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The oceans have a mass 1000 times that of the atmosphere. So if they were predicting 2C increase in the heat of the atmosphere wouldn't that be .002 deg Celsius
by viggity 8y ago
The oceans have a mass 1000 times that of the atmosphere. So if they were predicting 2C increase in the heat of the atmosphere wouldn't that be .002 deg Celsius in the ocean? Can you even measure that give the vastness of the ocean?
- skosch 8y agoIt's more complex than that. To heat up by those 2C, water takes over 4 times as much energy as air does. On the other hand, most of the warming happens in the upper layer of the ocean, which is a big issue because it messes with the ocean's circulation.
- viggity 8y ago<i know this is 3 days later, I'm sorry> So when I said that the ocean has 1000x the mass of the atmosphere, I did the math earlier to get the total mass of both. That is a different calculation than the below per unit of volume measurement. Sea water has a mass of ~1000kg/m^3. Sea level air has a mass of 1.2kg/m^3. How does it only take 4 times as much energy to heat up a cubic meter of seawater than a cubic meter of air? Wouldn't it be ~820 times as much?