Is the Earth Gaining Or Losing Mass?

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Is the Earth Gaining Or Losing Mass?

Posted by timothy on Thursday February 2, 2012 @08:06AM from the do-your-genes-make-this-planet-look-fat? dept.

Hugh Pickens writes writes "BBC recently asked physicist and Cambridge University professor Dave Ansell to draw up a balance sheet of the mass that's coming in to the earth, and the mass going out to find out if the earth is gaining or losing mass. By far the biggest contributor to the world's mass is the 40,000 tonnes of dust that is falling from space to Earth every year. 'The Earth is acting like a giant vacuum cleaner powered by gravity in space, pulling in particles of dust,' says Dr. Chris Smith. Another factor increasing the earth's mass is global warming which adds about 160 tonnes a year because as the temperature of the Earth goes up, energy is added to the system, so the mass must go up. On the minus side, at the very center of the Earth, within the inner core, there exists a sphere of uranium five mile in diameter which acts as a natural nuclear reactor so these nuclear reactions cause a loss of mass of about 16 tonnes per year." (Read more, below.) Pickens continues: "What about launching rockets and satellites into space, like Phobos-Grunt? Smith discounts this as the mass is negligible and most of it will fall back down to Earth again anyway. But by far the biggest factor in earth's weight loss are the 95,000 tonnes of hydrogen that escape from the atmosphere every year. 'The other very light gas this is happening to is helium and there is much less of that around, so it's about 1,600 tonnes a year of helium that we lose.' Taking all the factors into account, Smith reckons the Earth is getting about 50,000 tonnes lighter a year, which is just less than half the gross weight of the Costa Concordia, the Italian cruise liner that recently ran aground."

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I was really hoping for gaining mass by elrous0 · 2012-02-02 08:06 · Score: 5, Funny

It would have given me a nice excuse the next time my wife noticed I had gained weight. "It's not the junk food, honey. The earth is gaining mass and causing me to weigh more!!!"

--
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
1. Re:I was really hoping for gaining mass by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-02 08:28 · Score: 0
  
  Global warming is giving me a fat arse!!!
2. Re:I was really hoping for gaining mass by RenHoek · 2012-02-02 08:34 · Score: 4, Funny
  
  Well I got good new for you regardless. Since the earth is losing mass, the gravity will become weaker, resulting in lower numbers on your bathroom scale. :)
  (Although it's probably not going to be so noticeable in the shortcut.)
3. Re:I was really hoping for gaining mass by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-02 08:37 · Score: 2, Funny
  
  Look at it the other way: The earth is losing mass, so you're doing it a favor by gaining mass to compensate.
4. Re:I was really hoping for gaining mass by elrous0 · 2012-02-02 08:42 · Score: 2
  
  If only gravity wasn't the weakest of the fundamental interactions. Damn you, physics!
  
  --
  SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
5. Re:I was really hoping for gaining mass by Chris+Burke · 2012-02-02 08:59 · Score: 3, Funny
  
  My take-away is that we're going to have to kick Global Warming into high-gear in order to counteract the much more serious (and embarrassing) Global Shrinkage!
  
  --
  
  The enemies of Democracy are
6. Re:I was really hoping for gaining mass by rollingcalf · 2012-02-02 09:19 · Score: 0
  
  Except that the mass gained by him was transferred from the food that he ate, and not created from outer space.
  
  --
  ---------
  There is inferior bacteria on the interior of your posterior.
7. Re:I was really hoping for gaining mass by Toonol · 2012-02-02 09:22 · Score: 5, Funny
  
  You're not getting fatter, baby... the extra pounds are because you're getting hotter!
8. Re:I was really hoping for gaining mass by riverat1 · 2012-02-02 09:32 · Score: 2
  
  Kind of like Viagra for the globe.
9. Re:I was really hoping for gaining mass by griffjon · 2012-02-02 09:50 · Score: 4, Funny
  
  Except that the mass gained by him was transferred from the food that he ate, and not created from outer space.
  Well, that depends on your diet, now doesn't it?
  
  --
  Returned Peace Corps IT Volunteer
10. Re:I was really hoping for gaining mass by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-02 10:12 · Score: 0
  
  Relevant
11. Re:I was really hoping for gaining mass by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-02 11:05 · Score: 0
  
  ob. Spaceballs
  Barf: Waitress! Waitress! What did he order?
  Waitress: Oh, he had the special. Barf: That's what I ordered!
  Change my order to the soup!
  Lone Starr: Good move. (Chestburster emerges)
12. Re:I was really hoping for gaining mass by CharlyFoxtrot · 2012-02-02 13:04 · Score: 1
  
  My take-away is that we're going to have to kick Global Warming into high-gear in order to counteract the much more serious (and embarrassing) Global Shrinkage!
  No, no, the earth is expanding :-)
  
  --
  If all else fails, immortality can always be assured by spectacular error.
13. Re:I was really hoping for gaining mass by jamesh · 2012-02-02 14:39 · Score: 1
  
  Well I got good new for you regardless. Since the earth is losing mass, the gravity will become weaker, resulting in lower numbers on your bathroom scale. :)
  (Although it's probably not going to be so noticeable in the shortcut.)
  And if you do notice a difference on the bathroom scales caused by the Earth losing slight amounts of mass, then you shouldn't need your wife to tell you you need to diet.
14. Re:I was really hoping for gaining mass by WaywardGeek · 2012-02-02 14:41 · Score: 1
  
  Well, this is a lame place to post, but I read the next 200 posts, and they're all lame places! I thought I'd bring up the fact that at the center of the earth, gravity is zero. TFA talks about gravity pushing out all the non-uranium due to it's mass, creating a 5-mile diameter ball in the center that acts like Earth's interior natural reactor. Even at 2.5 miles from the center, that gravitational attraction to is going to be pretty tiny. I would expect random weather-like currents to blow away such a core, unless the core really is solid, in which case, how did the uranium migrate through solid steel under almost no gravity to the center? Is there a shrinkage joke that applies?
  
  --
  Celebrate failure, and then learn from it - Nolan Bushnell
15. Re:I was really hoping for gaining mass by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-02 14:52 · Score: 0
  
  Actually, I think the excuse is valid: Earth's weight loss is all in the atmosphere, which being a sphere around you, has exactly 0 gravitational pull on you (vector sum). The solid part of the earth is gaining approximately 40,000 tonnes per year, thus increasing your weight, even if your mass is constant
16. Re:I was really hoping for gaining mass by viperidaenz · 2012-02-02 15:11 · Score: 1
  
  Perhaps the uranium got there because it is the most dense matter that makes up a significant portion of the earth and while the earth was being formed it was almost entirely liquid. As you go down under the crust its pretty hot and non-solid still. I have no idea where you got "solid steel" from. Iron would be a little more accurate since steel is a man made alloy of carbon and iron.
17. Re:I was really hoping for gaining mass by dryeo · 2012-02-02 18:50 · Score: 1
  
  I wondered the same thing, at the center of the Earth you'd weigh nothing as gravity would pull you equally in every direction.
  The other flaw is the idea that stars are jump started by the same process and only that same process. How did the first stars start burning? And the idea that dark matter is stars that didn't ignite. One of the first things that was looked for to explain dark matter was regular cold matter and very little was found. A dark star will still block out light.
  
  --
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
18. Re:I was really hoping for gaining mass by Guignol · 2012-02-02 21:12 · Score: 2
  
  Shell theorem => Inside the earth the gravitationali field varies linearly away from the center.
  It is indeed zero at the center, but at the center, this is the pressure of all the rest of the matter that should worry you instead of the direct gravitational effect
  since the rest of the matter wants to join you at the center
19. Re:I was really hoping for gaining mass by MrKaos · 2012-02-03 01:35 · Score: 1
  
  Well I got good new for you regardless. Since the earth is losing mass, the gravity will become weaker, resulting in lower numbers on your bathroom scale. :)
  (Although it's probably not going to be so noticeable in the shortcut.)
  Maybe he should got on that weight loss TV Reality show, you know The Fattest Loser
  
  --
  My ism, it's full of beliefs.
20. Re:I was really hoping for gaining mass by elrous0 · 2012-02-03 02:34 · Score: 1
  
  And if you do notice a difference on the bathroom scales caused by the Earth losing slight amounts of mass, then you shouldn't need your wife to tell you you need to diet.
  Lol, it might actually be fun to do the math on this. I should probably give it to my kid as a learning project.
  
  --
  SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
21. Re:I was really hoping for gaining mass by elrous0 · 2012-02-03 02:37 · Score: 1
  
  The Fattest Loser
  And the winner is...guy who went to the moon and lost 83% of his body weight!
  
  --
  SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
22. Re:I was really hoping for gaining mass by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-03 05:01 · Score: 0
  
  Since the earth is losing mass, hopefully the Sun will pull us a little closer and we can have a 364 day orbit and get rid of the LEAP shit and get down to a nice even calendar. 13 months of 28 days.
Good grief. Religious zealots really annoy me. by jmorris42 · 2012-02-02 08:07 · Score: -1, Offtopic

Can we put out a memo that EVERY SINGLE science story doesn't need a green religious hook in it? Please? You guys are worse than the most rabid Pentecostal.
I promise you that if you look at the error bars on the 40,000 in and 95,000 numbers the 160 atributed to global warming is lost in the noise. And that is IF you accept that number in the first place which is pretty bogus sounding. Anyone remember just how much energy is in mass anymore? How one kilogram of mass directly converted to energy is so much fricking energy that it would probably power all of civilization for a year or more? So now burning (hint, just a chemical action) some dead dinosaur is releasing the energy equivilent of 160 TONNES? Eh? The mass of the burned material drops by the amount of the released energy and either escapes to space or ends up captured as mass somewhere on Earth. IF one assumes AGW the mass of heating the crust and atmosphere of the earth a tiny fraction of a degree per year isn't going to give tons either. Math people, try it sometime. It works a lot better than your hokey religion.

--
Democrat delenda est
1. Re:Good grief. Religious zealots really annoy me. by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-02 08:10 · Score: 5, Funny
  
  IF one assumes AGW the mass of heating the crust and atmosphere of the earth a tiny fraction of a degree per year isn't going to give tons either. Math people, try it sometime. It works a lot better than your hokey religion.
  And neither match a good blaster by your side.
2. Re:Good grief. Religious zealots really annoy me. by ClioCJS · 2012-02-02 08:11 · Score: 1
  
  I have no idea what you are talking about. Are you responding to someone, or just ranting into the ether?
  
  --
  -Clio
  Karma: Bad (mostly from not giving a fuck)
  Blog: http://clintjcl.wordpress.com
3. Re:Good grief. Religious zealots really annoy me. by tiffany352 · 2012-02-02 08:13 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  According to E=mc^2, one gram of matter is equivalent to 10^13 J of energy (according to Wolfram|Alpha).
4. Re:Good grief. Religious zealots really annoy me. by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-02 08:16 · Score: 5, Funny
  
  Math people, try it sometime. It works a lot better than your hokey religion.
  Don't try to frighten us with your sorcerous ways, Lord jmorris42. Your sad devotion to that ancient math has not helped you conjure up the stolen data tapes, or given you enough clairvoyance to find the rebels' hidden fortress...
5. Re:Good grief. Religious zealots really annoy me. by noh8rz2 · 2012-02-02 08:17 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  So now burning (hint, just a chemical action) some dead dinosaur is releasing the energy equivilent of 160 TONNES?
  I'm pretty sure he means that if the surface temperature increases by 1 degree C, then that corresponds to a higher amount of energy in the planet. it has nothing to do with burning fuel or anything else.
6. Re:Good grief. Religious zealots really annoy me. by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-02 08:18 · Score: -1, Offtopic
  
  Indeed, labeling "global warming" as a contributor to mass is deceiving, "man-made global warming" wouldn't increase earth's mass at all. Combustion in a closed environment cannot increase or decrease mass.
  Solar energy, however, does increase Earth's mass via energy, and a byproduct of that energy is global warming (as opposed to having Pluto-like global freezing)
7. Re:Good grief. Religious zealots really annoy me. by icebike · 2012-02-02 08:18 · Score: 1
  
  What about insolation?
  
  --
  Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
8. Re:Good grief. Religious zealots really annoy me. by Microlith · 2012-02-02 08:18 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  Can we put out a memo that EVERY SINGLE science story doesn't need a green religious hook in it?
  Ah, so the earth isn't retaining an increasing amount of heat? What evidence do you base this assertion on?
  
  Anyone remember just how much energy is in mass anymore? How one kilogram of mass directly converted to energy is so much fricking energy that it would probably power all of civilization for a year or more?
  Spread throughout the whole of the Earth, combined with how much we're incapable of utilizing, that totally doesn't surprise me. Consider how much energy from the Sun hits the Earth every year that all just goes to waste, let alone what is reflected or shines off in other directions.
  
  So now burning (hint, just a chemical action) some dead dinosaur is releasing the energy equivilent of 160 TONNES? Eh?
  I think only a reactionary, kneejerk idiot would make this kind of ridiculously wrong statement.
  
  IF one assumes AGW the mass of heating the crust and atmosphere of the earth a tiny fraction of a degree per year isn't going to give tons either. Math people, try it sometime. It works a lot better than your hokey religion.
  It'd help your argument if you had something more than a tenuous grasp on thermodynamics and the processes involved with the retention of heat. Also, do consider that when working with the masses of planets and the energy output of stars, 160 tons is so easy to come across that, yes, it is highly like that this is in fact the case. Funny, though, how you get so violently worked up over it.
9. Re:Good grief. Religious zealots really annoy me. by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-02 08:23 · Score: 1
  
  Sadly, your attempt at condescendingly enlightening all of us succumbs to your own ignorance. The attribution of mass to excess thermal energy is not related to direct energy output from chemical reactions such as the burning of coal. It is instead related to the increased heat from the sun trapped by the additional carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, which raises the total energy storage of the system.
  Knowledge, jmorris42. Try it sometime. It works a lot better than your hokey attitude of denial and foolishness.
10. Re:Good grief. Religious zealots really annoy me. by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-02 08:26 · Score: -1
  
  I know that your point/rant is about the implication of global warming in that sentence, and I have no opinion on that, but as for the rest I had the exact same thought:
  
  WTF ? Math people, try it ...
  
