Climate change/Temperature reduction

The global warming causes a reduction of the artic ice shield. White ice reflects sunlight and therefore white areas on the earth surface could support temperature reduction as counter measure to global warming.

History of Subpage

This subpage was developed

• Adam Bednarczyk, MSc in Eng. from Warsaw 2017.12.04 12:50,
• 01-708 Warsaw, Poland,
• Slodowiec str. 8/66,
• Citizen: PL/US   

and was moved from the user page to the learning resource about global warming for further integration into the learning resource. Current status is alpha-version as work in progress for the transformation into a learning resource. Adding more scientific evidence and additional support for learners are required that learner are able to perform the calculation evidence based for their own country of origin.

Learning Tasks

• Try to perform the calculation mentioned below for Poland for your own country!
• Translate this page to a language spoken in the country you perform the calculation for and add an appropriate Wikiversity page e.g. in Spanish language, french, ...

Alternative Countermeasure for slowing down Global Warming

Global warming is a global challenge. The main focus in public perception is reducing greenhouse gas emission. Due to the fact that there is a feedback loop between global warming and loss of artic ice shield white reflection areas increase the thermal impact of sunlight on the earth atmosphere and this speeds up the global warming. In addition to the activity to reduce the amount of CO₂ other Greenhouse gases in the Earth's atmosphere other measures are considered in this learning resource to decrease the Earth's temperature. By mounting mirrors or painting objects white on the Earth's surface to reflect solar energy we can decrease the temperature of the Earth without reducing CO₂ in the Earth’s atmosphere. After analyzing thermal and solar data, I see it is possible to make the Earth’s temperature go down by increasing the Earth’s albedo only.

We find in various literature: “Vapour is the most important gas absorbing radiation (it causes itself 33% - 66% of the direct greenhouse effect), together with the clouds it is responsible for 66% to 85% of the greenhouse effect. The CO₂ itself is responsible for 9% - 26%, while O₃ is responsible for 7% and other greenhouse gases (including mainly methane, nitrogen oxides and freons are responsible for 8% of this effect”.  

This greenhouse effect has led to the lack of thermodynamic equilibrium in the atmosphere of the Earth. Each square meter of our planet in each second accumulates 0.9J of energy. How big this amount is, may be understood when we compare it with, for instance, a geothermal heat flux which is approximately 0.09 W/m² or with the “direct” heating of the atmosphere by human beings: 0.028 W/m² One can see that the situation of our planet resembles a house when isolation is being put on it. This is just the case – we can demonstrate in many different ways that the radiation imbalance which we can see is caused by the reinforcement of the greenhouse effect as a result of the growth of the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.  

According to these theories only decreasing the amount of carbon dioxide coming from burning coal will reduce global warming.

The greenhouse effect is not the main reason for increasing the temperature of the Earth’s atmosphere 

The reduction in burning coal will increase the amount of the natural gas burnt. While natural gas is burnt, very poisonous nitric compounds are created and they should increase greenhouse effect, too. The theory on global warming omits the influence of changes of Earth’s albedo taking place as a result of human activities. Albedo undergoes large changes in towns with high density of population characterized by a high level of industrialization requiring a lot of energy. The average value of “direct” heating of the atmosphere by a human being: 0.028 W/m² in such towns may be more than ten times/several dozens times higher. This leads to storing huge amounts of heat in buildings, on the land surface and in water reservoirs. That amount of heat in such places is so huge that it causes snow to melt in winter time and it keeps albedo low because of the lack of snow on the ground during the whole winter time in these urbanized areas. That low albedo with the continuous absorption of heat in these areas during nearly the whole winter in nearly in all European countries makes impossible cooling down of such areas to temperatures in which the snow cover might be present the whole winter limiting the absorption of great amounts of solar energy.

Let us go back to the state that we had one hundred years ago. Large areas of the ground  and water reservoirs were covered with snow in winter times. Since then in northern hemisphere we deal with continuous reduction in the areas of the land and frozen reservoirs covered with snow in northern Europe.

Snowless winters are generated by large and industrialized town agglomerations which emit large amounts of heat that is used for heating and industrial purposes. That large amount of heat released to the atmosphere causes fast melting of the snow. During a snowless winter more than 80% of solar energy is absorbed by the Earth.

The critical moment when the reduction of the area of snow cover started was the moment when the Earth lost its thermodynamic equilibrium, that is when the amount of energy absorbed by the Earth became bigger than the amount of energy emitted by Earth.

In the literature we can find that the average albedo for snow is 0,7, for land without snow 0,12 /assumed based on literature/, and for ocean water 0,025.

Calculations for Poland

Let us make some calculations for Poland

The total average insolation for December, January and February there  is 127,3 kWh/m²=458374kJ/ m². In the case that there is snow cover  89,1 kWh/m² would be reflected and only 38,2 kWh/m² would be used for melting the snow cover during these three months. When there is no snow cover 15,3  kWh/m² would be reflected and 112 kWh/m² will be absorbed and stored in land. The absorbed amount of heat is sufficient for melting 1208 kg of ice on each square meter. In case of snow cover during these three months the land is cooled by the snow and there is no heat absorption by frozen lakes,  rivers and land.

