Dear David,
I think an array of incandescent light bulbs around the world would work
much better. If you have 100 W bulbs, and want to model an imbalance at
the surface of 1 W/m2, then you will need one light bulb every 100 m2,
multiplied by 1 over the fraction of energy emitted by each bulb that is
heat rather than light. Light bulbs in an array separated by 5-10 m on
a side would not perhaps seem dramatic, but if you would zoom out and
see them everywhere on Earth, it could be.
Alan Robock
Alan Robock, Distinguished Professor
Editor, Reviews of Geophysics
Director, Meteorology Undergraduate Program
Department of Environmental Sciences Phone: +1-848-932-5751
Rutgers University Fax: +1-732-932-8644
14 College Farm Road E-mail: [email protected]
New Brunswick, NJ 08901-8551 USA http://envsci.rutgers.edu/~robock
http://twitter.com/AlanRobock
Watch my 18 min TEDx talk at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qsrEk1oZ-54
On 10/1/2013 2:55 PM, David Appell wrote:
Alan,
I see your point.... Do you (or does anyone) have a more appropriate
analogy for such large amounts of heat? The tempting thing about the
"Hiro" is it's just the right amount (63 terajoules) for many global
climate numbers.... I have sometimes used "Civ," the power production
of all of human civilization (~15 terawatts), but it's not as
intuitive or readily imagined.
David
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On 10/1/2013 11:30 AM, Alan Robock wrote:
Dear All,
I think this is a terrible comparison to make and should not be
used. I heard someone this summer who was trained by Al Gore use
this and she did not distinguish between all the effects of atomic
bombs and the energy equivalent of the atomic explosions.
Equating nuclear war and global warming is a false comparison.
Nuclear war is a much worse fate for our planet, and is a scare
tactic. The number is correct (I did the calculation myself when I
first heard of this), but trapping energy has completely different
effects from dropping nuclear bombs on people. Using this is
distracting, sensational, and easy to refute if the speaker does not
carefully explain that it is the energy released by the bombs, with
no other effects including radioactivity, fires, and blast.
I told John Cook this at the AGU Chapman Conference on Climate
Communication this summer, and he said he would consider this
recommendation, but I don't know if he plans to continue to feature
this idea on Skeptical Science.
But see
http://thebulletin.org/how-many-hiroshimas-does-it-take-describe-climate-change
for another point of view.
Alan
Alan Robock, Distinguished Professor
Editor, Reviews of Geophysics
Director, Meteorology Undergraduate Program
Department of Environmental Sciences Phone: +1-848-932-5751
Rutgers University Fax: +1-732-932-8644
14 College Farm Road E-mail:[email protected]
New Brunswick, NJ 08901-8551 USAhttp://envsci.rutgers.edu/~robock
http://twitter.com/AlanRobock
Watch my 18 min TEDx talk athttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qsrEk1oZ-54
On 10/1/13 1:22 PM, Greg Rau wrote:
To amplify Al's "400,000 Hiroshimas/day" statement below see:
http://theconversation.com/four-hiroshima-bombs-a-second-how-we-imagine-climate-change-16387
It's actually 345,600 Hiroshimas/day or 4 bombs/sec, but you get the
idea. 90% of the heat is going into the ocean. This would seem a
powerful analogy (minus the radionuclides) for what we are doing to
the planet and why we need to intervene.
Greg
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