed heat the earth, but is not part of the argument about global warming. The argument is about production of greenhouse gases or production of ozone depleting materials.

Any use of fuel (no matter how efficient) will lead to an increase. Inefficient use of fuel means just that we use more than we had to.
But I agree, the heat generated by use of fuels isn't making a dent into global warming. There are other effects at work (CO2 from use of fuels mostly, but others too)

 

[LeanBack]

You guys are all correct to a point, unfortunately some of your sources seem to be dated. According to Encarta 2006, the Earth is made up of a mixture of several gasses, the most common being (OBVIOUSLY OTHERWISE WE WOULDNT BE BREATHING LOL!!) is oxygen. We are anaerobic organisms, aka organisms that require oxygen to breathe.

When sunlight hits our Earth, energy is transffered into the ground and radiates into the air called "convection". Some of this radiation is reflected by the O-zone (oxygen zone) back into space. Ozone actually has reflective properties, in fact mirrors are so reflective because they are coated with an ozone containing compound! This keeps a LOT of the sun's heat from ever reaching Earth. In fact, according to the most statistical models to date if there wasn't an Ozone layer, the Earths average temperature could increase by as much as 10 degrees Celsius (18 degrees F or 8 degrees K).

The greenhouse gasses include industrial byproducts, fumes from fossil fuels, and fuels from burning oil-based products such as gasoline or "natural gas". These gasses actually rise up above the ozone in the atmosphere, and instead of being reflected back into space as it would if there were ozone, the radiation is absorbed by these greenhouse gasses and converted into heat. This heat will be sent down onto Earth through a process known as "convection", this is what causes global warming.

 

[0marTheZealot]

The most abundant gas in the air is Nitrogen, we are aerobic organisms.

 

[rgwalt]

Originally posted by: LeanBack
You guys are all correct to a point, unfortunately some of your sources seem to be dated. According to Encarta 2006, the Earth is made up of a mixture of several gasses, the most common being (OBVIOUSLY OTHERWISE WE WOULDNT BE BREATHING LOL!!) is oxygen. We are anaerobic organisms, aka organisms that require oxygen to breathe.

When sunlight hits our Earth, energy is transffered into the ground and radiates into the air called "convection". Some of this radiation is reflected by the O-zone (oxygen zone) back into space. Ozone actually has reflective properties, in fact mirrors are so reflective because they are coated with an ozone containing compound! This keeps a LOT of the sun's heat from ever reaching Earth. In fact, according to the most statistical models to date if there wasn't an Ozone layer, the Earths average temperature could increase by as much as 10 degrees Celsius (18 degrees F or 8 degrees K).

The greenhouse gasses include industrial byproducts, fumes from fossil fuels, and fuels from burning oil-based products such as gasoline or "natural gas". These gasses actually rise up above the ozone in the atmosphere, and instead of being reflected back into space as it would if there were ozone, the radiation is absorbed by these greenhouse gasses and converted into heat. This heat will be sent down onto Earth through a process known as "convection", this is what causes global warming.

Obligatory "Who were you before you were banned?"

I have to agree with Peter and other posters. Humans are not causing a significant increase in global temperatures. The amount of energy we produce from burning fossil fuels and nuke power is a drop in the bucket compared to the energy input from the sun over the same time frame. Remember that all other forms of energy we use (wind, solar, hydro) all come from the sun, so they don't count in the overall energy balance.

Here is how I break global warming down... you cannot dispute the fact that we are increasing the concentration of CO2 in our atmosphere. You also cannot dispute the fact that CO2 gas blocks a portion of the electromagnetic spectrum in the infra-red range. Combine the two effects, and you have the potential for global warming.

R

 

[Calin]

Originally posted by: 0marTheZealot
The most abundant gas in the air is Nitrogen, we are aerobic organisms.

The proportion in atmospheric gasses is some kind of 78% nitrogen, close to 21% oxygen, about half a procent of CO2 and other gasses (water vapors play also a role). Now I don't know if this is volumetric or mass-based, but in any case oxygen is by no means the most abundant gas.