  So if I get this right, you extract oil , you burn it, temperature increases and suddenly Earth's mass increases because Energy on Earth *increased* ? I don't know about the global warming/change part, but I call BS on that ...
  
  We should stop all research on fusion now, it's going to double Earth's mass, therefore increasing gravity to an unsustainable level ...
11. Re:Good grief. Religious zealots really annoy me. by bigtrike · 2012-02-02 08:26 · Score: 1
  
  Nobody is claiming that burning fossil fuels is causing an issue from heat released from the chemical reaction. Sort of like how if you detonate an atomic bomb, the fallout kills far more than the initial bomb blast.
  Are you suggesting that mass is converted into energy in a chemical reaction?
12. Re:Good grief. Religious zealots really annoy me. by blueg3 · 2012-02-02 08:28 · Score: 5, Informative
  
  So now burning (hint, just a chemical action) some dead dinosaur is releasing the energy equivilent of 160 TONNES? Eh?
  No. Burning is mass-neutral. Not only is it chemical, as you point out, but the energy released during burning is still in Earth, so by mass-energy-conservation, the total mass of the Earth is unchanged.
  It's the increasing average temperature of the Earth that causes the increase in mass. That temperature increase is not energy released from burning fuel, but rather additional energy captured from solar radiation (as a result of increased atmospheric CO2). So ultimately all the additional mass is coming from solar radiation.
  160 tons of mass ~= 10^22 J
  Solar irradiance over the surface of the Earth ~= 10^17 W ~= 10^24 J/yr
  
  Math people, try it sometime.
  I see that you didn't take your own advice. I see no math in your post whatsoever, despite the fact that 1 kg of mass in energy is easy to compute and the total energy used by civilization has been estimated before.
  
  IF one assumes AGW the mass of heating the crust and atmosphere of the earth a tiny fraction of a degree per year isn't going to give tons either.
  See, here math would have been useful.
13. Re:Good grief. Religious zealots really annoy me. by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-02 08:29 · Score: 1
  
  "Since the Earth's cross sectional area is 127,400,000 square km, the total Sun's power intercepted by the Earth is 1.74E+17 Watts but as the earth rotates, no energy is received during the night and the Sun's energy is distributed across the Earth's entire surface area so that the average insolation is only one quarter of the solar constant or about 342 Watts per square meter. Taking into account the seasonal and climatic conditions the actual power reaching the ground generally averages less than 200 Watts per square meter. Thus the average power intercepted at any time by the earth's surface is around 127.4 X 106 X 106 X 200 = 25.4 X 1015 Watts or 25,400 TeraWatts.
  
  Integrating this power over the whole year the total solar energy received by the earth will be:
  
  25,400 TW X 24 X 365 = 222,504,000 TeraWatthours (TWh)"
  
  So what is the mass equivalent of 222,504,000 TeraWatthours if one gram of matter is equivalent to 10E+13 J of energy?
14. Re:Good grief. Religious zealots really annoy me. by necro81 · 2012-02-02 08:33 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  I think the point the author is making isn't about the energy of burning fossil fuels, it's about the heat trapping that results. Normally the Earth is at ~100% energy balance with respect to solar radiation: a lot comes in (174 petawatts), and just about all of it gets radiated back out, continuously. But by trapping extra energy here on Earth in the form of heat, AGW gradually increases the Earth's total energy. E=mc^2 is not just for nuclear reactions: any system that gains or loses energy effectively gains or loses an equivalent mass. By how much? This guy says it's the energy equivalent of 160 tons of mass 160 tons, when converted to energy, is 1.44*10^22 Joules: a whole bigass boatload of energy. But, it is actually rather small (1/400th) compared to the total energy received by Earth from the sun in one year. So it doesn't take but a tiny percentage change the energy balance, accumulated over many decades, to get 160 tons of mass.
15. Re:Good grief. Religious zealots really annoy me. by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-02 08:33 · Score: 1
  
  global ocean heat content (from NODC) has been flat for the last 10 years. As have air temps. So that would be zero accumulated weight in terms of heat energy - and in fact a net loss because of radiated heat from earth's core.
  http://bobtisdale.files.wordpress.com/2012/01/figure-116.png
16. Re:Good grief. Religious zealots really annoy me. by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-02 08:33 · Score: 0
  
  Congratulations! You've just posted the most idiotic slashdot comment of 2012. Every single sentence of your little rant is factually incorrect.
  Geez, talk about religious delusions...
17. Re:Good grief. Religious zealots really annoy me. by Frenzied+Apathy · 2012-02-02 08:37 · Score: 0
  
  +10 Funny!
  
  --
  The cake is a lie.
18. Re:Good grief. Religious zealots really annoy me. by tiffany352 · 2012-02-02 08:38 · Score: 2
  
  Popping that number into Wolfram|Alpha, getting the conversion to Joules and converting that to grams yields 8.912×10^9 grams.
19. Re:Good grief. Religious zealots really annoy me. by WhiplashII · 2012-02-02 08:39 · Score: 2, Interesting
  
  Honestly, though, the state that global warming is adding 160 tons of mass to Earth is just BS. You could say that if we were talking about geological time periods, but global warming (if it exists) definitely doesn't exist for geological time periods. Ice ages last long enough to get noticed by the planet's interior, warming periods do not.
  It would take thousands to millions of years for a one degree average surface temperature change to work it's way through the entire planet. And even the worst case runaway global warming projections do not predict one degree per year. Long before the entire planet is heated by rising surface temperatures, the next ice age will hit us.
  
  --
  while (sig==sig) sig=!sig;
20. Re:Good grief. Religious zealots really annoy me. by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-02 08:40 · Score: 1
  
  8912.48717 metric tonnes, but remember most of that is radiated back out, so the real question is what is the capture delta from any global warming
21. Re:Good grief. Religious zealots really annoy me. by blueg3 · 2012-02-02 08:43 · Score: 1
  
  To add more math:
  You'd have to heat 10^19 kg of air (air only) by 1 K to increase its mass by 160 ton. [ (160 ton * c^2) / (N_A * k_B * 1 K) * (29 g/mol) = 4.6 * 10^19 kg ] The mass of Earth's atmosphere is 10^18 kg (5 * 10^18 kg). So it's well within the realm of "you'd need to analyze this more carefully".
22. Re:Good grief. Religious zealots really annoy me. by Chris+Burke · 2012-02-02 08:47 · Score: 1
  
  So what is the mass equivalent of 222,504,000 TeraWatthours if one gram of matter is equivalent to 10E+13 J of energy?
  8912 metric tonnes.
  
  --
  
  The enemies of Democracy are
23. Re:Good grief. Religious zealots really annoy me. by blueg3 · 2012-02-02 08:48 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  This estimate would be vaguely correct if you used the Earth's surface area. However, the Earth's cross-sectional area is area of the 2D disc that is formed by a meridian. The area of solar radiation it absorbs is exactly its cross-sectional area. (What part of the surface that happens to be changes as time passes and a unit of sunlight is spread over a larger surface around the edges, but the total area is constant and is simply the cross-sectional area.)
24. Re:Good grief. Religious zealots really annoy me. by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-02 08:54 · Score: 0
  
  Rounding the solar power a bit we get 222.5'10^18 * 3600 Ws = 8.01*10^23 Chop off 13 on the exponent (from the mass equivalent) to get grams. Chop another 6 off the exponent to get metric tons; that gives 8,01*10^4 or 80,100 tons
25. Re:Good grief. Religious zealots really annoy me. by tragedy · 2012-02-02 08:54 · Score: 1
  
  Well, a kilogram of mass directly into energy is easy to calculate. E=MC^2, so 1 kg of mass is equal to 1 kg* (300,000,000 m/s)^2 which is 90,000,000,000,000,000 (kg*m*m)/s*s or 90 petajoules. That's 25 billion kilowatt-hours. Average monthly household electric usage is 920 kilowatt-hours, so that's 27,173,913 households for a month, or 2,264,492 households for a year. So, assuming 100% conversion to electrical power and no transmission loss (in the real world, less than 25% of that original power would probably be eventually usable in homes), it would power civilization only in the state of Maryland for a year. Of course, most power usage by civilization isn't residential electric. Most home heating isn't electric, then there's all the energy people use to travel, the energy used to produce and transport their food (we'll give the energy from the sun that grows crops a free pass) and to maintain the infrastructure and power other kinds of services and to power businesses as well as households. So, it wouldn't really power all of Maryland.
  Wikipedia lists world total energy consumption as about 474 Exajoules in 2008. So the 90 petajoules from the 1 kg of matter, with a miraculous 100% utilization, would last keep civilization running for about an hour and 40 minutes. For a whole year, you'd need 5.27 metric tons of matter. If you actually take conversion and transmission loses into account, it's more like 25 minutes and 21.07 metric tons.
26. Re:Good grief. Religious zealots really annoy me. by NikeHerc · 2012-02-02 08:55 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  I have no idea what you are talking about. Are you responding to someone, or just ranting into the ether?
  
  Dude, I got his blaster comment. Best laugh I've had all day!
  
  --
  Circle the wagons and fire inward. Entropy increases without bounds.
27. Re:Good grief. Religious zealots really annoy me. by Chris+Burke · 2012-02-02 08:56 · Score: 2
  
  It would take thousands to millions of years for a one degree average surface temperature change to work it's way through the entire planet.
  
  So what? If the entire damn planet, core and everything, heated up by 1 degree the result would be a damn lot more than 160 tons of extra mass-energy!
  The calculation is based simply on the estimated amount of excess solar energy retained. It has nothing to do with whether or not the energy spreads through the earth. The energy is already here, increasing the earth's mass.
  
  --
  
  The enemies of Democracy are
28. Re:Good grief. Religious zealots really annoy me. by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-02 08:56 · Score: 0
  
  Can we put out a memo that EVERY SINGLE science story doesn't need a green religious hook in it? Please? You guys are worse than the most rabid Pentecostal.
  I promise you that if you look at the error bars on the 40,000 in and 95,000 numbers the 160 atributed to global warming is lost in the noise. And that is IF you accept that number in the first place which is pretty bogus sounding. Anyone remember just how much energy is in mass anymore? How one kilogram of mass directly converted to energy is so much fricking energy that it would probably power all of civilization for a year or more? So now burning (hint, just a chemical action) some dead dinosaur is releasing the energy equivilent of 160 TONNES? Eh? The mass of the burned material drops by the amount of the released energy and either escapes to space or ends up captured as mass somewhere on Earth. IF one assumes AGW the mass of heating the crust and atmosphere of the earth a tiny fraction of a degree per year isn't going to give tons either. Math people, try it sometime. It works a lot better than your hokey religion.
  >Math people, try it sometime.
  Perhaps you should try some. From E=mc^2, we have a mass of 160 tonnes, so 1.6x10^5kg, and c is 3x10^8 m/s, gives about 10^22J of energy necessary to make the sums right (Note that the SI unit for weight is a kg not a gram, so you don't convert those kg into g in this calculation, if you want to get energy in joules)
  The total mass of the earths water is 1.4x10^21 kg, and water has a specific heat capacity of ~4Kj/kgK, so that amount of energy corresponds to an increase of ~0.005K each year. It's a crude calculation and not all the temperature increase each year will be felt in the oceans for many years, but it shows the figure is clearly viable with small amounts of heating.
  And you seem to be completely misunderstanding the global warming arguments. The energy released by the fossils burnt isn't the cause, and is negligible, but the effect is caused by the greenhouse gases released, I won't go into the whole effect here, but perhaps you could read some books on the theory after you've read some on maths. And it's irrelevant to the argument, it's pretty clear from our records that global temperatures have increased, whether you believe humans are responsible or not.
  Also, your comment about 1KG of mass being converted to energy powering civilisation for a year is wildly out. It's about 10^17J, which is a quarter of what Norway uses in electricity alone in a year.
29. Re:Good grief. Religious zealots really annoy me. by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-02 08:57 · Score: 0
  
  They are mis-quoting starwars:
  "Han Solo: Hokey religions and ancient weapons are no match for a good blaster at your side, kid."
30. Re:Good grief. Religious zealots really annoy me. by blueg3 · 2012-02-02 09:01 · Score: 2
  
  Solar energy, however, does increase Earth's mass via energy, and a byproduct of that energy is global warming
  That's what man-made global warming is. (The term "anthropogenic" is better here to imply that it's man-caused and not man-made.) We do things that increase the fraction of the heat from solar radiation that remains on Earth*. The Sun then causes Earth's temperature to increase.
  * Specifically, since Earth is more or less in a vacuum, its entire thermodynamic exchange consists of radiation: (a) the Sun irradiating the Earth, adding energy and (b) Earth radiating out into space. Factor (a) is basically a constant (solar irradiation * Earth cross-sectional area) times some things that are variable: like reflectivity. Factor (b) is roughly black-body radiation: Stefan-Boltzmann constant * emissivity * T^4, where emissivity is the thing that is annoyingly complicated. The average temperature of the Earth is the value of T such that (a) = (b); that is, the Earth is in thermal equilibrium.
31. Re:Good grief. Religious zealots really annoy me. by Marxist+Hacker+42 · 2012-02-02 09:01 · Score: 1
  
  Also, as long as we're talking religion, AFAIK, nobody's ever drilled down to the Earth's Core. What makes them think it's made of Uranium?
  
  --
  SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
32. Re:Good grief. Religious zealots really annoy me. by blueg3 · 2012-02-02 09:02 · Score: 1
  
  Without working it out, how do you know?
  
  It would take thousands to millions of years for a one degree average surface temperature change to work it's way through the entire planet.
  Who said this had to be the case? Can you get 160 tons (in energy) of heat by heating only the atmosphere? Atmosphere plus surface water and land? What does it take?
  Without data, you're just making shit up based on a guess.
33. Re:Good grief. Religious zealots really annoy me. by WhiplashII · 2012-02-02 09:04 · Score: 2
  
  Wait - the expected global warming is on the order of 1 degree per century, not per year - so they are really off by 3 orders of magnitude. They aren't talking about warming the atmosphere. They are calculating the warming of the entire planet, including the core. Very silly - way before a 1 degree change has propagated even a tenth of the way in we will be back in the more usual ice age climate.
  
