Replies

That graph and five dollars will get you a cup of coffee down at Starbucks.

These total scientific illiterates know NOTHING of thermodynamics, and most especially, of the very unique properties of water vapor-water-ice. When water moves from one phase to another there are VERY large heat signatures involved. It takes 80 calories of heat to change one gram of ice to one gram of water, at 0 degrees Centigrade. It also takes one calorie of heat to raise the temperature of water from 0 degrees C to 1 degree C, 100 calories to warm the water from 0 degrees C to 100 degrees C. To change one gram of water to one gram of water vapor, it requires 540 calories, so VAST quantities of heat must be either lost or gained to change from one phase to the next. As long as there is liquid water, runaway global warming is not a very likely scenario, at least not until all the water is vaporized and boils off into space.

Water vapor, being lighter than the earthly atmosphere that surrounds it, rises far above the boundary layer that is the earth’s surface, and in rising, radiates its heat to space, cooling to the point where it forms microcrystals of ice, the high lacy cirrus clouds we all recognize. But the microcrystals, being larger and heavier than the surrounding atmosphere, then sink back to earth’s surface, and while passing through warmer parts of the air, absorbs heat again and becomes liquid, falling to earth as rain, or if it does not melt, as snow.

The ice-water-vapor cycle is one of the most powerful engines of meteorology, and is the prime driving force behind just about every weather phenomenon we know. And solar energy is the fuel that drives this engine.

Human beings cannot make even a tiny patch on the vast amounts of energy that are exchanged each and every day as earth turns upon its axis.