 

[Calin]

Originally posted by: LeanBack
You guys are all correct to a point, unfortunately some of your sources seem to be dated. According to Encarta 2006, the Earth is made up of a mixture of several gasses, the most common being (OBVIOUSLY OTHERWISE WE WOULDNT BE BREATHING LOL!!) is oxygen. We are anaerobic organisms, aka organisms that require oxygen to breathe.

When sunlight hits our Earth, energy is transffered into the ground and radiates into the air called "convection". Some of this radiation is reflected by the O-zone (oxygen zone) back into space. Ozone actually has reflective properties, in fact mirrors are so reflective because they are coated with an ozone containing compound! This keeps a LOT of the sun's heat from ever reaching Earth. In fact, according to the most statistical models to date if there wasn't an Ozone layer, the Earths average temperature could increase by as much as 10 degrees Celsius (18 degrees F or 8 degrees K).

The greenhouse gasses include industrial byproducts, fumes from fossil fuels, and fuels from burning oil-based products such as gasoline or "natural gas". These gasses actually rise up above the ozone in the atmosphere, and instead of being reflected back into space as it would if there were ozone, the radiation is absorbed by these greenhouse gasses and converted into heat. This heat will be sent down onto Earth through a process known as "convection", this is what causes global warming.

I don't know about reflective properties of ozone, but myself is much more concerned about the lack of ozone as it is the only thing that protects us from UV radiation (the thing that protects us most). Lots and lots of UV (especially during mid-day when sun rays have to travel a smaller distance thru the atmosphere as they come directly down) causes lots of nasty health problems, skin cancer being the best known one.
Now, solar energy (that would otherwise would become heat) is reflected back into space even from reflections on the soil (this is why Earth is seen so shiny from the Moon or from space).

And add water vapors to the gasses that add to the greenhouse effect, and clouds are even more efficient than water vapors at that

 

[rgwalt]

Originally posted by: Calin

Originally posted by: LeanBack
You guys are all correct to a point, unfortunately some of your sources seem to be dated. According to Encarta 2006, the Earth is made up of a mixture of several gasses, the most common being (OBVIOUSLY OTHERWISE WE WOULDNT BE BREATHING LOL!!) is oxygen. We are anaerobic organisms, aka organisms that require oxygen to breathe.

When sunlight hits our Earth, energy is transffered into the ground and radiates into the air called "convection". Some of this radiation is reflected by the O-zone (oxygen zone) back into space. Ozone actually has reflective properties, in fact mirrors are so reflective because they are coated with an ozone containing compound! This keeps a LOT of the sun's heat from ever reaching Earth. In fact, according to the most statistical models to date if there wasn't an Ozone layer, the Earths average temperature could increase by as much as 10 degrees Celsius (18 degrees F or 8 degrees K).

The greenhouse gasses include industrial byproducts, fumes from fossil fuels, and fuels from burning oil-based products such as gasoline or "natural gas". These gasses actually rise up above the ozone in the atmosphere, and instead of being reflected back into space as it would if there were ozone, the radiation is absorbed by these greenhouse gasses and converted into heat. This heat will be sent down onto Earth through a process known as "convection", this is what causes global warming.

I don't know about reflective properties of ozone, but myself is much more concerned about the lack of ozone as it is the only thing that protects us from UV radiation (the thing that protects us most). Lots and lots of UV (especially during mid-day when sun rays have to travel a smaller distance thru the atmosphere as they come directly down) causes lots of nasty health problems, skin cancer being the best known one.
Now, solar energy (that would otherwise would become heat) is reflected back into space even from reflections on the soil (this is why Earth is seen so shiny from the Moon or from space).

And add water vapors to the gasses that add to the greenhouse effect, and clouds are even more efficient than water vapors at that

People, you can't tell that LeanBack is trolling? Come on, there are too many clues!

R

 

[LeanBack]

Enyclopaedia Britannica (which I think I'd trust as a reliable source on these matters) has the correct definitions:

an·aer·o·bic - living, active, or occurring only in the presence of oxygen <anaerobic respiration>, from Latin "an" meaning "of", "aero" meaning air, vis, oxygen.