  --
  while (sig==sig) sig=!sig;
34. Re:Good grief. Religious zealots really annoy me. by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-02 09:05 · Score: 0
  
  But why do they include this energy captured from the sun?
  Sure the earth may gain the energy equivalent of 160 tons, but that still isn't actual mass.
  It's just the energy equivalent.
35. Re:Good grief. Religious zealots really annoy me. by WhiplashII · 2012-02-02 09:07 · Score: 2
  
  Do the calculation yourself (or just read below) - it is off by at least 3 orders of magnitude!
  
  --
  while (sig==sig) sig=!sig;
36. Re:Good grief. Religious zealots really annoy me. by blueg3 · 2012-02-02 09:10 · Score: 1
  
  They are calculating the warming of the entire planet, including the core.
  Where's it say that?
  Also, I gave figures for warming the air only, no water or land. It's a back-of-the-envelope calculation to see if you're within a few orders of magnitude. If you're within 3 or 4 orders of magnitude, you need to work out whether your estimate is accurate enough, and mine isn't, by a long shot.
  The better way to approach this is probably to look at the difference between solar insolation and thermal radiative losses to space, since those are easier to measure than what mass of the Earth is heating up how much. I didn't have radiative-loss estimates on hand, though.
37. Re:Good grief. Religious zealots really annoy me. by WhiplashII · 2012-02-02 09:10 · Score: 2
  
  The calculations are below in the thread. It is off by 3 orders of magnitude if you look at only atmospheric heating.
  
  --
  while (sig==sig) sig=!sig;
38. Re:Good grief. Religious zealots really annoy me. by WhiplashII · 2012-02-02 09:14 · Score: 1
  
  Well, that technique gets really hard really fast - we know that the system is self-stabilizing. (For two reasons, first if it wasn't the temperature would vary a lot more, and second because black body radiation goes up with the 4th power of temperature - that is really hard to beat!) So the best technique is to use the best info people have come up with including all the variables, which is on the order of 1 degree of change.
  If you were within 1 order of magnitude, I'd give it to you - but 3 if pretty far off.
  
  --
  while (sig==sig) sig=!sig;
39. Re:Good grief. Religious zealots really annoy me. by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-02 09:16 · Score: 0
  
  Good fucking God what has happened to this site? This thread makes me want to never read another slashdot comment. I've could have a more coherent scientific conversation with a house plant.
40. Re:Good grief. Religious zealots really annoy me. by stecoop · 2012-02-02 09:20 · Score: 1
  
  Adding heat to mass doesn't increase weight, D=m/v so the the volume would increases as density decreases.
41. Re:Good grief. Religious zealots really annoy me. by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-02 09:21 · Score: 0
  
  From your calculation it looked like you were off by a factor of 10: 10^19 vs. 10^18. How are you defining orders of magnitude such that this isn't within 4 orders? Am I missing something?
42. Re:Good grief. Religious zealots really annoy me. by wurp · 2012-02-02 09:22 · Score: 2
  
  Thanks, I was going to go through those same calculations, because I couldn't believe the numbers. In fact, I double checked your numbers (because I still had trouble believing) and came up with the same thing.
  It's shocking to me that the energy accumulated by Earth from solar radiation is measurable in tonnes! Remember that the devastation from a nuke comes from a fraction of 1% of the mass of a relatively tiny piece of uranium.
  To add a little more math, the atmosphere weighs roughly 5*10^21 grams. The specific heat of air is about 1 joule per gram-kelvin, so the solar radiance of the earth should raise the temperature 200 degrees centigrade each year if none was reflected or absorbed into the ground/water!
  Even if you only assume the mass that this report claims is absorbed, it would add 2 degrees centigrade each year. Obviously some is absorbed into the ground, but either way it's clearly unsustainable. At some temperature, the Earth must radiate more than it is absorbing, otherwise we would burn up.
  It seems clear to me that the temperature of the earth is going to be vary wildly depending on albedo/reemission, which life on earth affects by varying the composition of the atmosphere and surface reflection. This must be an influence on evolution - over the long run, organisms that tend to pull the temperature up when it gets too low and down when it gets too high would tend to succeed. By which I mean organisms that don't fit this profile would tend to wipe out virtually all life on earth, including themselves.
  Maybe this is the cause of some of the extinction events in the fossil layers? It seems unbelievable that this hasn't happened before - some microscopic organism produces methane or CO2 in bulk and is very successful, then succeeds so well it fucks up the ecosystem for everybody.
  It also looks like this is an existential test for humanity - maybe we can be the first multicellular organism to influence the temperature feedback loop enough to wipe ourselves out. Although I think it's more likely we'll just screw things up so badly lots of us die, until we lose the ability to influence the feedback loop enough to break it or we finally get the sense that our actions matter globally.
43. Re:Good grief. Religious zealots really annoy me. by ClioCJS · 2012-02-02 09:26 · Score: 1
  
  I'm having a bad day, apparently. All I can think of when reading your comment is the Autobot named Blaster.
  
  --
  -Clio
  Karma: Bad (mostly from not giving a fuck)
  Blog: http://clintjcl.wordpress.com
44. Re:Good grief. Religious zealots really annoy me. by Toonol · 2012-02-02 09:27 · Score: 2
  
  Do the math. It doesn't work.
  
  Remember, we're not talking total energy; just the delta in a year. If that is 0.1 degrees per year, that's what would need to fed into the energy/mass equation. Other comments in this thread show how the entire input of the sun on the earth in a year come out to 80 tons. I doubt the increase in heat year over year even makes one ton.
45. Re:Good grief. Religious zealots really annoy me. by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-02 09:32 · Score: 0
  
  A true fan would choke off the word 'fortre-... huu- .. .. glrk... rrg..... .. ..
  "Enough of this. Vader, release him!"
  "As you wish."
46. Re:Good grief. Religious zealots really annoy me. by blueg3 · 2012-02-02 09:33 · Score: 1
  
  It seems clear to me that the temperature of the earth is going to be vary wildly depending on albedo/reemission, which life on earth affects by varying the composition of the atmosphere and surface reflection.
  Albedo and emissivity are basically what controls the temperature of the Earth. You do have to remember, though, that both the enormous thermal mass of the Earth and weird feedback effects can make this progress differently. (For example, CO2 in the atmosphere increases the albedo-emissivity gap, which increases the temperature of the earth. A higher temperature causes more CO2 to be dissolved into ocean water, which decreases the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere -- though not by nearly as much as what was added initially. Feedbacks get much more complicated, though.)
  Fortunately, albedo and emissivity don't change a huge amount, so the Earth stays vaguely in thermal equilibrium (by radiating away heat via black-body radiation).
47. Re:Good grief. Religious zealots really annoy me. by wurp · 2012-02-02 09:34 · Score: 1
  
  Does anyone know what happened to my karma bonus? "No Karma Bonus" is unchecked, and my karma still shows as Excellent, but posts start at score: 1.
  Oh, and some more math: it looks as if when you take the sphere around the sun circumscribed by the Earth's orbit, Earth takes up about 1/(2 billion) of it. So if the sun is radiating in all directions equally, it radiates about 2 billion times 16,000 tonnes = 32 trillion tonnes = 3.2 * 10^13 kilograms each year JUST IN ENERGY, ignoring particles. The sun weighs 2 * 10^30 kilograms.
  Once again I expected the math to show a proportionally shocking amount of the sun being radiated in energy, but it turns out the sun is just really fucking big.
48. Re:Good grief. Religious zealots really annoy me. by blueg3 · 2012-02-02 09:35 · Score: 1
  
  Who says adding heat to matter doesn't increase its weight? Although it's not reasonable to talk about the "weight" of things that are that large, it's better to speak of mass.
49. Re:Good grief. Religious zealots really annoy me. by Oswald+McWeany · 2012-02-02 09:38 · Score: 1
  
  Since there are plenty of arguments against the other comments you've made I'd like to point out that:
  
  So now burning (hint, just a chemical action) some dead dinosaur is
  You may know this- but so many people don't: there is probably less than 0.1% dinosaur in oil (I don't know the %- I made up that number)- it comes mostly from microbes and plants. I don't know where the myth that oil is all "dinosaur" came from. As if there is something special about the organic molecules in dinosaurs that made them specifically required for oil.
  
  --
  "That's the way to do it" - Punch
50. Re:Good grief. Religious zealots really annoy me. by Curunir_wolf · 2012-02-02 09:40 · Score: -1
  
  So now burning (hint, just a chemical action) some dead dinosaur is releasing the energy equivilent of 160 TONNES?
  I'm pretty sure he means that if the surface temperature increases by 1 degree C, then that corresponds to a higher amount of energy in the planet. it has nothing to do with burning fuel or anything else.
  So how does that translate to 160 tonnes a year? The total mass of earth is estimated as 5.9721986×10^24 kg or 5.9721986×10^21 tonnes. To raise that mass by 1 C requires 22,964.44 J of energy. That amount of energy translates to only 2.55514×10^-10 grams (a very tiny number). And it takes about 100 years to raise the temperature of earth by 1 C. So I'd say their math is way off.
  
  --
  "Somebody has to do something. It's just incredibly pathetic it has to be us."
  --- Jerry Garcia
51. Re:Good grief. Religious zealots really annoy me. by riverat1 · 2012-02-02 09:41 · Score: 1
  
  So now burning (hint, just a chemical action) some dead dinosaur is releasing the energy equivilent of 160 TONNES? Eh?
  The heat energy released by burning fossil fuels is trivial. The source of heat that is causing global warming is the Sun and the fact that increased greenhouse gases (primarily CO2) capture more of that energy before it gets re-radiated to space. So that 160 tonnes is directly from the Sun and the energy it adds to the Earth.
52. Re:Good grief. Religious zealots really annoy me. by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-02 09:43 · Score: 0
  
  Maybe we can put out a memo that every single science story doesn't need someone to come and inexcusably bash religion? Please? You guys are worse than the most rabid Pentecostal.
  
  And just as a side note, oil didn't come from the dinosaurs. It came from mono-cellular sea life. Science people, try it sometime. It works better than making crap up.
53. Re:Good grief. Religious zealots really annoy me. by blueg3 · 2012-02-02 09:46 · Score: 1
  
  You can easily get lost in the "large objects produce larger numbers than you would have guessed, human" game. For example, figure out how much force solar radiation exerts (just in the form of light, since light carries momentum) on the Earth.
  Yes, the Earth subtends a ridiculously small area, so the Sun is belting out an enormous quantity of energy -- so much that it's a lot of mass just in energy.
  This is actually a decent way of working out the Sun-Earth thermal equilibrium, since from the color of the sun you can guess its temperature (very roughly) and thus its black-body radiation (which is more or less what solar radiation is), which lets you work out without measurement how much energy the Earth receives from the Sun.
  Incidentally, your posts are starting at Score: 2. If you look at the comment overview on your page, though, the karma bonus is not included. (As a result, if you hit the cap of 5, which includes the karma bonus, it will show up on that page as capped at a score of 4.)
54. Re:Good grief. Religious zealots really annoy me. by Chris+Burke · 2012-02-02 09:49 · Score: 1
  
  The calculations are below in the thread. It is off by 3 orders of magnitude if you look at only atmospheric heating.
  Then don't just look at only atmospheric heating.
  Of course that gets more complicated... maybe our napkin engineering isn't up to the task and it would take more time -- like enough time to write a research paper -- to come up with a more credible answer.
  They are not, however, assuming the entire core (or even a significant fraction of the planet below the surface) gets heated to arrive at that number.
  The earth is 34.6% iron. That would mean 9.278E26 J to heat just the iron content of earth by 1 degree, which means 1.032E7 metric tonnes.
  
  --
  
  The enemies of Democracy are
55. Re:Good grief. Religious zealots really annoy me. by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-02 09:53 · Score: 0
  
  "Are you suggesting that mass is converted into energy in a chemical reaction?"
  Obviously it is.
56. Re:Good grief. Religious zealots really annoy me. by GrumpySteen · 2012-02-02 10:04 · Score: 5, Informative
  
  It takes over 4 Joules of energy to raise the temperature of 1 gram of water by 1 degree Celsius. Your 22,964.4 Joule figure would be sufficient raise the temperature of 5.5 liters of water by 1 degree C.
  The earth's mass is slightly larger than 5.5 liters of water and thus requires slightly more energy to raise its temperature by one degree.
  Try again
57. Re:Good grief. Religious zealots really annoy me. by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-02 10:07 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  So how does that translate to 160 tonnes a year? The total mass of earth is estimated as 5.9721986×10^24 kg or 5.9721986×10^21 tonnes. To raise that mass by 1 C requires 22,964.44 J of energy.
  Ahem... 22,964.44 Joules of energy will not heat very much stuff up by 1 degree Celsius. That's less than the metabolic energy of 1 gram of fat. You missed something pretty important in your numbers.
  Regardless, this was not talking about raising the average temperature of the entire mass of the Earth, but an increat in the "surface temperature" of the earth. There's a pretty big difference. However....
  
  And it takes about 100 years to raise the temperature of earth by 1 C. So I'd say their math is way off.
  I imagine it would take a pretty long time to raise the temperature of the entire mass of the earth by 1 degree Celsius. Not a "don't blink, or you'll miss it" timeframe like 100 years.
58. Re:Good grief. Religious zealots really annoy me. by AdamHaun · 2012-02-02 10:08 · Score: 2
  
  To raise that mass by 1 C requires 22,964.44 J of energy.
  Even assuming you meant ~23,000 kilojoules (as your energy figure suggests), this is still off by many orders of magnitude. One kilogram of water takes 4.184 kJ, so ~23 MJ will raise ~5500 liters of water by 1 C. Per Wikipedia, the ocean is estimated at 1.3 * 10^21 liters. Raising that by 1 C takes 5.44 * 10^24 joules, which is equivalent to ~60,500 metric tons. Based on your assumption of 1 C per 100 years, that's 60.5 tons per year for the ocean alone, or 37% of the 160 tons given in the summary. Add in the rock and the atmosphere (including water vapor) and you've probably got a wild overestimate.
  Now will the entire volume of the planet get a 1 C increase? I doubt it, but I'm not an earth scientist. I suspect it would mostly be the atmosphere, part of the ocean, and part of the dirt and rock. But the estimate given is definitely not 16 orders of magnitude off.
  
