WendyMcElroy.com
Saturday 09 February 2013
A "Hiroshima" of EnergyAl Gore, who evidently never learned that the metric unit of energy is the joule, has been bleating the factoid that Anthropogenic Global Warming is the equivalent of 400,000 Hiroshima-sized atomic bombs a day of energy added to the planet.
Climate Sanity has done the number-crunching so I don't have to.
Crunching through the numbers I get about 420,000 "Hiroshimas" of energy per day. But what's missing from that number is context:
...which means that normal sunlight is the equivalent of 175 million "Hiroshimas" of energy a day. Al's getting all hot and bothered over an increase of one quarter of one percent* -- and that's assuming his original number for "forcing" is correct. (Al Gore? Exaggerate? Surely you jest.)
Someone should point out to Al that his Tennessee mansion burns 1/100 of a Hiroshima of energy every year. Assuming he's lived there 20 years, that's 1/5 of a Hiroshima from just one of his several dwellings. A Gulfstream IV burns about 26,000 pounds of jet fuel for an eight-hour flight; at 43 MJ/kg that's another 1/60th of a Hiroshima for each round trip to Europe. I think we can safely assume that Prince Albert has made 60 such flights in his globe-trotting career. Maybe we should call him "Hiroshima Al."
Bottom line: when you hear someone measuring energy in "Hiroshimas," you know they're trying to push an emotional button, not a rational one. Don't be awed by the figures; insist on comparative figures for context. And if you should by some unfortunate chance happen to hear an Al Gore presentation, be sure to ask him how many Hiroshimas of energy he used to get there.
* Much more easily calculated by simply dividing 0.6 W/m2 by 250 W/m2.
Climate Sanity has done the number-crunching so I don't have to.
Presumed extra CO2 forcing: This value is highly debatable, but I will play along with a commonly quoted warmist value: 0.6 Watts/m2 = 0.6 Joules /( s m2 )
Surface area of the Earth: 5.1 x 1014 m2Seconds in a day: 86,400 s / day
Yield of Hiroshima bomb: 15 kilotons of TNT
Kilotons of TNT to Joule conversion: 4.2 x 1012 Joules / kilotons of TNT
Surface area of the Earth: 5.1 x 1014 m2Seconds in a day: 86,400 s / day
Yield of Hiroshima bomb: 15 kilotons of TNT
Kilotons of TNT to Joule conversion: 4.2 x 1012 Joules / kilotons of TNT
Crunching through the numbers I get about 420,000 "Hiroshimas" of energy per day. But what's missing from that number is context:
Average insolation at the surface of the Earth: 250 W/ m2 = 250 J / s /m2
...which means that normal sunlight is the equivalent of 175 million "Hiroshimas" of energy a day. Al's getting all hot and bothered over an increase of one quarter of one percent* -- and that's assuming his original number for "forcing" is correct. (Al Gore? Exaggerate? Surely you jest.)
Someone should point out to Al that his Tennessee mansion burns 1/100 of a Hiroshima of energy every year. Assuming he's lived there 20 years, that's 1/5 of a Hiroshima from just one of his several dwellings. A Gulfstream IV burns about 26,000 pounds of jet fuel for an eight-hour flight; at 43 MJ/kg that's another 1/60th of a Hiroshima for each round trip to Europe. I think we can safely assume that Prince Albert has made 60 such flights in his globe-trotting career. Maybe we should call him "Hiroshima Al."
Bottom line: when you hear someone measuring energy in "Hiroshimas," you know they're trying to push an emotional button, not a rational one. Don't be awed by the figures; insist on comparative figures for context. And if you should by some unfortunate chance happen to hear an Al Gore presentation, be sure to ask him how many Hiroshimas of energy he used to get there.
* Much more easily calculated by simply dividing 0.6 W/m2 by 250 W/m2.
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