"Aerobic" means "no oxygen." The entomology of the word seems odd at first, but it's easy to remember if you think of aerobic exercise -- after performing aerobic exercises, you have trouble breathing -- hence how "aerobic" came to be known to science as meaning "no oxygen."

You know, it's not a crime to check your facts before you post. I know you may be just trolling, in which case the editors will take care of you pretty quickly, but if you're not, I'd advise you to do a bit of RESEARCH to avoid making yourself look foolish.

(And yes, ALL animals are anaerobic and need Oxygen to survive. That's part of the toxicony of the animal kingdom -- or "animalia" as it's called in Latin.)

 

[Mark R]

Originally posted by: LeanBack
Enyclopaedia Britannica (which I think I'd trust as a reliable source on these matters) has the correct definitions:

an·aer·o·bic - living, active, or occurring only in the presence of oxygen <anaerobic respiration>, from Latin "an" meaning "of", "aero" meaning air, vis, oxygen.

"Aerobic" means "no oxygen." The entomology of the word seems odd at first, but it's easy to remember if you think of aerobic exercise -- after performing aerobic exercises, you have trouble breathing -- hence how "aerobic" came to be known to science as meaning "no oxygen."

You know, it's not a crime to check your facts before you post. I know you may be just trolling, in which case the editors will take care of you pretty quickly, but if you're not, I'd advise you to do a bit of RESEARCH to avoid making yourself look foolish.

(And yes, ALL animals are anaerobic and need Oxygen to survive. That's part of the toxicony of the animal kingdom -- or "animalia" as it's called in Latin.)

Oh wow. That was funny.

BTW - Even though your claim that you saw these definitions in Britannica is clearly ludicrous, I did check, and unsurprisingly their definition of aerobic is correct.

Aerobic, is not derived from Latin at all. It's from Greek - Aero meaning air.
Similarly Anaerobic is from the greek - 'an' meaning No and 'aero' air.

Oh, and I'd guess you've never heard of helminths - these are definitely animals by my book - but anaerobes (not requiring oxygen to survive).

 

[Jeff7]

The heat produced by all our technology is nothing. Earth receives on average, 1000 watts per square meter. 1000 watts. Ever felt how hot a 15W soldering iron gets? 1000 watts is a lot of energy.
Our miniscule amount of heat isn't going to amount to much. I think that it is the CO2 - it acts as an insulator. Higher temperatures (even just one degree) spread across an entire ocean means more water evaporating - which means even more insulation.
Venus is another example of what you get with a thick atmosphere of CO2 - farther from the sun than Mercury, but Venus is even hotter. Retention of heat is a critical factor in determining how hot a planet might be.
And I see now that Peter mentioned this.

But I think that generating massive amounts of heat is definately overlooked. If everyone was a 100 watt light bulb...blah blah blah........just imagine a powerplant heating up a river by 10-12 degrees (which it is allowed), 24/7, millions of gallons, then dumping into the ocean....several times over. Especially when the average temp of the oceans are rising.

Ok, lets give every person on Earth that 100 watt lightbulb. 600,000,000,000 watts. Some of it converted into light, but most is heat.
600,000,000,000 watts
600 gigawatts

Now for what Earth receives from the sun:
Diameter: 12,756,300 meters
Area of sphere: 4 * pi * r^2
Area of Earth: 4* pi * (6378150)^2
Area of Earth: 511,209,977,298,802 square meters
Divide by 2....no heck, 3.14 because some of the light is indirect, I'll even give that much. So, assuming all those numbers, Earth receives from the sun 162,805,725,254,395,664 watts.
162,806 terawatts

What humans produce in heat is quite negligible it seems.

 

[sao123]

Originally posted by: LeanBack
You guys are all correct to a point, unfortunately some of your sources seem to be dated. According to Encarta 2006, the Earth is made up of a mixture of several gasses, the most common being (OBVIOUSLY OTHERWISE WE WOULDNT BE BREATHING LOL!!) is oxygen. We are anaerobic organisms, aka organisms that require oxygen to breathe.

