Almost everyone knows about global warming. And everyone thinks that carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases are the culprit. I have a different view of the scenario. My reasoning is based on the law of conservation of energy and the kinetic theory of gases.
Background:
Our present idea of global warming is based on the fact that heat radiations are trapped by the greenhouse gases and hence, the average temperature of the atmosphere is rising. If we look into this we are actually referring to the heat radiations from the sun being trapped. We are not considering any heat that is being generated on our planet or we are simply ignoring it; assuming that it is too less compared to what greenhouse gases trap (well I do not know how correct this is). I have a different view of the problem and it related to mainly the heat that is generated on earth.
Important Laws:
Following laws should be noted:
1. “Energy can neither be created nor destroyed; it can only be transformed from one form to another” – law of conservation of energy
2. “Kinetic energy of a molecule is directly proportional to the absolute temperature” – from the kinetic theory of gases
My argument goes like this:
Any process that occurs on earth uses some energy. A part of the energy is used to do the work while the remaining part is lost in some unusable form. These unusable forms can be any form of energy. Consider for example the horn blown by an automobile; it is a conversion of electrical energy to sound energy, i.e. compression and rarefaction to the air. The sound would travel some distance and ultimately fade away. Now this energy which was sound energy earlier is lost into some form of energy. Well what is it? The sound energy is lost into the motion of the components of air (which are mostly gases and water vapor), hence the average kinetic energy of the molecules increases. From (2) we have that the temperature of the air has also increased. Other processes that occur might directly heat up the air resulting in the increase in the temperature.
I do not disagree with the fact that the amount of increase in the temperature would be really less (0+ for all practical purposes). But there is not just one process that is going on, there are infinite such processes. Hence, the temperature increase now becomes
Infinity x Zero = (which might be finite)
Our problem is now to determine what is this finite value and how well can this model predict rise in temperature.
I strongly believe that the heat generated by various processes occurring on earth is big reason for global warming and hence, less blame must be given to the greenhouse gases.
4 comments:
Ok I agree that the temp must increase due to the activities carried out. The heat given to the air molecules will be dissipated to the outer space too if it is not trapped by the green house gases.
Your argument rests on 2 assumptions: the energy we burn in doing work wouldn't be burnt anyway (true of fossil fuels, less clear e.g. if we use solar energy -- that may have gone to heating e.g. the ground anyway) and that the actual amount of energy is significant compared with incoming solar energy.
You need to quantify your argument before anyone should pay attention to it. Let's try ...
Wikipedia offers some hints: total energy from the sun potentially available at the surface: 3850 zettajoules (ZJ) per year; total energy consumption in 2004: 0.471 ZJ. Do a simple calculation: the sun is dumping 8000 times the energy on the earth that we are consuming, and that's not counting energy absorbed by the atmosphere on the way down.
Of course you should double-check anything on Wikipedia but these numbers suggest your theory is dead in the water. Sorry. Nice try.
Thanks for your comment Philip. Even Dr. Dáithí Stone suggested the same. There had been a similar (to what I have written) phenomena observed in Canada. But it was not enough to cause the warming at a global scale.
You may also want to look up the urban heat island effect, also well summarized on Wikipedia.
Short summary: despite some trying to argue the contrary, direct warming induced by industrial activity and general urbanization is a minor global effect in all credible studies.
You may also want to look at NASA's Earth's City Lights images to see where urbanization is concentrated and contrast with where warming is strongest via NASA's trend mapping facility at GISS.
The thing that should jump out at you is the warming trend does not correlate with the most strongly lit (i.e., most industrialized) parts of the planet.
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