quote:

ORIGINAL: Brain

Interesting article. As I understand it, the actual heat released by the industrial revolution is a major factor in global warming. While the atmosphere may have gained heat, most of the heat is absorbed by the ground, ocean, and ice melting. It is a waste of effort to sequester carbon or utilize nuclear energy for generating energy thinking that it will reduce global warming significantly.

Heat released by the industrial revolution directly causes global warming.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/07/090713085248.htm

quote:

ORIGINAL: asyouwish72
Incident solar energy flux to earth = 174 petawatts (10^15 watts... that's a lot of watts)

quote:

ORIGINAL: Hillwilliam

The other day, My dad was talking about what a buncha crap Global warming was.  I said "Hold it..... didnt you used to tell me how when you were a kid it was colder and the snow was deeper as you walked 5 miles barefoot to school......uphill...BOTH ways"

quote:

walked 5 miles barefoot to school......uphill...BOTH ways"

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ORIGINAL: Fellow

I agree, too much noise have been raised around the global warming issue. Also, people have difficulties with quantitative thinking. Sometimes controversial solutions are offered by scientists. For example, the British plan to plant trees to combat global warming. I like the idea to plant trees but it will definitely contribute to more global warming rather than reducing it. The right solution would be to cut trees off and paint the surface white. So, I would like to see elimination of the politics and hysteria out of the problem and to address it the way that makes sense. Albert Gore should shut up and keep quiet for a while.

quote:

ORIGINAL: popeye1250

quote:

ORIGINAL: Brain

Interesting article. As I understand it, the actual heat released by the industrial revolution is a major factor in global warming. While the atmosphere may have gained heat, most of the heat is absorbed by the ground, ocean, and ice melting. It is a waste of effort to sequester carbon or utilize nuclear energy for generating energy thinking that it will reduce global warming significantly.

Heat released by the industrial revolution directly causes global warming.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/07/090713085248.htm

Hey Brain, why don't you start some posts on some other scientific things like oh,..."Bigfoot" or "Flying Saucers?"

quote:

ORIGINAL: asyouwish72

Wow. How'd that get past peer review? Does this journal even do peer review?

Let's see... from publicly available sources:

Total present-day annual energy consumption per year(by far the highest ever): 5*10^20 joules (thanks, BP)

Incident solar energy flux to earth = 174 petawatts (10^15 watts... that's a lot of watts)

1 watt = 1 joule/second

365 * 24 * 60 *60 seconds/year = 3.15*10^7 seconds/year so...

Incident solar energy/year = about 5.5 * 10^24 joules

All human energy consumption NOW is less than 1/10,000th of the incident solar energy. Not all of that consumption is heat, a lot of it goes to push around trucks/ships/airplanes etc as work- heat is most often just a waste product to be minimized. In the fairly recent past, human energy consumption was very much less, so the 'cumulative effect' since the industrial revolution is consequently very much smaller than these figures (modest as the are) would suggest.

The heat we generate is not the issue- small changes to the earth's radiative balance are. That's why the uninhabited poles are the places showing the most rapid warming- they are the places where the earth typically has the most negative radiative balance (more energy going out than coming in... it's the loss term that greenhouse gasses change slightly). If it was just heat from combustion, the places with the highest population densities would be the epicenters of warming.

If these guys are legit, I'd like to know what they are smoking.

quote:

ORIGINAL: asyouwish72

Wow. How'd that get past peer review? Does this journal even do peer review?

Let's see... from publicly available sources:

Total present-day annual energy consumption per year(by far the highest ever): 5*10^20 joules (thanks, BP)

Incident solar energy flux to earth = 174 petawatts (10^15 watts... that's a lot of watts)

1 watt = 1 joule/second

365 * 24 * 60 *60 seconds/year = 3.15*10^7 seconds/year so...

Incident solar energy/year = about 5.5 * 10^24 joules

All human energy consumption NOW is less than 1/10,000th of the incident solar energy. Not all of that consumption is heat, a lot of it goes to push around trucks/ships/airplanes etc as work- heat is most often just a waste product to be minimized. In the fairly recent past, human energy consumption was very much less, so the 'cumulative effect' since the industrial revolution is consequently very much smaller than these figures (modest as the are) would suggest.

The heat we generate is not the issue- small changes to the earth's radiative balance are. That's why the uninhabited poles are the places showing the most rapid warming- they are the places where the earth typically has the most negative radiative balance (more energy going out than coming in... it's the loss term that greenhouse gasses change slightly). If it was just heat from combustion, the places with the highest population densities would be the epicenters of warming.

If these guys are legit, I'd like to know what they are smoking.

quote:

ORIGINAL: submittous

What part of adding heat energy to the atmosphere disrupting normal weather patterns is confusing? Overall temperature rises but ground temperature will vary place to place, winds will be higher or lower, rain and snow will increase in some places and go down in others. Overall it is probable that there will be more storms and bigger ones than today because storms need energy and heat from the atmosphere and oceans provide it. Since we have a hell of a lot of infrastructure in place that depends on existing weather patterns the liklihood is changes will not be good for things like food production, transportation etc.....

Saying 'I want more global warming because I'm cold tonite' is either a joke or a sign of not grasping how things work.