Sunday, May 01, 2005
It's Getting Hot In Here
A new study published by NASA, Columbia University and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory says that Earth's energy is "out of balance," pointing out that the "energy imbalance is large by standards of the planet's history." The report said that more heat is being absorbed from the Sun than is emitted back to space, causing global warming.
Though hardly surprising, the finding is quite juicy, given that the study was partly funded by American tax dollars and published by a U.S. government agency. The Bush administration has steadfastly dismissed global warming as greenie hubris and refused to join the Kyoto protocol drafted to cut emissions of greenhouse gasses.
The scientists led by NASA's Jim Hansen gathered 10 years of climatic records from satellites and buoys, and used computer models to study the Earth's oceans. "The energy imbalance is an expected consequence of increasing atmospheric pollution, especially carbon dioxide, methane, ozone, and black carbon particles," said Hansen. "These pollutants block the Earth's heat radiation from escaping to space, and they increase absorption of sunlight."
The scientists wrote that the imbalance between absorbed and radiateed heat is 0.85 watts per meter squared. "That will cause an additional warming of 0.6 degrees Celsius (1 degree Fahrenheit) by the end of this century," they said. "To understand the difference, think of a one-watt light bulb shining over an area of one square meter (10.76 square feet). Although it doesn't seem like much, adding up the number of feet around the world creates a big effect. To put this number into perspective, an imbalance of one-watt per square meter, maintained for the past 10,000 years is enough to melt ice equivalent to one kilometer (.6 mile) of sea level, if there were that much ice."
Though hardly surprising, the finding is quite juicy, given that the study was partly funded by American tax dollars and published by a U.S. government agency. The Bush administration has steadfastly dismissed global warming as greenie hubris and refused to join the Kyoto protocol drafted to cut emissions of greenhouse gasses.
The scientists led by NASA's Jim Hansen gathered 10 years of climatic records from satellites and buoys, and used computer models to study the Earth's oceans. "The energy imbalance is an expected consequence of increasing atmospheric pollution, especially carbon dioxide, methane, ozone, and black carbon particles," said Hansen. "These pollutants block the Earth's heat radiation from escaping to space, and they increase absorption of sunlight."
The scientists wrote that the imbalance between absorbed and radiateed heat is 0.85 watts per meter squared. "That will cause an additional warming of 0.6 degrees Celsius (1 degree Fahrenheit) by the end of this century," they said. "To understand the difference, think of a one-watt light bulb shining over an area of one square meter (10.76 square feet). Although it doesn't seem like much, adding up the number of feet around the world creates a big effect. To put this number into perspective, an imbalance of one-watt per square meter, maintained for the past 10,000 years is enough to melt ice equivalent to one kilometer (.6 mile) of sea level, if there were that much ice."