  --
  Visit the
59. Re:Good grief. Religious zealots really annoy me. by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-02 10:17 · Score: 0
  
  are you really a big enough idiot to believe that the earth is gaining that much mass just from the slight warming of the atmosphere and the oceans?
60. Re:Good grief. Religious zealots really annoy me. by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-02 10:19 · Score: 0
  
  Wrong. Simply raising the the temperature of an object does not raise the mass. What are you guys smoking?
61. Re:Good grief. Religious zealots really annoy me. by jo_ham · 2012-02-02 10:19 · Score: 1
  
  Can't tell if trolling or just....
  Well played sir.
62. Re:Good grief. Religious zealots really annoy me. by regularstranger · 2012-02-02 10:25 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  Who mods this stuff interesting when the calculation is so many orders of magnitude off? Seriously, 22 kJ to raise the earth 1 C? It's bad enough someone (Curunir_wolf) actually wrote the comment in the first place.
63. Re:Good grief. Religious zealots really annoy me. by wurp · 2012-02-02 10:26 · Score: 1
  
  I hadn't thought about the Sun's radiation being essentially black box, but I can see that it is so and the interesting implications such as guessing the temp from the color.
  Thanks for commenting about the score. I not only see my starting score as 1 in my comments, but also when I look at stories. As long as other people see them at 2, I guess I don't care.
64. Re:Good grief. Religious zealots really annoy me. by Bucky24 · 2012-02-02 10:26 · Score: 3, Funny
  
  Congratulations! You've just posted the most idiotic slashdot comment of 2012.
  We've still got a little less than 11 months to go, don't be giving that award out just yet.
  
  --
  All the world's a CPU, and all the men and women merely AI agents
65. Re:Good grief. Religious zealots really annoy me. by cwebster · 2012-02-02 10:34 · Score: 1
  
  Solid angles! Your understanding is correct, but the OP has it right also (for a ballpark estimate). He is using an averaged irradiance at the Earth's surface [ W m-2 ] that takes into account the effect of projecting the cross sectional area onto a rotating sphere (and is also averaged daily and seasonally to correct for night and the tilt of the earth).
66. Re:Good grief. Religious zealots really annoy me. by srjh · 2012-02-02 10:36 · Score: 1
  
  Raising the surface temperature by 1 C isn't the same thing as raising the temperature of the entire earth by 1 C.
  The calculation doesn't involve the volume, mass, or internal temperature of the earth - it's a straight radiative forcing calculation. Current estimates of the radiative forcing (difference between the solar energy* we receive from the sun and the energy we radiate into space) are about 1.6 W/m^2 from memory. Over the whole earth that's about 2.5E22 J over the course of a year. Divide by the speed of light squared, you get close to the right answer (I get about 280 tonnes, but I might be missing a minor correction factor or they might be using a lower estimate for the radiative forcing).
  *Per unit time, per unit area
67. Re:Good grief. Religious zealots really annoy me. by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-02 10:37 · Score: 0
  
  as stated earlier, dipsh!t, it takes gi-normous amounts of energy to make miniscule amounts of mass.
  i can't believe there are people here this stupid.
68. Re:Good grief. Religious zealots really annoy me. by riverat1 · 2012-02-02 10:39 · Score: 1
  
  Approximately 1/10th of the energy the Earth is gaining from global warming remains in the atmosphere and most of the rest goes into the oceans which has vastly more heat capacity than the air. I'm thinking 160 tonnes is probably in the right ballpark.
69. Re:Good grief. Religious zealots really annoy me. by riverat1 · 2012-02-02 10:40 · Score: 1
  
  - so they are really off by 3 orders of magnitude.
  Probably not if you consider the heat being gained by the oceans as well.
70. Re:Good grief. Religious zealots really annoy me. by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-02 10:40 · Score: 0
  
  He's a dumb fucking cunt but the broken mod system is going to make him look like he's in the know to people who know little about science and have little in the way of critical thinking skills. Just another reason I don't even bother logging in around here anymore. Slashdot has become a shit pool of misinformation and bitchery.
71. Re:Good grief. Religious zealots really annoy me. by regularstranger · 2012-02-02 10:41 · Score: 1
  
  No memo for you, because you got everything in your post wrong. Energy equivalence of a kg - 9e16 J. Annual world energy consumption in a year - 474e18. A factor of 5000 difference. So it's more like 2 hours. You see, this is math, and you might try it sometime. It's much better than your hokey religion. Also, nobody said burning dead dinosaur releases 160 tonnes energy equivalent. I don't know how you came up with that. Perhaps a memo stapled to your forehead EVERY SINGLE time you make up something would help. Let's just imagine the water in the earths oceans heats up 1C. Thats 1.33e9 km^3 of water, which is 1.33e24 cm^3. Raising it 1 C takes 5.6e24 J (4.184 J / cm^3). This is the mass equivalent of 6.2e7 kg of energy... which is 62,000 metric tonnes. Of course water expands when heated, and there would be PV work too, but still, the 160 tonnes figure is certainly not absurd. Again, to reiterrate. Math jmorris, try it sometime. It works a lot better then your hokey religion.
72. Re:Good grief. Religious zealots really annoy me. by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-02 10:45 · Score: 0
  
  Your post is the perfect example of the mindset of the denial movement.
  I don't understand, therefore it must be wrong.
  The math is fine, I did try it. Maybe you should too.
73. Re:Good grief. Religious zealots really annoy me. by pclminion · 2012-02-02 10:45 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  Wrong. Simply raising the the temperature of an object does not raise the mass. What are you guys smoking?
  We're smoking Einstein's old pajama pants. Also, we're correct and you aren't. Higher temperature means more energy in a system. More energy means more mass. Yeah, it's a little weird. It's also an inevitable consequence of the constant speed of light, and the conservation of momentum and energy. Starting with those three assumptions you can prove that E=mc^2.
74. Re:Good grief. Religious zealots really annoy me. by regularstranger · 2012-02-02 10:47 · Score: 1
  
  There are 1.3e9 km^3 of water in the world. That is 1.3e24 cm^3. It takes 4.184 J of energy to heat one cm^3 of water, so heating the oceans 1 C would take 5.6e24 J of energy. 5.6e24 / (1kg * (1e8 m/s))^2 is 6.2e7 kg. About 62 thousand tonnes mass equivalent. I'd say your math is way off.
75. Re:Good grief. Religious zealots really annoy me. by Zot+Quixote · 2012-02-02 11:03 · Score: 0
  
  It was a legitimate and interesting statistic not a "green hook".
  
  > So now burning (hint, just a chemical action) some dead dinosaur is releasing the energy equivilent of 160 TONNES?
  
  You actually upmodded this as insightful slashdotters? I am sad. Global warming happens not because of combustion of fossil fuels but rather because energy (overwhelmingly solar) gets trapped on the earth. Notice how it is cooler at night than in the day? Ever wonder why? There is this big yellow splotch in the sky. Maybe you noticed it.
  
  So just to recap, greenhouse gasses, created by burning those fossil fuels trap the sun's energy here on earth and raises the temperature/energy level.
76. Re:Good grief. Religious zealots really annoy me. by AaronLS · 2012-02-02 11:04 · Score: 1
  
  "How one kilogram of mass directly converted to energy is so much fricking energy that it would probably power all of civilization for a year or more? So now burning (hint, just a chemical action) some dead dinosaur is releasing the energy equivilent of 160 TONNES?"
  No! Nuclear reactions like fission and fusion are what convert tiny amounts of mass into huge amounts of energy!
  Burning fossil fuels is a chemical reaction, that generally to my knowledge just changes chemical bonds, releasing energy from some of them. Mass is not destroyed in chemical reactions, to my knowledge.
77. Re:Good grief. Religious zealots really annoy me. by rtb61 · 2012-02-02 11:12 · Score: 1
  
  Perhaps I can help you with a problem you seem to be having ie. story http://www.thefreedictionary.com/story vs. report http://www.thefreedictionary.com/report.
  Now stories when presented by web media sites, need to contain a broad range of elements to appeal to a mixed audience. The science in them also needs to be expressed in more literary terms and be entertaining as well as educational.
  So have some empathy for the other people of this planet, it seems you are offended by their lack of intellect and ability to absorb more accurate scientific reports.
  News at 11, light scientific stories and light and lack the intellectual mass to keep intellectual helium heads bound to the earth.
  
  --
  Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
78. Re:Good grief. Religious zealots really annoy me. by Curunir_wolf · 2012-02-02 11:17 · Score: 1
  
  You're right - it doesn't even pass the common sense test now that I look at it. I must have dropped and exponent somewhere. That's what I get for rushing a post.
  
  --
  "Somebody has to do something. It's just incredibly pathetic it has to be us."
  --- Jerry Garcia
79. Re:Good grief. Religious zealots really annoy me. by CSMoran · 2012-02-02 11:17 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  -- I am a crackpot
  
  So you are, so you are.
  
  --
  Every end has half a stick.
80. Re:Good grief. Religious zealots really annoy me. by Chris+Burke · 2012-02-02 11:21 · Score: 2
  
  Hey look another idiot like the OP who thinks "Do the math!" means use vague qualitative statements!
  Guess what, "ginormous" and "miniscule" have different meanings when talking about the scale of the earth, and the energy received by the sun. The sun dumps thousands of metric tonnes worth of energy on the earth every year. The earth masses at around 10^24 kg. 160 tonnes is in fact minuscule. It can't realistically be accounted for just by atmospheric heating, but that's not the same thing as saying it's completely unrealistic.
  Idiot.
  
  --
  
  The enemies of Democracy are
81. Re:Good grief. Religious zealots really annoy me. by Curunir_wolf · 2012-02-02 11:23 · Score: -1, Flamebait
  
  Yea, yea, I posted without looking. Maybe it should have been more like 22 x 10^44 kJ or something. Really didn't need 10 different people pointing that out.
  
  -- I am a crackpot
  So you are, so you are.
  ... says the "CS" moron.
  
  --
  "Somebody has to do something. It's just incredibly pathetic it has to be us."
  --- Jerry Garcia
82. Re:Good grief. Religious zealots really annoy me. by srjh · 2012-02-02 11:27 · Score: 1
  
  Science is sometimes just interesting, and our current understanding of the science overwhelmingly points towards anthropogenic greenhouse emissions being responsible for a quantifiable and observable degree of warming. Yes, the figures turn out to be much smaller than the dust gain and hydrogen/helium loss. But it's still an interesting calculation to perform, regardless of whether armchair physicists scream conspiracy or "green religion" nonsense.
  If you do want to do the calculation, the chemical energy loss isn't the figure you should be using. It's already well understood that the direct heat output from burning fossil fuels is a very small proportion of the heat budget. It's the difference between the solar energy input and radiative energy output that you need to use - the radiative forcing as it is known.
  That's about 1.6 W/m^2 right now. Times the surface area of the earth, that's about 8.2E14 W. Over a year, that's 2.6E22 J. Divided by c^2, that's about 290 tonnes. I'm not exactly what figures were used (whether different estimates of the forcing were used, which contributions to the forcing were counted as "global warming", whether variables such as El Nino, La Nina and solar variations were taken into account, and over what timescale), so there may be something I did differently. But yes, the calculation does give tons.
  That you think a team of Cambridge University physicists didn't "try [math] sometime" because your arm-waving armchair explanation disagrees with their calculation is truly an example of the Dunning-Kruger effect. Your post is indeed insightful. It sheds insight as to why climate change denial is so widespread here on slashdot.
83. Re:Good grief. Religious zealots really annoy me. by riverat1 · 2012-02-02 11:31 · Score: 1
  
  Most of the heat goes into the ocean. The top 10 feet of ocean contain as much heat energy as the whole atmosphere and the average depth of the ocean is over 12,000 feet.
84. Re:Good grief. Religious zealots really annoy me. by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-02 11:33 · Score: 0
  
  Math people, try it sometime.
  You should take your own advice.
  Solar radiation reaching the Earth is about 1 kW / m^2. Over the cross-sectional area of the Earth, that's equivalent to 1.3 * 10^24 J / year. Through mass-energy equivalence (E = m c^2), that's 14000 tonnes per year. So the 160 tonnes per year attributed to global warming is equivalent to a 1% imbalance between the sunlight being absorbed by the Earth, and the infrared radiation being emitted. Do you think it's so implausible that a 20% increase in atmospheric CO2 could cause a 1% change in the amount of escaping infrared radiation being absorbed?
  I just noticed that you compared the 160 tonnes/year of mass-energy to the energy released directly by burning fossil fuels. So I guess the problem is just that you misunderstand global warming: you think it happens directly, through fuels being burned and producing heat; rather than indirectly, from the released by burning those fuels, which trap the energy from sunlight.
85. Re:Good grief. Religious zealots really annoy me. by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-02 11:33 · Score: 0
  
  So how does that translate to 160 tonnes a year?
  Hmmm... I dunno... Maybe something to do the the energy of the sun and the greenhouse effect? You know, that shit you conveniently forgot about/ignored.
86. Re:Good grief. Religious zealots really annoy me. by Chris+Burke · 2012-02-02 11:36 · Score: 1
  
  Are you suggesting that mass is converted into energy in a chemical reaction?
  Matter isn't converted into energy, but if energy is released then so is mass (as we normally think of it, like it causes stuff to weigh more on a scale and have more inertia and so forth).
  
