Global Climate Status Report

[babe]

Looking for the data relevant to net heat content distributions by component..... No... good..... compilation has been done yet, at least online....

nitrogen....78%.…. very low absorption factor with EM radiation..... not much rotational or bond stretching storage modes.
oxygen.... 21%... pretty near the same, a little more mass so a little more kinetic heat storage.....
water//// 0-4%, unevenly distributed.... more over tropics, ocean marine layer, rainforests.... less over poles/cold.... less at higher altitude....
less kinetic energy storage (mol wt 18 vs. 28 for N2 and 32 for O2, but odd shape gives more rotational energy, and bond angles plus 2 bonds allow scissors stretch as well as two bond stretch modes. evaporation and condensation are major modes of action for redistribution of atmospheric heat....
Carbon Dioxide..… mol wt 44, significant more kinetic storage. symmetric shape only allows for two rotational modes, but two bond stretches with much higher atomic weights in movement make this the most powerful energy storage molecule so far..... by an order of magnitude. At 0.04% it is about 10% if water's, but there is no change in state occurring.

So here's my guess.... estimate....

0.78 x 1 for N2 = .78
0.21 x 1.1 for O2 = .23
0.02 x 2.5 for H2O = .05
0.004 x 25 for CO2 = .10
other greenhouse gases
0.0001 x 50 = .05

So the ability of our atmosphere to hold heat would be a 1.0 with just nitrogen and oxygen, but by my estimate is increased 20% by the presence of small amounts of "greenhouse gases". This is not exactly the same as efficiency in absorbing radiation, but positively related. Maybe closely correlated....

This means that for equilibrium to be attained, the temperature of the atmosphere must rise....get warmer....

NOAA says that radiative losses increase by the exponent of 4 relative to temp increase, and they even say that this is a strong limiting factor on how hot we will get before the energy flow rebalances.

Evaporation from water surfaces will also rise.... exponentially with temperature.... and atmospheric transport of humidity will greatly increase snowfall over Arctic areas..... snow accumulations will launch another "Ice Age"..... a sort of thermostat will act to bring temps down.... once again. No runaway thermal train, folks.

 

[silesian]

EM classification is somewhat arbitrary. No natural cut off for anything other than visible light.

Totally true. It is just a language of categories that allows people to communicate more clearly.

 

[babe]

The article I linked above from NASA estimates that without our atmosphere as it is, having the effects of storage and radiation as a "greenhouse effect", we'd be 30 degrees colder as things are.

I believe the theory goes that a rise in CO2 from 320 to 360 ppm has increased our temp by 2 degrees so far. I think that would give us about 10% more evaporation and precipitation overall..... if simple kinetic equations were all there were to it.... But so far I haven't seen any report of general sustained trends to that extent.....

If there is an increase in water cycling, I suppose most of it is over the oceans, disproportionately. But I'd be wanting to get some really good data on that....

 

[babe]

I've seen some estimates of what Earth temp would be without natural atmospheric "greenhouse effect" as much as 60 degrees colder.

I noticed in the articles I linked today, or read today but didn't link, that the Earth itself generates more than 5% of our heat. Heat coming up from the core, some say with ongoing nuclear processes. Natural fission.

I think there is a cycle of volcanism on a long time scale....millions of years.... maybe a hundred million years or so, the consequence of gravity and increasing rates with concentration near the center. Hot spots near the center becoming upwardly mobile…. creating plutons that can rise to the surface and start volcanos.... trigger tectonic movement.....

At any rate, there is some geological evidence for "volcanic epochs".....

Here in Utah we had some age of increased activity around 150 million years ago, and again about 30 million years ago. Recent volcanism in the Great Basin is related geologic stretching of bedrock layers, reducing pressures on hot material not so far underneath. We have been underrun by a great sheet of molten rock, the source of our mineral deposits, and it is withdrawing now, carrying us out to sea, so to speak. But not as fast as California..... lol.

 

[silesian]

the Earth itself generates more than 5% of our heat. Heat coming up from the core, some say with ongoing nuclear processes. Natural fission.

That's the fact, Jack. Every radioactive fission process on earth warms the planet. Although the figures I've heard are higher than 5% (impossible to measure precisely). The atmosphere is the insulator that slows the flow of heat into space.

 

[Alfalfa]

By the way, the definition of heat capacity given by Silesian is the classical definition. Not the "text book" definition. The modern qm definition is the one with degrees of freedom for translational motion (temp) vs potential energy like the chemical bonds in a molecule, as given by babe. They can both be found in text books.

 

[LogGrad98]

Even what is visible can vary from person to person.

I see dead people

 

[LogGrad98]

Where is our resident physics professor to set the record straight here?

 

[babe]

Where is our resident physics professor to set the record straight here?

calling @colton???? I give him heartburn......

 

[colton]

Where is our resident physics professor to set the record straight here?

Sorry, I haven't read this thread at all. What is there to set the record straight about?

 

[babe]

By the way, the definition of heat capacity given by Silesian is the classical definition. Not the "text book" definition. The modern qm definition is the one with degrees of freedom for translational motion (temp) vs potential energy like the chemical bonds in a molecule, as given by babe. They can both be found in text books.

I think the articles I linked did a good job of say all materials can absorb any radiation. But with some sweet spots where there is a more efficient effect.

kinetic vs potential energy debate here. Do we see movement as something different from electronic change in orbital energy? Can the energy difference between electronic states be converted to movement? What's the difference between a solar cell and a moving copper wire in a magnetic field?

I think qm unifies the whole argument.

Anyway thanks to all here for participating. Challenging my old grey cells. And white cells.

 

[babe]

Sorry, I haven't read this thread at all. What is there to set the record straight about?

I've been outta school for decades and I'm talking to people who are more current on the terminology, maybe even the concepts, perhaps. Basketball fans here wanna know what we're talking about, from someone qualified to explain.

I don't know if you are a physics professor or a psychology/mass communications/PoliSci professor or what, but I think Log has the same notion somehow that you're teaching physics.

I think even if all we believe we know about carbon dioxide causing climate change is correct..... there may be some things we're not figuring on at work.... like a global thermostat system that cycles us from Ice Age to Interglacial Warm..... or something else in the Universe that can drive our climate......

So here is my discussion of the coming Ice Age.... once we get the oceans evaporating at a rate than can produce enough precipitation in the Hudson Bay zone to last as ice all summer, for a few decades.

I think I'm rusty on the terminology of PChem and physics, and Sil is giving me a schooling.... and Al is being a unifier.....

I think Log and EM just want something they can understand....