Taking into account all known factors, the planet warmed 0.2 °C more last year than climate scientists expected. More and better data are urgently needed.
The earth generally has an overall fixed rate at which it can radiate heat into space.
We dig up millions of years of stored solar energy and release it as heat.
I really don’t understand why people are surprised. Sure, it can get really complicated as you factor in varying cloud cover, solar output, greenhouse effect.
But long-term trend, it shouldn’t surprise anyone that every joule of energy we pull out of stored carbon, or even mass->energy via nuclear. We are generating more heat now than the earth is used to radiating out.
So obviously the average temperature is going to increase.
Even if we find ways to store the energy back, it takes energy to do so, and therefore more waste heat in the end.
If we want to cool the planet, we have to increase the rate that we radiate heat out into space.
At present,
the waste heat term is about four orders
of magnitude smaller than the solar term.
But at a growth factor of ten per century,
they would reach parity in roughly 400
years. Indeed, the surface temperature
of Earth would reach the boiling point
of water (373 K) in just over 400 years
under this relentless prescription. Clearly,
extrapolating our recent — seemingly
modest — 2.3% annual energy growth
very far into the future quickly becomes
ridiculous, and cannot happen.
This is not intended to suggest that
waste heat is a bigger problem than, say,
climate change from carbon dioxide
emissions.
So that’s something we’re going to need to think about after getting greenhouse gas emissions under control.
The earth generally has an overall fixed rate at which it can radiate heat into space.
We dig up millions of years of stored solar energy and release it as heat.
I really don’t understand why people are surprised. Sure, it can get really complicated as you factor in varying cloud cover, solar output, greenhouse effect.
But long-term trend, it shouldn’t surprise anyone that every joule of energy we pull out of stored carbon, or even mass->energy via nuclear. We are generating more heat now than the earth is used to radiating out.
So obviously the average temperature is going to increase.
Even if we find ways to store the energy back, it takes energy to do so, and therefore more waste heat in the end.
If we want to cool the planet, we have to increase the rate that we radiate heat out into space.
Or generate less heat. Al La use less energy. As in downsize our oversized lifestyles. As in spend less money. As in go counter to capitalism.
Waste heat will eventually be a problem, but we’re far from the limit yet:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41567-022-01652-6.epdf?sharing_token=yNwL92oPzcpklZSqVsr-ndRgN0jAjWel9jnR3ZoTv0N0u2htmeT1Hou6SrdtT_vjhsjDi8mPyrY6gILuO1cIPYM5r9vTrCV6dFSGWkHiq63t24rvELuWNN1w82farMIezAYiWj7ialZ8KkzI_SEgHP98WBPRE6PFu8lx9H4EP5A%3D
So that’s something we’re going to need to think about after getting greenhouse gas emissions under control.
This is not remotely why the planet is warming up lmao