  --
  
  The enemies of Democracy are
87. Re:Good grief. Religious zealots really annoy me. by riverat1 · 2012-02-02 11:38 · Score: 1
  
  m = E/c^2 I believe energy creates gravity equivalent to its mass.
88. Re:Good grief. Religious zealots really annoy me. by styrotech · 2012-02-02 11:40 · Score: 1
  
  Wait - the expected global warming is on the order of 1 degree per century, not per year - so they are really off by 3 orders of magnitude.
  Isn't the difference between a year and a century 2 orders of magnitude rather than 3?
89. Re:Good grief. Religious zealots really annoy me. by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-02 11:42 · Score: 0
  
  Can we put out a memo that EVERY SINGLE science story doesn't need a green religious hook in it?
  Hmmm... Seeing evidence of a conspiracy everywhere? Sounds like a personal problem to me.
90. Re:Good grief. Religious zealots really annoy me. by Curunir_wolf · 2012-02-02 11:49 · Score: 1
  
  So how does that translate to 160 tonnes a year?
  Hmmm... I dunno... Maybe something to do the the energy of the sun and the greenhouse effect? You know, that shit you conveniently forgot about/ignored.
  What a troll. The warming mechanism is irrelevant - I was only trying to determine how they arrived at that figure (with really bad math - yea, I messed up my calculations, there).
  Still, it seems greenhouse effect is much more important, as the Met has decided that even with a significant drop in the output of the sun, the greenhouse effect would continue to warm the earth, with an insignificant affect from less solar energy.
  
  --
  "Somebody has to do something. It's just incredibly pathetic it has to be us."
  --- Jerry Garcia
91. Re:Good grief. Religious zealots really annoy me. by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-02 11:55 · Score: 0
  
  So I guess the problem is just that you misunderstand global warming: you think it happens directly, through fuels being burned and producing heat
  That is correct, this man (OP) has no brain. A seething hatred of Al Gore has eaten through it like H2SO4 through a Twinkie.
92. Re:Good grief. Religious zealots really annoy me. by bunratty · 2012-02-02 11:56 · Score: 1
  
  But not only the atmosphere is heating up. The oceans are warming. The warming is also causing ice to melt into water. And of course upper part of the crust will also heat up because the atmosphere and ocean will heat it. I would think that the total mass that has warmed is several orders of magtitude greater than the mass of the atmosphere.
  
  --
  What a fool believes, he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.
93. Re:Good grief. Religious zealots really annoy me. by bunratty · 2012-02-02 11:59 · Score: 1
  
  The comment one screen below (which is the only one I've seen so far that bothers to do the math) shows that the energy the Earth receives from the sun is equivalent to about 16000 tons of mass per year. Granted, it could be wrong, but you're not showing any math that demonstrates that it's wrong.
  
  --
  What a fool believes, he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.
94. Re:Good grief. Religious zealots really annoy me. by Algae_94 · 2012-02-02 12:20 · Score: 1
  
  Just for your information, the idea behind AGW is not that burning fossil fuels directly heats up the earth like a fireplace heats up a house. It changes the atmosphere to trap and retain more of the suns energy that strikes the Earth, which is far and away more energy than us puny humans could even consider using. Think of it like this, burning fossil fuels is like opening up some flypaper around the Earth and that flypaper catches little bits of sunshine flies over time that do not escape and raise the mass of the system.
95. Re:Good grief. Religious zealots really annoy me. by wurp · 2012-02-02 12:26 · Score: 1
  
  Hmm, makes sense. Water is about 1000x as dense as air, and has 4 times the specific heat. The top 10 feet of water would then be about as "heat massive" as 4000 feet of air at surface pressure.
96. Re:Good grief. Religious zealots really annoy me. by Chris+Burke · 2012-02-02 12:42 · Score: 1
  
  You also need to assume the relativity principle and causality, but yeah...
  
  --
  
  The enemies of Democracy are
97. Re:Good grief. Religious zealots really annoy me. by Yunzil · 2012-02-02 12:50 · Score: 1
  
  Perhaps you've heard of that Einstein fellow?
98. Re:Good grief. Religious zealots really annoy me. by cababunga · 2012-02-02 13:01 · Score: 1
  
  You have it all inside out. You can't have your mass converted into energy and still have your mass. Maybe it's not very obvious in case of the whole planet, but take this elementary example. Annihilation of electron and positron creates pair of gamma photons. That is electron and positron disappear and two gamma photons with total energy equal to mass equivalent of the original electron/positron pair appear. As you probably know, photons have mass 0. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electron%E2%80%93positron_annihilation
99. Re:Good grief. Religious zealots really annoy me. by srjh · 2012-02-02 13:32 · Score: 1
  
  It's actually about 60,000 tonnes per year.
  1360 W (solar constant) * pi * 6380000^2 (radius of earth squared) * 60 * 60 * 24 * 365.25 (seconds in year) / 3E8^2 (c^2) = 61000 tonnes. Marginally lower if you subtract albedo losses. If it's off by about a factor of four, the surface area of the earth might be used instead of the area of the earth's disk.
100. Re:Good grief. Religious zealots really annoy me. by bunratty · 2012-02-02 13:38 · Score: 1
  
  Photons have zero rest mass. But because photons travel at the speed of light, they do have mass.
  
  --
  What a fool believes, he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.
101. Re:Good grief. Religious zealots really annoy me. by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-02 13:45 · Score: 0
  
  Oh. I just assumed he was smoking a house plant.
  Don't blame Slashdot - these people actually walk among us.
  Although, we could use a "too stupid to post for 6 weeks" mod
102. Re:Good grief. Religious zealots really annoy me. by blueg3 · 2012-02-02 13:57 · Score: 1
  
  Yep. The hydrogen fusion reaction doesn't produce much light at visible wavelengths. Just like with anything in space, the sun only loses energy through radiation (and particle loss), so it heats up until its radiation balances the energy production (to be fair, this only gets you the surface temperature of the sun). More or less.
103. Re:Good grief. Religious zealots really annoy me. by blueg3 · 2012-02-02 13:59 · Score: 1
  
  Yeah, I also buy the 160 T. 1/10 is an interesting figure. Of course the capacity of the oceans is enormous compared to the atmosphere; the controlling factor there will be how rapidly heat can actually flow into the oceans.
104. Re:Good grief. Religious zealots really annoy me. by Algae_94 · 2012-02-02 14:20 · Score: 1
  
  That was a new one to me. From the link, they theorize that because it is the densest naturally occurring element. In a freshly forming proto-Earth that was mostly molten, the denser elements would settle to the core.
  
  Makes sense, but I don't believe the engineering problems would ever be solved in my lifetime to drill to the core of the Earth, so I will never know. I also can't imagine why someone would want to do that, unless that Uranium turns out to be mankinds last source of energy at some point.
105. Re:Good grief. Religious zealots really annoy me. by __aaltlg1547 · 2012-02-02 14:22 · Score: 1
  
  It's not the whole Earth that's getting warmer. The interior is cooling. The lower layers of the troposphere are warming, and maybe the top Copley feet of the land and oceans.
106. Re:Good grief. Religious zealots really annoy me. by fbjon · 2012-02-02 14:23 · Score: 1
  
  Maybe you have some option set to ignore karma bonuses? There used to be these sorts of score adjustment controls, but I can't find them anymore.
  
  --
  True confidence comes not from realising you are as good as your peers, but that your peers are as bad as you are.
107. Re:Good grief. Religious zealots really annoy me. by Xyrus · 2012-02-02 14:26 · Score: 1
  
  Math and science fail.
  E = mc^2
  E = 160,000kg* 3.0*10^8m/s * 3.0*10^8m/s = 1.44*10^22 J
  This is approximately 1/400th the energy we receive from the sun, which yields just enough additional warming to give us the positive global temperature anomaly we're seeing today.
  Burning fossil fuels does not increase mass or energy. The additional energy trapped by additional GHGs is where the 160 tonnes figure comes from.
  
  --
  ~X~
108. Re:Good grief. Religious zealots really annoy me. by riverat1 · 2012-02-02 14:48 · Score: 1
  
  I'm not as sure of the 1/10th figure now as when I wrote that. It may be less. Heat flows into the ocean in many ways. Some is directly absorbed from sunlight, some is convected from the air, some comes from rivers and streams flowing into the ocean but I suspect a lot of it comes from rain falling into the ocean. The thermal inertia in the Earth system causes a delay of 20-40 years in temperature change from global warming. Most of the inertia comes from the ocean.
109. Re:Good grief. Religious zealots really annoy me. by Ambitwistor · 2012-02-02 16:37 · Score: 1
  
  Your innumerate ranting about needing to do math refused to do any math. And come on, merely mentioning global warming's contribution to the Earth's mass budget makes one a zealot? Sounds like you have an axe to grind. Who's the zealot here?
  Let me do the math for you.
  Cumulative ocean heat uptake through the latter half of the 20th century, largely due to global warming, is about 1.5 * 10^23 Joules for the upper 700 meters of the ocean alone (referencerough calculation).
  You are, at least, correct in saying that the mass equivalent of global warming is probably dwarfed by the error bars on the Earth's net mass budget.
110. Re:Good grief. Religious zealots really annoy me. by theycallmeB · 2012-02-02 16:44 · Score: 2
  
  Indeed, it would take an unbelievably long time to raise the temperature of the ENTIRE planet by one degree Celsius, but with two google searches and a couple of simple equations you can calculate the raising the temperature of the 5.97*10^24 kilogram ball of iron and nickel we call Earth by one degree Celsius would increase the Earth's mass by about 33 million tons, not a mere 160.
  
  Even without reading the article, I think it is safe to say the 160 ton per year figure is derived from the heating of the Earth's atmosphere and oceans, which are getting measurably warmer and will continue to do so no matter how loudly you shout 'la-la-la can't hear you' while sticking your fingers in your ears.
111. Re:Good grief. Religious zealots really annoy me. by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-02 17:06 · Score: 0
  
  >Another factor increasing the earth's mass is global warming which adds about 160 tonnes a year because as the temperature of the Earth goes up, energy is added to the system, so the mass must go up.
  This is what the poster is referring too. A sad day when people can't even be bothered to read the summary, much less the article.
112. Re:Good grief. Religious zealots really annoy me. by countach · 2012-02-02 17:07 · Score: 1
  
  There's probably more energy in the lava way before you get to the core, than in the uranium core itself.
113. Re:Good grief. Religious zealots really annoy me. by ildon · 2012-02-02 17:10 · Score: 1
  
  It's not the mass of the earth that's being increased 1C, it's the mass of the air near the surface.
114. Re:Good grief. Religious zealots really annoy me. by GrumpySteen · 2012-02-02 17:24 · Score: 1
  
  And just how do you suggest doing that without increasing the temperature of the ocean?
115. Re:Good grief. Religious zealots really annoy me. by regularstranger · 2012-02-02 17:48 · Score: 1
  
  The difference between 1 and 100 is 2 orders of magnitude.
116. Re:Good grief. Religious zealots really annoy me. by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-02 18:44 · Score: 0
  
  Burning fossil fuels is a chemical reaction, that generally to my knowledge just changes chemical bonds, releasing energy from some of them. Mass is not destroyed in chemical reactions, to my knowledge.
  The energy in chemical bonds is equivalent to mass (basic mass-energy equivalence). One molecule of a substance masses slightly more than the sum of the atomic masses of the atoms which it's composed of. The excess mass is the binding energy holding the molecule together.
  It's possible to measure a reduction in mass after an exothermic chemical reaction takes place. (Not easy, but possible.)
117. Re:Good grief. Religious zealots really annoy me. by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-02 18:48 · Score: 0
  
  >160 tons of mass ~= 10^22 J
  >Solar irradiance over the surface of the Earth ~= 10^17 W ~= 10^24 J/yr
  The Earth as a planet is in a thermal equilibrium - it absorbs Solar irradiation and emits into space as a black body ~kT^4 at T~300K=23C. In order to increase the total mass=energy of the Earth by "160 tons~=10^22 J" /year Earth has to emit less than it absorbs "~= 10^24 J/yr" by ~1%. That is the black body temperature should decrease by ~1/4*1%*300K ~=0.75K/year.
  That's hardly can be called warming but possible in the short run due to greenhouse effect when more energy is trapped in the atmosphere increasing it's temperature but decreasing the total irradiation into space and black body temperature.
118. Re:Good grief. Religious zealots really annoy me. by ildon · 2012-02-02 19:35 · Score: 1
  
  Pedantry. It's still nearly nothing compared to the mass of the earth.
119. Re:Good grief. Religious zealots really annoy me. by a_hanso · 2012-02-02 20:26 · Score: 1
  
  I find the lack of comments about your lack of faith being disturbing, disturbing.
120. Re:Good grief. Religious zealots really annoy me. by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-02 22:16 · Score: 0
  
  Next you'll be telling me that a compressed spring weighs more than an uncompressed one...
121. Re:Good grief. Religious zealots really annoy me. by tehcyder · 2012-02-02 23:26 · Score: 1
  
  Can we put out a memo that EVERY SINGLE science story doesn't need a green religious hook in it? Please? You guys are worse than the most rabid Pentecostal.
  You're the only one frothing at the mouth with rage that I can see.
  
  --
  To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
122. Re:Good grief. Religious zealots really annoy me. by GrumpySteen · 2012-02-02 23:46 · Score: 1
  
  What a pathetic attempt at a strawman argument.
  The link I provided showed a rough estimate of how much energy it would require to raise the temperature of the oceans in order to show how ludicrous the 22,964.44 Joule figure given above is. I never said anything about the entire mass of the earth and the fact that the mass of earth's oceans is substantially less than that of the planet has absolutely nothing to do with my post.
123. Re:Good grief. Religious zealots really annoy me. by necro81 · 2012-02-03 00:47 · Score: 1
  
  I do claim it: strain energy in material objects will manifest itself as a change in mass. However, it's not something that you are likely to see in an experiment. The mass equivalent of the energy you could realistically put into a laboratory-sized spring would be almost impossible to detect in the noise. c^2 is a really big number.
124. Re:Good grief. Religious zealots really annoy me. by ildon · 2012-02-03 00:59 · Score: 1
  
  The earth's mass is slightly larger than 5.5 liters of water and thus requires slightly more energy to raise its temperature by one degree.
  I didn't click the link. I was responding directly to this sentence.
125. Re:Good grief. Religious zealots really annoy me. by necro81 · 2012-02-03 01:11 · Score: 1
  
  because it is the densest naturally occurring element
  Siiiigggghhhh. Let's spend five seconds to find out if that's true.
  