When sunlight hits our Earth, energy is transffered into the ground and radiates into the air called "convection". Some of this radiation is reflected by the O-zone (oxygen zone) back into space. Ozone actually has reflective properties, in fact mirrors are so reflective because they are coated with an ozone containing compound! This keeps a LOT of the sun's heat from ever reaching Earth. In fact, according to the most statistical models to date if there wasn't an Ozone layer, the Earths average temperature could increase by as much as 10 degrees Celsius (18 degrees F or 8 degrees K).

The greenhouse gasses include industrial byproducts, fumes from fossil fuels, and fuels from burning oil-based products such as gasoline or "natural gas". These gasses actually rise up above the ozone in the atmosphere, and instead of being reflected back into space as it would if there were ozone, the radiation is absorbed by these greenhouse gasses and converted into heat. This heat will be sent down onto Earth through a process known as "convection", this is what causes global warming.

So close, and technically sounding with lots of big words and stuff, but yet... so WRONG.

A few facts to start...
70% of all sunlight that reaches earth is absorbed... by land, by sea, and by atmosphere.
20% is reflected by cloudcover, 6% is absorbed by the atmosphere and re-emitted back into space, 4% is reflected by the earths suface back into space. 19% is absorbed by the clouds and atmosphere, and 41% by the surface.

IR radiation is the only heat source for earth. UV radiation does not itself directly contribute in anyway to the temperature/heat of the earth. Indirectly UV-b & UV-c are absorbed by ozone molecules and they break apart into O2 molecules, which release heat and return to their O3 state. This heat radiated both to the surface and back into space, it does indirectly contribute to some atmospheric warming. UV radiation does not cause sunburn because it heats, cooks, or burns your skin. It causes suburn because it penetrates your skin and disrupts the nucleas processes & damages nuclear materials and then the cells die. The death of these cells (skin tissue destruction) we call a burn, it is a tissue destruction, but there is no burning involved.

Ozone is not a reflective gas, it is an absorbive one. It absorbs IR & UV and re-emits it all as IR radiation. Ozone has been identified as one of many greenhouse gases which include CO2, water vapor, ozone, and methane. Ozone contributes to global warming, having less or no ozone will not increase the temperature of the earth's atmosphere. Global Warming is defined as a warming of the average temperature of earth's lower atmosphere known as the troposphere (alt 0-6 Miles). Global warming is caused when greenhouse gases absorb longwave IR radiation emitted from the earths surface which would normally escape into space. Global warming does not occur in the stratosphere (alt 7-18 miles) (which is where tha ozone is located alt 12-15 miles) nor above it. Especially since that region of the atmosphere is approx -80 degrees F.
A decrerase or elimination of ozone may allow some surface warming as more IR to reach the surface unabsorbed, but will actually contribute to global cooling as it will allow more to escape into space.

 

[LeatherNeck]

Originally posted by: Parkre
That heat has to go somewhere. To our rivers, oceans, and air.

Wanted to deal with this specific part of the OP as other posters have already done a good job of showing that the heat we produce is a drop in the bucket compared to the heat generated and received by the sun.

The answer of "...that heat has to go somewhere..." is that it gets radiated back into outer space.

There are 3 types of heat transfer:
1. Conduction
2. Convection
3. Radiation

Radiative heat transfer occurs with two bodies of disparate temperature. During the day, the sun radiates a portion of its heat to the earth. During the evening, the "dark" side of the earth is exposed to space and it radiates its heat to space which is about 3 K (about 3 degrees Celsius above absolute zero). Needless to say, space is a pretty large heat sink.

Bodies of water will tend to retain heat so areas near bodies of water cool down but not dramatically so at night. If you've ever been in the desert, however, some areas experience a 50 degree swing in temperature at night (nothing like a desert summer night).

The greenhouse effect is not that we're heating up the earth with all our body heat, cars, electric generation, etc but that we're creating a literal "greenhouse". Just like a real greenhouse retains heat because the glass is transparent to the wavelength of UV light but "opaque" to the wavelength of the heat radiation internally, so the idea is that the atmosphere gets too "thick" with all the gases we produce and functions in the same way and holds in too much heat that would normally be radiated into space at night.

