Granules and Cycnicism

Hurricanes, Florida, and Fuel

Hurricanes seem to be rather common nowdays. There are four named storms already this July, and Dennis is having a run with the gulf of mexico. Last night my local newsman said that even here, in the middle of the entire continent, we may be getting some storms as a result of this hurricane!

Again I am not suprised, my cynicism was right. I've been expecting increasing hurricane trouble worldwide for a good long while, I suppose I didn't have an official prediction about it until a year or two ago when Florida started seeing some real hurricane trouble.

I have heard people say that the oil drilling in Alaska is partly the cause of all the screwy weather patterns. I can believe this is partly true because this drilling and harvesting of crude oil involves a lot of heat and carbon exhaust in an area near that pole that historically had relatively little exhaust, but I think the real reason is quite simply global warming.

Recently I saw a news article explaining that scientists have discovered that the Earth is now receiving about 1 full watt more enegy from the son Per Square Meter of earthly surface. This is about a third of a percent more heat that the earth is getting overall, from our sun, already, with no signs of slowing down in the near future. Most people don't realize that this is actually a lot of heat, 1 watt is enough heat to start anything flammable on fire, if concentrated in one point that's insulated well.

Personally, the idea of our exhaust causing every square meter of the Earth to heat up in measures of watts is pretty scary. The idea that the system and industry here would rather deny it and keep consumers in the dark, because of costs, is even scarier because I see it working every day.

Let's calculate the amount of extra heat we're taking on because of our exhaust. The earth is approximately 12,756.28 km in diameter on average, I'm reading, so the number of square meters in the profile, calculated conservatively (i.e. a hypothetical 2D cross-section instead of considering the 3D hemispherical curve's surface area) is about 128 million meters square, or three million kilo-watt-hours per day. I suppose that is not as much as a sizeable city's heat exhaust in a day, but I say we need to do something about this "percentage increase" that's happening with the amount of heat that gets to us from the sun. If it stopped at 1/3% I wouldn't be too concerned for my life but since I expect it to be reach a couple percent someday in the not-too-distant future, well I really don't like to think too far down those lines. It could be disasterous for the ecosphere.

It's probably more important for us to stop the atmosphere from becoming more and more greenhouse-gassy, than to stop exhausting heat, since the gasses have the effect of trapping the heat in the atmosphere preventing it from radiating back into space. Heat is important not to waste as well, I wish I could say I was recycling some but alas my AC is on, pumping all the heat from inside (and then some) to outside of the house.

Anyway I predict more hurricanes next summer, a rather warm fall and a rather cold winter this year, at least for the area I live in. It will continue to be more stormy than in the past, in general, at least until it gets cold. I don't feel like I'm even predicting anything really, more like admitting what has been happening for the last 5 or 10 years at least, and is now obvious.

posted by Catalyst @ 1:19 PM