  Element density[g/cm^3]
  Os 22.61
  Ir 22.56
  Pt 21.46
  Re 21.02
  Np 20.45
  Pu 19.84
  Au 19.28
  W 19.25
  U 18.95
  [all the others]
  
  It is perhaps more correct to say that uranium is one of the densest metals, and of the dense metals, has relatively high abundance (2.7 mg/kg of Earth's mass. All the others on this list, other than tungsten, are measured in micrograms/kg, or less).
126. Re:Good grief. Religious zealots really annoy me. by Tastecicles · 2012-02-03 04:26 · Score: 1
  
  This bickering is pointless. The *real* question is, how much energy would be required to overcome the molecular cohesion of an Earth-sized body conglomerate of solid, liquid and gas?
  It's for a school project...
  
  --
  Operation Guillotine is in effect.
127. Re:Good grief. Religious zealots really annoy me. by qeveren · 2012-02-03 06:46 · Score: 1
  
  Well, the energy required to mass-scatter the Earth against it's own gravitational binding energy is around 4e32J, or about 11 days of the Sun's total output. Which is insignificant compared to the power of the Force, but still nothing to sneeze at.
  
  --
  Don't just stand there, get that other dog!
128. Re:Good grief. Religious zealots really annoy me. by celtic_hackr · 2012-02-03 07:09 · Score: 1
  
  Ah, but one could agree to climate change and not necessarily agree it is anthropomorphic related.
  I'm not entirely sold on the idea that all this warming is a result of anthropomorphic changes. However, I'm not sold on the idea that it isn't either. As a result I prefer to err on the side of caution, and say it's possible it is anthropomorphic, and probable that at least some of the warming definitely is, and thus we should attempt to remedy it. but the Earth does have a habit, and documented history, of heating up and cooling down considerably all on it's own. Even during the short span of human kind.
  Taking into consideration:
  1) I am not an atmospheric physicist who makes study of the phenomena, and that a good number of such scientists say it is anthropomorphic, I'm inclined to agree with them,
  2) Scientists have been known to be terribly firm in their beliefs in things only to be proven wrong, (human flight is impossible, evolution is impossible, plate tectonics is a lunatic theory, etc),
  3) I haven't done the research or math to really agree one way or the other.
  So other than the fact that it's really stupid to continue to pollute the planet because "it's too expensive to clean it up", I tend to to agree with the anthropomorphic theory, even if it may be ultimately wrong or exaggerated. However, I would agree that our current understanding of the science overwhelmingly points towards a quantifiable and observable degree of warming. I have yet to see conclusive proof it is largely or solely a result of anthropomorphic greenhouse emission. But since we don't have another Earth to experiment with, it might be a bit hard to produce that proof. And no, doing small or even large experiments in a lab cannot reproduce all the variables to get a proof. And again, no, a computer model run on the biggest, meanest super computer doesn't qualify either.
129. Re:Good grief. Religious zealots really annoy me. by Algae_94 · 2012-02-03 07:17 · Score: 1
  
  I am not a believer in this Uranium core theory, its a new one to me, but if you go to the link in the summary, you will get a blanket statement to the effect that under the extreme pressures inside the Earth, density is dependent only on atomic mass. Uranium has a higher atomic mass than all of those elements you mentioned so it would be denser within the Earth. Good luck finding a reference on how elements densities vary with extreme pressure like inside the center of an Earth sized planet though.
130. Re:Good grief. Religious zealots really annoy me. by PAStheLoD · 2012-02-06 19:17 · Score: 1
  
  Huh?
  It's steadily increasing according to these graphs: http://www.nodc.noaa.gov/OC5/3M_HEAT_CONTENT/heat_content55-07.png http://www.nodc.noaa.gov/OC5/3M_HEAT_CONTENT/
131. Re:Good grief. Religious zealots really annoy me. by bofh69 · 2012-02-08 06:04 · Score: 1
  
  Wrong. Simply raising the the temperature of an object does not raise the mass. What are you guys smoking?
  We're smoking Einstein's old pajama pants. Also, we're correct and you aren't. Higher temperature means more energy in a system. More energy means more mass. Yeah, it's a little weird. It's also an inevitable consequence of the constant speed of light, and the conservation of momentum and energy. Starting with those three assumptions you can prove that E=mc^2.
  To do the math:
  1 kg of Carbon Steel raised 1 degree Kelvin will gain 5.45e-9 grams
  Specific heat of Carbon Steel = 490 J/(g*K)
  Energy required to raise 1 kg 1 degree K = 490*g*K = 490*1000*1 = 490000 joules (kg*m^2/s^2)
  mass of 490000 joules = m = E/c^2 = 490000 kg*m^2/s^2 /8.99e16 m^2/s^2 = 5.45e-12 kg or 5.45e-9 g
energy? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-02 08:08 · Score: 0

energy is added to the system
i thought energy can not be created or detroyed
1. Re:energy? by ClioCJS · 2012-02-02 08:12 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  Since when does "added to the system" mean created or destroyed? The earth is not the entire universe. Energy gets added to us from the sun, for example.
  
  --
  -Clio
  Karma: Bad (mostly from not giving a fuck)
  Blog: http://clintjcl.wordpress.com
2. Re:energy? by icebike · 2012-02-02 08:13 · Score: 2
  
  energy is added to the system
  i thought energy can not be created or detroyed
  Moved, not created or destroyed.
  Come out of your mom's basement, look up at that bright yellow object in the sky.
  If there is any global warming, that's where its coming from.
  
  --
  Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
3. Re:energy? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-02 08:14 · Score: 0
  
  energy is added to the system
  i thought energy can not be created or detroyed
  It comes from the sun!
4. Re:energy? by groslyunderpaid · 2012-02-02 08:27 · Score: 1
  
  The big yellow one is the sun!
5. Re:energy? by w.hamra1987 · 2012-02-02 08:38 · Score: 1
  
  all black here with teeny white dots... sometimes a big white banana floats around, i say hi to it, half expecting it to turn out as my cat, but so far no ):
  but then, that yellow friend of yours might be showing up when i'm hibernating... no idea, though i'll keep a lookout. maybe carve a hole in my coffin to notice it when it shows up
  
  --
  my sig pwns your sig
6. Re:energy? by Chris+Burke · 2012-02-02 08:51 · Score: 2
  
  Creationists always try to use the second law,
  to disprove evolution, but their theory has a flaw.
  The second law is quite precise about where it applies,
  only in a closed system must the entropy count rise.
  The earth's not a closed system' it's powered by the sun,
  so fuck the damn creationists, Doomsday get my gun!
  -- M.C. Hawking, "Entropy"
  
  --
  
  The enemies of Democracy are
Gravity sucker by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-02 08:09 · Score: 0

As all mass object, Earth tends to gain additional weight simply by attracting all the matter around. Soon or later, all objects tend to collect the mass.
Enough for Eternity by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-02 08:09 · Score: 0

And here some people are worried about running out of uranium.
We'll never use up a 5-mile diameter sphere of uranium!
1. Re:Enough for Eternity by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-02 08:17 · Score: 5, Funny
  
  And here some people are worried about running out of uranium.
  We'll never use up a 5-mile diameter sphere of uranium!
  The problem is getting to it.
  I mean if you believe "science" then it's surrounded by molten rock.
  And if you believe the book journey to the center of the earth, then its surrounded by dinosaurs.
  Both I understand are fatal to humans.
2. Re:Enough for Eternity by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-02 08:41 · Score: -1
  
  We'll never use up a 5-mile diameter sphere of uranium!
  And we'll never use more than 640KB of RAM
3. Re:Enough for Eternity by Eldragon · 2012-02-02 08:43 · Score: 1
  
  This is the funniest thing I have read all week. I thank you.
4. Re:Enough for Eternity by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-02 09:41 · Score: 0
  
  Pure Awesomeness
5. Re:Enough for Eternity by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-02 17:18 · Score: 0
  
  What if I believe that drilling into the center of the earth will awaken Cthulhu?
What sphere of Uranium? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-02 08:11 · Score: 0, Informative

No such thing. And warming the earth doesn't make it more massive.
1. Re:What sphere of Uranium? by Trepidity · 2012-02-02 08:17 · Score: 5, Informative
  
  Some models do have some kind of nuclear-reactor thing going on at the very center, but it's indeed not right to present it as some kind of fact, when it's greatly disputed what might be there (and our evidence is very circumstantial). As far as I can trace it, the proposal for a "nuclear georeactor" in a sub-core of the inner core is due to J.M. Herndon, who proposed it in 1996, and has since developed the idea in various other papers. I don't think it's anywhere near consensus, though.
  
  --
  10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
2. Re:What sphere of Uranium? by michelcolman · 2012-02-02 08:22 · Score: 4, Interesting
  
  Well, warming may not make things more massive according to classical physics, but in the Theory of Relativity, all energy counts as mass. E=mc^2, it goes both ways. Warm objects are very, very slightly heavier than otherwise identical cold objects. So if our atmosphere traps the heat of the sun, that will result in a slight increase in mass. Although I doubt even a few degrees of warming will make a 160 ton difference. c^2 is a pretty big factor.
3. Re:What sphere of Uranium? by blueg3 · 2012-02-02 08:37 · Score: 0
  
  And warming the earth doesn't make it more massive.
  It does if the energy comes from an outside source (the Sun). Mass and energy are the same. Increasing the energy of something increases its mass. Temperature is just an abstraction of kinetic energy of particles, so increasing the temperature of a collection of particles is the same as increasing their kinetic energies. Thus, increasing the temperature of something increases its mass.
4. Re:What sphere of Uranium? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-02 08:52 · Score: 0
  
  Then where does the interior heat come from?
  Without new physics, the only explanation is natural fission.
5. Re:What sphere of Uranium? by cruff · 2012-02-02 08:57 · Score: 1
  
  Wouldn't the uranium exist as an alloy with all of the other metals in the core and thus be dispersed? It appears the melting point of uranium is lower than that of iron.
6. Re:What sphere of Uranium? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-02 09:00 · Score: 0
  
  "Think of the early Earth as having been like a spherical steel hearth. A hot ball of liquid elements freshly formed out of the primordial disc surrounding our sun. The densest metals sinking down by force of gravity while lighter materials "floated" outwards. Uranium is very dense. At about 19 grams per cubic centimeter, it is 1.6 times more dense than lead at the Earth's surface. But deep within our planet density depends only on atomic number and atomic mass. Uranium, having the greatest atomic number and atomic mass, would be the most dense substance in our planet and will ultimately end up at the center of the Earth."
7. Re:What sphere of Uranium? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-02 09:01 · Score: 0
  
  No, that just happens to be the location of one of the geological hot spots where a lot of magma is causing the heat. If you'd studied a little geology you'd know these things.
8. Re:What sphere of Uranium? by Beryllium+Sphere(tm) · 2012-02-02 09:11 · Score: 1
  
  Non-enriched uranium with no moderator?
  The guy's paper makes more sense. He suggests uranium sulfide at the core, with reactions having started when there was more 235U, so analogous to the Oklo reactor but with sulfur instead of water. Sulfur's not a good choice for a moderator, though.
  Then it would have bred some plutonium, which is more fissile than 238U.
  I don't know enough quantitative reactor physics to know if the hypothesis is workable.
9. Re:What sphere of Uranium? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-02 09:52 · Score: 0
  
  The internal heat is leftover from the pre-moon/pre-earth collision, if you believe in the big-impact theory. The surface has cooled off. The center is still cooling off, aka releasing heat. Eventually, it will be cooled off and there will be no internal heat.
10. Re:What sphere of Uranium? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-02 09:54 · Score: 1
  
  The energy that is increasing the Earth's mass is NOT burning fossil fuels. The extra energy is coming from the Sun. The increased co2 in the atmosphere is trapping more heat which = energy which = mass.
11. Re:What sphere of Uranium? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-02 10:30 · Score: 0
  
  We should find out for sure ... how about a journey, to the center, of the earth ?
  TY, TY very much...
12. Re:What sphere of Uranium? by regularstranger · 2012-02-02 10:57 · Score: 1
  
  Heating the earth's atmosphere by 1 C is also a pretty big factor. If you actually work it out for yourself, you'll find it's a lot bigger than c^2.
13. Re:What sphere of Uranium? by Chris+Burke · 2012-02-02 11:18 · Score: 1
  
  The internal heat is leftover from the pre-moon/pre-earth collision, if you believe in the big-impact theory.
  Even if you don't, the gravitational binding energy of the planet Earth would cause it to have a hot core for a very long time.
  
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  The enemies of Democracy are
14. Re:What sphere of Uranium? by geekmansworld · 2012-02-02 11:21 · Score: 1
  
  Yeah, I must admit to being a bit perturbed by the "definite" language used by that statement. Theories involving geophysical fission at the core of the Earth are intriguing, but they're just theories, and kind of on the fringes of the discipline. Saying "there exists" is scientifically kind of insulting.
15. Re:What sphere of Uranium? by riverat1 · 2012-02-02 12:48 · Score: 1
  
  Most of the warmth from global warming goes into the oceans. Considering the heat capacity of water compared to air it doesn't take that much ocean warming to make a 160 tonne difference.
16. Re:What sphere of Uranium? by wxjones · 2012-02-02 13:37 · Score: 2
  
  I saw Herndon give a seminar on this topic a few years ago. It is a plausible theory, but not an established fact, and not accepted by most in the field. As I recall, we don't understand the earth's core well enough to know if enough uranium could have collected at the center for a reactor to happen. One way of testing the idea is to look at the flux of anti-neutrinos coming from the earth. If the number is greater than can be explained by beta decay of the thorium-chain elements, it would point toward a geo-reactor. I seem to recall that some proposed neutrino detectors have a chance of measuring this. They have to be able to discriminate against the large flux of neutrinos coming from the sun. An interesting part of the theory is that the geo-reactor proposed by Herndon will run out of fuel relatively soon, so if it exists the earth will lose and important source of internal heat and begin cooling much sooner than if all the heat comes from radioactive decay.
  
