There are measurements indicating that the Earth

’s water and surface temperature have increased.

Some information here:  http://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/news/20050428/

“Earth’s Energy Out of Balance”

“Apr. 28, 2005”

“Ten years of observations show that Earth’s oceans absorbed an average of 6.02 excess watt-years of energy per square meter (a watt-year is the total amount of energy supplied by 1 watt of power for a year.)”

Earth’s energy balance can be tipped one way or another depending on the amount of energy input and/or output.  How great the energy increase or decrease must be, to make a significant difference in our lifestyle is still somewhat of a mystery.

The above web site does have the following information.

“The present planetary energy imbalance is large by standards of Earth’s history. For example, an imbalance of 1 Watt per square meter maintained for the last 10,000 years is sufficient to melt ice equivalent to 1 kilometer of sea level (if there were that much ice), or raise the temperature of the ocean above the thermocline [the boundary layer between the warm, surface waters and the deep ocean] by more than 100°C”

Nuclear reactions are very energetic, for instance information from this site says:

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uranium-235

 

The fission of one atom of U-235 generates 202.5

 

MeV = 3.244 × 10^-11 J, which translates to 19.54 TJ/mol, or 83.14 TJ/kg

It would be interesting to know how many kg of U-235 has been dug out of the ground or converted through nuclear processes.

From the web site:  [http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/122432/20110314/japan-earthquake-nuclear-reactor-us-fukushima-daiichi-radiation-chernobyl-meltdown-explosion.htm

The information is that:

“–US is the world’s largest producer of nuclear power-based electricity, producing 838 TWh (terawatt hour) which is 30.7 percent of the world total of 2731 TWh.

Since energy conversions to power are never 100 percent efficient, it means that when

2731 TWh of electrical energy is generated, then there is more than that amount of energy being released into the environment in the form of waste heat.  All the electrical energy generated this way will eventually convert to heat and will dissipate into the environment, so when the amount of 2731 TWh is converted to heat energy that figure represents only about one third of the total heat energy that was generated.

Then the nuclear power plants alone produce 2731 * 3 =  8193 TWh worth of heat energy.

(8193 Twh = 2.949*10 to the 19th power of joules.)

Now, add to that all the heat energy produced by burning fossil fuels and the total quantity will be much larger.

 

Information from:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth%27s_atmosphere  indicates that the mass of the atmosphere is about 5 quadrillion (5×10¹⁵) tonnes.

So we have 5*10 ^15 tonnes of air and we are converting 8193 Terawatt hours of power into heat energy and releasing it to the said atmosphere.  Heat is directly related to the kinetic energy of the molecules.

There are 8760 hours in a year, so 8760*8193= 71,770,680 TWh worth of heat energy has been generated by nuclear power plants alone in the last year.

Now suppose that such a quantity of energy has been generated for the period of 50 years,

50*71770680= 35,885,340,000 Twh worth of power was converted to heat during that period of time.   35.88534 billion TWh = 1.292*10^26 joules.

That quantity of heat is in addition to the natural heating caused by the sun and the Earth itself.

Add to this the following.

From Scientific American January 26, 2009

 

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=nuclear-waste-lethal-trash-or-renewable-energy-source&page=3

It states that:

“as much as 95 percent of the energy in fissile uranium remains in the waste.”

 

If the above stated figure of8,193 TWhis only 5% of the total energy that will convert to heat energy, then the total heat energy production from nuclear power plants alone is equivalent to 3,277,200 TW per hour, and that is equivalent to 1.18*10^22 joules.

That quantity

is approximately 0.78 times the total energy from the sun that hits the Earth in 24 hours.   We are generating 1.18*10^22 joules in one hour, meaning that we are inputting 24 times the1.18*10^22 joules or 78.65 million Twh J of energy into the atmosphere during every 24 hours.

 

 

No wonder the globe is warming. The question is: Why have we not burnt to a crisp?

According to the laws of physics, energy can not be created or destroyed, so that any energy that we convert from stored/potential energy into kinetic energy must manifest itself as an increase in the molecular motion of the materials in the immediate vicinity, from there it can be dissipated further by conduction, convection or radiation.

The planet Earth can lose heat energy in two different ways, one is that of radiation, and the other method can be compared to convection and evaporation.

It is a fact that hot air rises, air molecules that obtain kinetic energy from any source will tend to rise higher in the atmosphere, the more energy they have the higher they go, if the kinetic energy of the molecules is extremely high, (about 7 miles per second.) then the molecules can escape Earth

’s gravitational field and in that way they can take the kinetic energy (heat) with them to outer space and leaving the colder molecules behind.

If there are enough atmospheric molecules that are escaping into space, then all types of climatic changes will occur.

For instance the ozone layer may be disappearing into space through the process of over heating, instead of being destroyed by heavy molecules such as CFC’s.  Disappearance of ozone can have very great consequences globally.

Also the temperature changes of the atmosphere will become more extreme.

Extreme temperature changes will create more violent storms, lower atmospheric pressures will cause higher wind speeds.  Think of the jet stream at ground level.

If Earth’s atmosphere became as thin as that of the moon, then we would experience similar temperature changes here as there are on the moon.

Earth’s atmosphere has weight, it presses against the Earth’s crust, if the weight of the atmosphere is reduced significantly, then the internal pressures will have a better chance to erupt onto the surface.  More volcanic eruptions and earthquakes, anyone?

Between 29-FEB-2012 21:59:37 and 30-MAR-2012 09:40:56 there were 666 earthquakes displayed of magnitude >= 4.0. Source:

http://www.iris.edu/seismon/last30.html

 

The NASA with the

“ATREX” experiment will hopefully give a better understanding of how much atmosphere the Earth is loosing into space within a given time period.

If you see any gaping errors in my speculation please point them out.