The heat absorbed and accumulated by land, buildings, water reservoirs during the whole year  allows much more snow or ice than 1208 kg to melt. Lack of the snow cover in winter time makes it impossible to cool the Earth surface and water reservoirs everywhere where there are snowless winters and this causes  global warming.

The greenhouse effect is strictly connected with the chemical composition of the Earth atmosphere. There are no reasons to assume that the chemical composition of the air on the North Pole is different from the chemical composition of the air on the South Pole. If chemical composition of the air on both poles is the same, so greenhouse effects on both poles should be the same.

Impact on Artic Ice Shield

Let us compare the differences: The Arctic is melting much faster than expected and could be ice free in summer by the late 2030s and for the Antarctic: the ice is melting at a slower rate than previously thought. Explanation: The faster melting of ice on the North Pole is caused by warm air from snowless lands surrounding the North Pole. Lack of snow mainly in Europe but also in other snowless countries around the North Pole causes increased absorption of the solar energy.  That increased absorption of solar energy increases the temperature of lands, air and waters around the North Pole. It  also causes faster and faster melting of snow and glaciers that are left in the Northern Hemisphere. Perhaps we are dealing with exponential increase of the solar energy absorbed on the North Pole and exponential increase of the amount of melted snow and glaciers.

Second difference: The fast melting of the glaciers goes on from the top of the glaciers on the North Pole. That is there where the glacier is in touch with the atmosphere. On the South Pole we deal with rapid bottom melting of glaciers. It happens there where sea water is in touch with the glacier. Much slower melting down of the glacier at its top means there is not enough heat to melt it as fast as on the North Pole. This process can be explain with the following arguments. There are snowless lands absorbing a lot solar energy surrounding the North Pole.  The heat absorbed there warms mainly the top layer of the land and it warms the atmosphere.  There are seas around the South Pole. Solar rays penetrate the whole depth of these seas. Huge amounts of water and large specific heat of water cause a very low increase of the sea water temperature around the South Pole. The Antarctic is still very cool and the Arctic is getting warmer. In my opinion, the above differences exclude the existence of an meaningful impact of the greenhouse effect  on the global warming of the atmosphere as described by Mr G.S. Callendara.

The essence of the Method for stopping of the Global Warming is using reflective surfaces to restore thermodynamic equilibrium for the Earth. 

The effect of the Global Warming will be stopped when the amount of removed heat energy will be equal to the energy causing the lack of thermodynamic equilibrium

The energy to be removed should be at least equal:

E = 0,9 { W/m² } x 4 x π x  (6370000{m})² x 24{h/day}x3600{s/h} x365{days/year}= 1,5x10^{22 {}J/year}

From that moment our aim is to find  the area of the reflective layer A_r that would allow to remove the E=1,5x10^{22 {}J/year} energy from the Earth’s atmosphere during one year. To calculate  this value there is an indispensable parameter to find, that is the coefficient for transmission of solar radiation through the earth's atmosphere. For simplicity it was assumed, that the   

transmission coefficient for incoming solar radiation to Earth's surface is the same as for reflected radiation from the Earth’s surface. 

Let's go back to Fig.1 in Global Energy Budget where we find:

• 341 { W/m² }  is power of solar energy incoming to Earth

• 161 { W/m² }  is power of solar energy absorbed by the Earth's surface

• 23  { W/m² } is power of solar energy reflected by the Earth's surface 

Values of power 161{W/m²} and 23{W/m²} concern solar energy that reached the Earth's surface, so the coefficient of transmission of solar energy through the Earth's atmosphere is:  

(161+23)xt/341xt = 0,54    (t – time)

and equals 0,54.

For further calculations we assume the albedo of the used reflective layer as equal =0.8     

We find the value of area A_r from the below equation: 

A_rx161W/m² x0.54x365 days/year x 24h/day x 3600s/h x 0.8= 1,5x10^{22 {}J/year}

 A_r = 5,98x 10¹²{ m²}  = 5.98 x  10⁶ { km}²

 The  A_r  is equal to the area of the square with the side 2445,4 km long.

The calculated area was valid on the day when the value of the heat accumulation 0,9  {W/m²} was established. Now the value may be higher.

The horizontal reflective layer of only 57{km}² area is needed to remove the average value of “direct” heating of the atmosphere by a human being.

For years we have been deal with increasing snowless areas. It means that the Earth is absorbing more and more heat from solar energy. That causes the situation that we may have snowless Northern Hemisphere. The lack of the thermodynamic equilibrium in the atmosphere is still growing as a function of snowless areas on the Earth. We may expect warmer ocean water and increased temperatures on the Southern Hemisphere. We must remember that the melting only of the glaciers on the South Pole will increase the  level of ocean waters by 66 meters. If we want restore the climate of the Earth as it was 100 years ago, we need to bring back snow and glaciers in winter time in the Northern Hemisphere.

Human beings especially must protect glaciers, especially South Pole glaciers from melting. I see that there is only one low cost way to protect the Earth from deluge, i.e. we should start using reflective surfaces as soon as possible.