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17. Re:What sphere of Uranium? by joe_frisch · 2012-02-02 18:41 · Score: 1
  
  I think the traditional view is that it is a combination of radioactive decay and heat left over from the formation of the earth. Not counting recent global warming, the earth is on average loosing energy as heat from both these sources is radiated into space. That may be a much larger change in relative mass than the other effects discussed here.
18. Re:What sphere of Uranium? by michelcolman · 2012-02-02 20:13 · Score: 1
  
  Of course, like I said, only the heat from the sun trapped by the atmosphere will result in a slight increase in mass. Burning fuel by itself does not, since burning reduces the mass of the fuel: leftover solids and gases from the fuel will weigh very, very slightly less, the difference in mass (bonding energy, which counts as mass too) being transformed into heat which "weighs" the same.
19. Re:What sphere of Uranium? by spike+hay · 2012-02-03 03:26 · Score: 1
  
  Yeah, this is such a ridiculous idea. If there was actual fission going on, it would have run out of fuel long, long ago. The earth's geothermal heat escaping from the surface is (more or less) about 20% heat from formation, 80% heat from radioactive decay. U-238 has a half life of 2 billion years or so, providing a nice explanation.
  This guy sounds like a real crackpot. He suggested that variations in the uranium core's output could be responsible for ice ages, etc. Geothermal heat is on the order of mW*m-2, not enough to effect climate. Besides, for the heat to get to the surface, it has to convect through the mantle and then conduct through the lithosphere, so any variations could only affect surface geothermal output on timescales of hundreds of millions of years. Maybe million years with mantle plumes/hotspots.
  
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20. Re:What sphere of Uranium? by Patch86 · 2012-02-03 07:16 · Score: 1
  
  To be fair, the article was written by mathmeticians, not geologists. I think they were just enjoying "doing the math", rather than trying to make scientific statements.
  The article is from the BBC Radio 4 programme "More or Less", which is a wonderful show which basically "does the math" on all things current affairs. Well worth looking up on the old iPlayer.
Expanding Earth Theory by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-02 08:11 · Score: 0

I bring you Expando Planet Model.
Tards by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-02 08:11 · Score: -1, Troll

global warming which adds about 160 tonnes a year because as the temperature of the Earth goes up, energy is added to the system, so the mass must go up.
Single most brain damaged statement I've ever heard.
1. Re:Tards by arkane1234 · 2012-02-02 08:19 · Score: 1
  
  Global warming is not about added materials, it's about distributing materials that were in stasis, into the environment.
  Get your facts straight.
  
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2. Re:Tards by Microlith · 2012-02-02 08:20 · Score: 1
  
  Care to clarify? Or are you just threadshitting?
3. Re:Tards by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-02 08:27 · Score: -1
  
  You can't create mass, it's a basic concept in science. I reserve my threadshitting for union threads on a different board.
4. Re:Tards by michelcolman · 2012-02-02 08:29 · Score: 1
  
  It's not quite as brain damaged as you might think. Relativity says that energy and mass are equivalent (E=mc^2), and this really does mean that warm objects are slightly heavier than otherwise identical cold objects. But 160 tonnes is a lot of energy, so I have my doubts there.
5. Re:Tards by Daetrin · 2012-02-02 08:31 · Score: 1
  
  There's this equation that relates energy to mass, let's see, how does it go? Oh yes, e=mc^2.
  
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  This Space Intentionally Left Blank
6. Re:Tards by artor3 · 2012-02-02 08:33 · Score: 3, Interesting
  
  You have absolutely no idea what you're talking about, do you? Please try, if you can, to explain what was wrong with the statement.
  To quote a later AC post that seems to also be from you: "You can't create mass, it's a basic concept in science."
  Believe it or not, there's more to science than what you learned in grade school. If the composition of the Earth's atmosphere changes in such a way that it traps more energy from the sun, that will cause an increase in mass.
7. Re:Tards by AdamHaun · 2012-02-02 08:33 · Score: 1
  
  The gravitational mass would go up. Energy produces gravitation as well.
  
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  Visit the
8. Re:Tards by Microlith · 2012-02-02 08:37 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  You can't create mass, it's a basic concept in science.
  Ok, so you're threadshitting via ignorance. Good job.
9. Re:Tards by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-02 08:39 · Score: 0
  
  I agree, since there is no Global Warming. Wasn't there just a press release that said there has been no observed warming since 1998, and in fact we are entering a cooling cycle? GW/CC is a religious belief system. "My mind is made up, don't confuse me with the facts!"
10. Re:Tards by w.hamra1987 · 2012-02-02 08:43 · Score: 1
  
  you might want to have a chat with Einestein about that... we're not creating mass... but mass itself comes from energy, and the more energetic (so to say) a particle becomes, the more massy it gets.
  here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass%E2%80%93energy_equivalence
  
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  my sig pwns your sig
11. Re:Tards by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-02 08:52 · Score: 0
  
  Fission and Fusion usually go the other way, Fusion of light elements creates atoms and particles that are not quite as heavy as their inputs, and Fission of heavy elements creates atoms/particles that are not quite as heavy as the initial atoms/neutrons.
  But in Supernovas, some of the tremendous energy of the dying star continues to perform fusion on heavier and heavier elements. In this situation energy is added to the nuclear reaction and mass is created
  Chemical reactions and thermal interactions (absorbing the heat of sunlight) also convert energy/mass, but it's much harder to measure because the amounts are much smaller. That's why it's "only" 160 tons a year (Which is nothing when you consider the mass of a whole planet)
12. Re:Tards by mark-t · 2012-02-02 08:57 · Score: 1
  
  No... it's about adding thermal energy, which by mass/energy equivalence ends up causing the earth to actually be more massive as a result
  
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13. Re:Tards by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-02 09:10 · Score: 0
  
  There was such a press release. But it was quickly debunked by people who knew what they were talking about.
14. Re:Tards by instagib · 2012-02-02 09:46 · Score: 2
  
  I guess he wanted to add mass to the thread.
15. Re:Tards by Bucky24 · 2012-02-02 10:33 · Score: 0
  
  I grew up in a very snowy place. Around 10-15 years ago we used to get 7 feet of snow sometimes (just in one snowfall too), usually before December was over. This year, I think total we got 2-3 inches. That is fact enough for me.
  
  --
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16. Re:Tards by giorgist · 2012-02-02 12:01 · Score: 1
  
  Off course you can create mass. It is piss easy ... all you need is energy.
  Mass energy appears to be conserved in the universe, but having one you can create the other.
17. Re:Tards by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-02 17:12 · Score: 0
  
  Would you care to explain exactly how mass is created? As far as I know, mass containing particles such as electrons do not spontaneously form and are in fact conserved. Also, I don't believe "energy" particles such as photons and phonons contribute to mass, at least in the sense that they do not generate a gravitational force. Then again, photons are affected by gravitational lensing, which suggest that they do react to gravitational force. This is explained in special relativity by the curves in the space time potential formed by objects with mass. Of course, that doesn't make a lot of sense to me either.
  tdlr; Would you care to explain the concept of mass?
18. Re:Tards by celtic_hackr · 2012-02-03 06:41 · Score: 1
  
  I'm not entirely sure you fully understand the mass-energy thing. It's not quite as simple as just that equation, getting thrown around here. If it were as simple as that equation it would be easy to accelerate, say, a spaceship to the speed of light. But of course that's not possible. There's more to the equation than just E=mc2. That's the high school version of it.
  You cannot create mass. You can increase or decrease the mass of an existing mass, but you cannot create it. Even a photon has mass, hence trapping incoming photons in the atmosphere with things like, oh CO2, adds mass to the Earth.
What Global Warming? by MSTCrow5429 · 2012-02-02 08:14 · Score: -1, Troll

Global warming has ceased for 15 years now. How are they calculating this figure?

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1. Re:What Global Warming? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-02 08:17 · Score: 0
  
  Probably over the last century. Using figures as small as 15 years would be silly.
2. Re:What Global Warming? by Oswald+McWeany · 2012-02-02 08:21 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  Depends which globe you are talking about. If you're not talking about Earth- you're off topic.
  If you're talking about Earth and look at overall trend analysis graphs covering the last 100 years- the last 15 years fit in the scale correctly. Also 9 of the 10 warmest years on record have occurred during the past 15 years.
  
  --
  "That's the way to do it" - Punch
3. Re:What Global Warming? by jonnythan · 2012-02-02 08:28 · Score: 1
  
  Average temperature anomaly for the past 15 years: 0.5 C
  The 15 years before that: 0.2 C
  The 15 years before that: 0.04 C
  You were saying?
4. Re:What Global Warming? by jonbryce · 2012-02-02 08:34 · Score: 1
  
  Including the warmest year on record, which happened exactly 15 years ago. This is an excellent example of the denialists manipulating statistics to their own ends.
5. Re:What Global Warming? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-02 08:36 · Score: 1, Interesting
  
  I looked. The trend of the last 100 years involves coming out of the LIA, so it's not surprising we are still slowly warming up. Global warming is meant to be ACCELERATED warming caused by increased CO2. Starting around 1980. The last 100 years is nothing to do with it at all...
  Over the last 15 years we have had increased CO2, and DECREASED warming. Bang goes your hypothesis - it's completely dead. That fact alone is enough to kill it.
  Oh, and talking about 'warmest years on record' immediately marks you as a propaganda warmist - they are not evidence of anything. If you want to think like a scientist, try thinking about what might DISPROVE the global warming hypothesis. That's right - you'll find that NOTHING is accepted as disproof. It's not a science, it's a religion....
6. Re:What Global Warming? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-02 09:03 · Score: 0
  
  It's pretty simple, actually. Just prove that CO2 isn't a greenhouse gas. Failing that, prove that we're not releasing it in massive quantities. Failing that, prove that the atmospheric concentration isn't going up. Failing that, prove that there is some other factor which will remove the increased heat (or that solar irradiance is falling).
  Or you can stick your head in the sand and pretend like 7 billion humans don't have some effect on the planet.
7. Re:What Global Warming? by mbkennel · 2012-02-02 09:17 · Score: 1, Informative
  
  "If you want to think like a scientist, try thinking about what might DISPROVE the global warming hypothesis. That's right - you'll find that NOTHING is accepted as disproof."
  That's false. What would disprove it?
  *) Measuring infrared fluxes in the atmosphere and finding that they aren't changing as predicted by our chemistry and current knowledge of infrared scattering. This experiment has been done and the results match predicted theory.
  *) space probes finding Venus to be just a bit warmer than Earth instead of the hell hole that it is.
  *) clear global cooling trends
8. Re:What Global Warming? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-02 11:34 · Score: 0
  
  Including the warmest year on record, which happened exactly 15 years ago.
  What year are you living in? Here in 2012, the warmest year on record (2005) ended only 6 years ago. The second warmest year (2010) ended a year ago.
9. Re:What Global Warming? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-02 11:51 · Score: 0
  
  What would disprove it?
  *) Measuring infrared fluxes in the atmosphere and finding that they aren't changing as predicted by our chemistry and current knowledge of infrared scattering. This experiment has been done and the results match predicted theory.
  *) space probes finding Venus to be just a bit warmer than Earth instead of the hell hole that it is.
  *) clear global cooling trends
  I wouldn't accept any of these things as disproof unless they were actually observed. Hypotheticals aren't accepted as disproofs. I see your point, but I also see GP's and I agree with GP's; there is NOTHING (current or real) that is an accepted disproof of AGW.
10. Re:What Global Warming? by bunratty · 2012-02-02 12:06 · Score: 1
  
  No, a short period of decreased warming does not disprove AGW. Solar output varies, so when solar output is low, we would expect to see decreased warming. Now an extended period (several decades) of little or no warming would disprove AGW. Let me know when that happens.
  
  --
  What a fool believes, he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.
11. Re:What Global Warming? by riverat1 · 2012-02-02 12:56 · Score: 1
  
  Global warming has not ceased. 2005 and 2010 were tied for the hottest year in record in 2 of the 3 major temperature records (NOAA & NASA/GISS). Most global warming energy is captured by the oceans and some goes into the land as well. The oceans have thousands of times the heat capacity of the atmosphere.
12. Re:What Global Warming? by riverat1 · 2012-02-02 13:00 · Score: 1
  
  1988 is the warmest year on record in the HADCRUT record. That's the one that comes from the vilified Phil Jones' group. I guess it's ok for the denialists to use his data when it suits their prejudices. In the NOAA and NASA/GISS records 2005 and 2010 are tied for the warmest year. The reason for the difference is that HADCRUT doesn't cover the polar regions as well as the others.
13. Re:What Global Warming? by Zeromous · 2012-02-02 14:20 · Score: 1
  
  Agreed, at worst AGW is a useful hypothesis, but you have to admit so was the bible at some point. I'm keeping an open mind while endeavouring to reduce my *energy* footprint as a matter of good survival.
  
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14. Re:What Global Warming? by MSTCrow5429 · 2012-02-03 13:46 · Score: 1
  
  The question was how it was calculated. The thread was hijacked by trolls who turned it into an AGW debate, which is off-topic. According to the United Kingdom Meteorology Office, the Earth has not warmed since 1998. Why or how is off-topic. The only question is how in light of the Earth not warming in 15 years, regardless of cause or reason, figures into the mass calculations.
  
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Earth gaining or losing mass would be reciprocal by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-02 08:15 · Score: -1

...to Oprah's state
(so... at least we,ve had that one already, now..)
I know for a fact that Earth is gaining in mass by dicobalt · 2012-02-02 08:19 · Score: 1, Funny

... because half of that dust is on my car.
1. Re:I know for a fact that Earth is gaining in mass by game+kid · 2012-02-02 08:52 · Score: 1
  
  Those mottled white splotches on the windshield and hood are not dust, mate.
  
