Two big — and misleading — stories about the climate "crisis" came out this week. In one, CNN said:
That was tweeted by St Greta of Thunberg, so we know it's got to be right.
As I've written before, there's science and then there's press-release science. "Press-release science" is when someone writes a press release that isn't necessarily scientifically wrong but which is phrased to advance an agenda.
Both of these stories are press-release science.
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So "Five Hiroshima bombs a second" is 15 5 4.184e9 Joules; a year is 60 seconds 60 minutes 24 365 days, or 31,536,000 seconds; and thus 5 Hiroshima bombs a second over a year is 9.896e18 Joules per year. In the immortal words of Leeloo, "big bada boom."
Finally, to get Joules per liter, we just divide.
Which gives us 0.007143 Joules per liter. A temperature increase of 0.007143°C. Or 0.01286°F
Look, this number is so unbelievable that I've redone the calculation about five times. But even if the numerical values are incorrect (and honestly, it's not like someone used a measuring cup to check the volume of the oceans) the orders of magnitude are correct: 1e18/1e21 = 1e-3, 0.001; we're in the neighborhood of 1/1000.
The world's oceans are now heating at the same rate as if five Hiroshima atomic bombs were dropped into the water every second, scientists have said. @CNN
In another, the Independent in the UK came out with:”The amount of heat being added to the oceans is equivalent to every person on the planet running 100 microwave ovens all day and all night.” @GretaThunberg
That was tweeted by St Greta of Thunberg, so we know it's got to be right.
As I've written before, there's science and then there's press-release science. "Press-release science" is when someone writes a press release that isn't necessarily scientifically wrong but which is phrased to advance an agenda.
Both of these stories are press-release science.
[clip]
So "Five Hiroshima bombs a second" is 15 5 4.184e9 Joules; a year is 60 seconds 60 minutes 24 365 days, or 31,536,000 seconds; and thus 5 Hiroshima bombs a second over a year is 9.896e18 Joules per year. In the immortal words of Leeloo, "big bada boom."
Finally, to get Joules per liter, we just divide.
Which gives us 0.007143 Joules per liter. A temperature increase of 0.007143°C. Or 0.01286°F
Look, this number is so unbelievable that I've redone the calculation about five times. But even if the numerical values are incorrect (and honestly, it's not like someone used a measuring cup to check the volume of the oceans) the orders of magnitude are correct: 1e18/1e21 = 1e-3, 0.001; we're in the neighborhood of 1/1000.