 

[MobiusPizza]

Originally posted by: f95toli

Originally posted by: Parkre
I realize that most of energy comes from the sun and that we would die without it.

I completely understand the theory/law (whatever) behind the CO2/greenhouse effect.
And I am not saying it has no impact, I believe it does. But I think that generating massive amounts of heat is definately overlooked. If everyone was a 100 watt light bulb...blah blah blah........just imagine a powerplant heating up a river by 10-12 degrees (which it is allowed), 24/7, millions of gallons, then dumping into the ocean....several times over. Especially when the average temp of the oceans are rising.

Yes, but most of that energy comes from the sun (the exception being fossil fuel and nuclear power plants), so it doesn't "add" anything.

You have to note that Fossil fuel is just the energy remenant of Sun millions of years ago. They are biological chemical energy from centuries ago from the Sun.

 

[Future Shock]

You are all forgetting one critical factor - the single largest heat source ON earth is radioactive decay, as proven by Ernest Rutherford. Rutherford's work with radioactive decay dating and heating estimates VASTLY increased the estimated age of the earth during the late 1800s. We now know the Earth to be nearly 4 billion years old - before Rutherford's heating theories, the best guesses by scientists like Lord Kelvin were less than 100 million years. So, apparently, that radioactive heating is quiet significant...

FS

 

[MrDudeMan]

Originally posted by: LeanBack
Enyclopaedia Britannica (which I think I'd trust as a reliable source on these matters) has the correct definitions:

an·aer·o·bic - living, active, or occurring only in the presence of oxygen <anaerobic respiration>, from Latin "an" meaning "of", "aero" meaning air, vis, oxygen.

"Aerobic" means "no oxygen." The entomology of the word seems odd at first, but it's easy to remember if you think of aerobic exercise -- after performing aerobic exercises, you have trouble breathing -- hence how "aerobic" came to be known to science as meaning "no oxygen."

You know, it's not a crime to check your facts before you post. I know you may be just trolling, in which case the editors will take care of you pretty quickly, but if you're not, I'd advise you to do a bit of RESEARCH to avoid making yourself look foolish.

(And yes, ALL animals are anaerobic and need Oxygen to survive. That's part of the toxicony of the animal kingdom -- or "animalia" as it's called in Latin.)

Wow. just wow.

it is almost hard to believe someone could be this stupid, so i hope you are just trolling. i mean it is painful how stupid you are...please be kidding, for the sake of humanity.

 

[LeatherNeck]

Originally posted by: Future Shock
You are all forgetting one critical factor - the single largest heat source ON earth is radioactive decay, as proven by Ernest Rutherford. Rutherford's work with radioactive decay dating and heating estimates VASTLY increased the estimated age of the earth during the late 1800s. We now know the Earth to be nearly 4 billion years old - before Rutherford's heating theories, the best guesses by scientists like Lord Kelvin were less than 100 million years. So, apparently, that radioactive heating is quiet significant...

FS

Not quite. Seems like your mixing some findings here. Rutherford's work had to do primarily with radioactive half-life yes but not that the heat generated by radioactive decay was/is a significant heat source.

U-238 and U-235 with half-lives of about 4 billion years, are among the primary elements used to theorize the age of the earth. While their half-life is a useful indicator of elapsed time, and some heat is generated, nobody is "missing" anything regarding their contribution to the heating of the earth. Some heat is generated but it pales in significance to the heat received by the sun.

 

[Banzai042]

If you subscribe to modern earth science and the theory that the earth is billions of years old then you must consider the fact that there is a consensus amongh earth scientists that the earth has natural cycles of very high average tempertures, to low temps, and back again. At the moment we are in the process of coming out of a cold period in the history of the earth, so it is very difficult to argue how much of an impact humans are having on the natural process that earth scientists tell us the earth goes through on a cyclic basis. The ice core data that was referenced for example is believed to show that the earth has had hot cycles that conicided with extremely high CO2 content in the atmosphere, which was naturally released. The bottom line is that greenhouse gasses do cause "global warming", but weather humans have a noticible impact on such things, or if we could stop it even if we tried, is a completely different matter.