

New approach to determining human impact on climate gives same answer

Discussion in 'Energy, Environment, and Policy' started by zack, Dec 5, 2011.

  1. VolkerP

    VolkerP EU Model S P-37

    Jul 6, 2011
    The "energy balance" approach is not obvious to many people I spoke with, academic or not. It goes along the lines
    - "Earth is radiating more energy to space than it receives from the sun."
    - "Can't be! The sun is sooo hot".
    - "But if it were not so, Earth would warm up by a massive amount - every hour, every day."
    - "uhm, possibly."
    - "and then there's energy from inside the Earth, vulcans, magma, decay heat of radioactive materials, and Earth's core slowly solidifying - all that energy plus that from the sun must be radiated away to keep today's temperatures."
    - "hadn't thought of these, well..."
    - "And that's why I want to put as little as possible of a thermal shield around earth."
    - "Oh. Yes."

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