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  You can hold down the "B" button for continuous firing.
MOD PARENT UP: religious zealots by davek · 2012-02-02 08:20 · Score: 0, Offtopic

OP is correct. Going into an experiment with a preconceived bias isn't science, it's politics:

as the temperature of the Earth goes up, energy is added to the system, so the mass must go up.
But from TFA:

So taking into account the gains and the losses, Dr Smith reckons the Earth is getting about 50,000 tonnes lighter a year.
So AGW isn't happening, then?

--
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1. Re:MOD PARENT UP: religious zealots by Dinghy · 2012-02-02 08:30 · Score: 1
  
  OP is correct. Going into an experiment with a preconceived bias isn't science, it's politics:
  
  as the temperature of the Earth goes up, energy is added to the system, so the mass must go up.
  But from TFA:
  
  So taking into account the gains and the losses, Dr Smith reckons the Earth is getting about 50,000 tonnes lighter a year.
  So AGW isn't happening, then?
  Now you're just sounding desperate. They consider AGW to be a factor in the equasion, and that it adds mass annually. However there are still other factors that are affecting the mass and those have a larger value, so they outweigh AGW. It's called math (or maths depending on where you live).
Why don't I feel upside down when at the S. Pole? by bogaboga · 2012-02-02 08:23 · Score: 0, Troll

...Or horizontal at the equator? After all, the earth is [almost] spherical, right?
This is one question that has dogged me all my adult life. Anyone?
in situ utilization -- the greenest way to go by Thud457 · 2012-02-02 08:24 · Score: 3, Insightful

Or just drill parallel pipes, pump cold water down one, get hot water up the other. No danger of a catastrophic meltdown, because, like, that's already happened.
Also has the beneficial side-effect of (allegedly) creating earthquakes, how cool is that?

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40K Tonnes of dust! by Urban+Nightmare · 2012-02-02 08:26 · Score: 2

No wonder my TV is always covered. Time for a bubble dome to keep it all out.
Losing, of course! by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-02 08:26 · Score: 0

No, that dress does not make you look fat.
The Earth may be losing mass... by kehren77 · 2012-02-02 08:28 · Score: 5, Funny

But Americans are attempting to even things out.
1. Re:The Earth may be losing mass... by 93+Escort+Wagon · 2012-02-02 08:50 · Score: 1
  
  But Americans are attempting to even things out.
  I'm certainly doing my part!
  
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  #DeleteChrome
2. Re:The Earth may be losing mass... by ScentCone · 2012-02-02 10:11 · Score: 1
  
  But Americans are attempting to even things out.
  It's carbon sequestration in lipids, you insensitive clod.
  
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3. Re:The Earth may be losing mass... by Tablizer · 2012-02-02 19:53 · Score: 1
  
  Extra points if you have your own radioactive core by now
  
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  Table-ized A.I.
Physicist on Geology? Really? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-02 08:29 · Score: 0

Physicists, at least historically, are known for lacking any geological background. *cough*Lord Kelvin*cough*
On that basis alone, I would suspect that his numbers are wrong.
1. Re:Physicist on Geology? Really? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-02 09:13 · Score: 0
  
  A number cannot be "wrong". Nor can it be "right". Nor can it be "left". Correct or incorrect, perhaps...
Uranium inner-inner core? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-02 08:29 · Score: 0

This hypothesis of a tiny, nuclear reactor uranium inner-inner core is still, to my knowledge, untested and controversial.
Nuclear core - huh by m0s3m8n · 2012-02-02 08:31 · Score: 1

Don't think so. It is a pretty far out theory which has no real evidence and plenty of reasons why it does not hold up. But as I can't tunnel down to look, I guess anything is possible.

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1. Re:Nuclear core - huh by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-02 08:42 · Score: 0
  
  "What if the core is made of /cheeeese/?"
Re:Why don't I feel upside down when at the S. Pol by DemonGenius · 2012-02-02 08:31 · Score: 1

Maybe you're not smoking enough reefer?
Wait by Baloroth · 2012-02-02 08:35 · Score: 5, Interesting

So you count the 16 tonnes a year from a nuclear reaction that may or may not be there, but you ignore the effects of space rockets, some of which have payloads in the hundreds of metric tonnes? (the Saturn V can carry 45 tonnes to a Lunar Injection orbit and over twice that to LEO.) Huh, interesting.
Also, what is this about the weight of the Costa Concordia? I want to know how many Libraries of Congress that is per year, damnit.

--
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1. Re:Wait by krlynch · 2012-02-02 08:50 · Score: 1
  
  16 tons/yr for m(b)illions of years is in aggregate a lot more than a few hundred tons a year for the last few decades.
2. Re:Wait by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-02 08:50 · Score: 0
  
  Most of those rocket propellants and space junk are trapped in Earth's orbit. Eventually they would fall back etc. Only a small portion of it goes outside of Earth and not returning.
3. Re:Wait by getto+man+d · 2012-02-02 08:58 · Score: 1
  
  The Library of Congress has " roughly 10 terabytes of uncompressed textual data." Wikipedia
  12 terabytes is ~5 billion sheets of paper (typewritten), so assuming a linear relation then 10 terabytes = ~4.16 billion sheets. Neatorama
  So with Wolfram Alpha this is about 20,800 metric tons, so a bit less than a quarter of the Costa Concordia gross weight. Wolfram Alpha
4. Re:Wait by PlatyPaul · 2012-02-02 09:06 · Score: 1
  
  (147,093,357 items [source]) * (2.5 kg / item [source]) / 50,000 tonnes = 7.35466785 Libraries of Congress per year.
  
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5. Re:Wait by Baloroth · 2012-02-02 09:34 · Score: 1
  
  Ah right, hadn't thought of that, thanks.
  
  --
  "None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license." --John Milton
6. Re:Wait by adolf · 2012-02-02 18:40 · Score: 1
  
  But the question stated in TFS started with "is," not "has."
  
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7. Re:Wait by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-02 21:18 · Score: 0
  
  LEO implies that it's going to come back down again, it's caught in our gravity well. So, it's not really lost, just on a hiatus. We don't send things outside LEO very often.
  What I found more interesting was the 40,000 tonnes of space dust settling on us. The sum of that over millions of years probably makes up quite a bit of our upper crust. And, would also indicate that our planet has been growing in size and once was quite a bit smaller than it is now.
  For example, 200 million years ago when dinosaurs walked the Earth in their prime, assuming that usually around 40k dust lands on us every year would mean that Earth was about 8 trillion tonnes lighter than it is now. Earth's mass is currently, 5.9742 x 1021 tonnes (5.9742 sextillion). You could probably plot back and figure out what Earth's mass was at any given time in the past. It'd be eyeballing things though, because there's lots of other things removing or adding mass. Interesting to think about, though.
8. Re:Wait by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-03 00:49 · Score: 0
  
  ...because the Costa Concordia weighed nothing when it was floating in the water, but now it's resting on land, it's pushing down on it, so making the earth heavier. Duh!
9. Re:Wait by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-03 03:22 · Score: 0
  
  Also, he makes the point that most of the rocket cargo returns to earth, or, in fact never escapes the Earth's gravitational system in the first place.
10. Re:Wait by jcreus · 2012-02-03 20:37 · Score: 1
  
  m(b)illions
  In a regexp, you definitely wouldn't like to match mbillions. Use [mb]illions, or ([mb])illions if you want to get whether it's m or b. FTFY.
Wha--?! by MaWeiTao · 2012-02-02 08:35 · Score: 1

Another factor increasing the earth's mass is global warming which adds about 160 tonnes a year because as the temperature of the Earth goes up, energy is added to the system, so the mass must go up.
Wait, what? Isn't the mass already there but is just being distributed differently? What am I missing here?
1. Re:Wha--?! by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-02 08:58 · Score: 0
  
  E=mc^2 (since we're not going to do this past an undergraduate level, I'm just going to assert this and move on). Global warming causes lots of things on the planet to absorb heat (some things have a higher temperature as a result, others melt or evaporate or whatever). That extra energy is still stuck on the planet though (normally, the energy in the IR would have gone off into space, but the greenhouse effect blocks radiation). That extra energy contributes to extra mass (per Einstein's famous equation).
2. Re:Wha--?! by slimjim8094 · 2012-02-02 09:00 · Score: 1
  
  What am I missing here?
  Mass-energy equivalence.
  
  --
  I have developed a truly marvelous proof of this comment, which this signature is too narrow to contain.
3. Re:Wha--?! by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-02 15:33 · Score: 0
  
  Problem being where did all the extra energy come from? In a closed system, if the amount of energy goes up, the amount of mass must go down because there's nowhere else to get energy from.
  What's actually missing is that energy from the sun is being added to the system and being held in.
40,000T is not much mass by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-02 08:35 · Score: 0

That much mass travels down the freeway in trucks next to my office every half an hour or so.
Of course over a billion year that adds up ...
Solar Orbit Decay? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-02 08:36 · Score: 0

Could a change in Earth's mass cause it's orbit around the sun to decay? If so, could this be a factor in global warming? ...Ducks
1. Re:Solar Orbit Decay? by Algae_94 · 2012-02-02 14:34 · Score: 1
  
  The earths orbit does decay over time. It doesn't have booster rockets to maintain its orbit. At some point it'll become one with the sun. Maybe from orbital decay, maybe from the sun expanding into a giant star. Unless of course the Earth is destroyed or the sun has a nova or supernova first.
Geothermal by Nom+du+Keyboard · 2012-02-02 08:39 · Score: 1

at the very center of the Earth, within the inner core, there exists a sphere of uranium five mile in diameter which acts as a natural nuclear reactor so these nuclear reactions cause a loss of mass of about 16 tonnes per year.
Sounds like the ultimate source of geothermal energy, so let's start drilling for it. Got to get there before Iran goes and makes a bomb out of it.

--
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
It's cold out there... by xded · 2012-02-02 08:40 · Score: 1

how much energy from the Sun hits the Earth every year that all just goes to waste
Try living for a couple of weeks facing nothing but deep space (e.g., south pole in June), then you'll learn what that energy is wasted for...
A planet which your mom is living on? by zAPPzAPP · 2012-02-02 08:41 · Score: 1

It's gaining mass.
End of the World by scharkalvin · 2012-02-02 08:41 · Score: 2

One thing that most posters overlooked was the statement that the Earth's GeoReactor may be shutting down (in anywhere from 100 years to 1 billion years). The theory states that when this happens the earth will lose its magnetic field and then its atmosphere. Scary!
1. Re:End of the World by mvdwege · 2012-02-02 09:20 · Score: 1
  
  Nonsense. The atmosphere is not held in place by the Earth's magnetic field, but by its gravity.
  
  --
  "I know I will be modded down for this": where's the option '-1, Asking for it'?
2. Re:End of the World by Oswald+McWeany · 2012-02-02 09:24 · Score: 1
  
  Actually, it isn't nonsense. Without a magnetic field to protect the atmosphere it would "quickly" be eroded away by the solar winds. (quickly, geologically speaking that is)
  
  --
  "That's the way to do it" - Punch
3. Re:End of the World by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-02 10:58 · Score: 0
  
  Earth's GeoReactor
  
  That's a fringe theory. Earth's core is heated by geothermal decay. Any a handful of people believe there's a reactor down there. The submitter seems to be one of them.
4. Re:End of the World by HexaByte · 2012-02-02 12:12 · Score: 1
  
  Good thing I still have my Y2K survival gear! I'll keep if for the grand(10*18)kids!
  
  --
  HexaByte - he's a square and a half!
5. Re:End of the World by c6gunner · 2012-02-04 09:38 · Score: 1
  
  Oh no! We've only got another billion years to live!
Matt Dayyyymon!!! by jamessnell · 2012-02-02 08:42 · Score: 1

"Another factor increasing the earth's mass is global warming which adds about 160 tonnes a year because as the temperature of the Earth goes up, energy is added to the system, so the mass must go up. On the minus side, at the very center of the Earth, within the inner core, there exists a sphere of uranium five mile in diameter which acts as a natural nuclear reactor so these nuclear reactions cause a loss of mass of about 16 tonnes per year." I'm dumbfounded by how retarded that is. Ever hear of "Convervation of Energy"? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservation_of_energy It makes no practical sense that the planet would gain mass by an increase in temperature. I can see how an increased temperature could make the atmosphere slightly more inclined to escape, but even IF that happens, it'd be a relatively tiny mass compared to the dust and meteors that are showering upon us. Why are we even reading this? I should get back to work. This is stupid.
1. Re:Matt Dayyyymon!!! by dreemernj · 2012-02-02 09:05 · Score: 1
  
  If you have that much of a problem with them describing the mass being added, just convert the mass to energy. 160 tonnes of mass is equivalent to 1.438 x 10^22 Joules of energy. Just pretend the article is saying that energy is being added to the system so the energy of the system must go up by this many Joules.
  
  --
  1 (short ton / firkin) = 89.1432354 slugs / keg
2. Re:Matt Dayyyymon!!! by bunratty · 2012-02-02 09:13 · Score: 2
  
  Energy is mass. E=mc^2 gives us the conversion factor between energy units (e.g. joules) and mass units (e.g. grams). If an object heats up, it has more energy, and thus more mass. If you want to find out how much more massive, you will need to do some math. You can see some in the posts above that seem to show that there is enough solar energy falling on the Earth each year that if the atmosphere is trapping just slightly more than it is letting be emitted into space, the mass of the Earth will increase by many tons per year.
  
  --
  What a fool believes, he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.
3. Re:Matt Dayyyymon!!! by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-02 09:46 · Score: 0
  
  Yeah, since special relativity "makes no practical sense" to you, let's cast it aside. God forbid you educate yourself about physics, we'll just join you down in your pit of intuition and ignorance and call everyone who still holds to science "retarded", "stupid", etc.
  On second thought, we'll stay up here, you fuck off and die.
4. Re:Matt Dayyyymon!!! by jamessnell · 2012-02-02 10:36 · Score: 0
  
  No. That doesn't actually work. It's complete non-sense. Just because the real components of an equation imply that behavior doesn't mean there aren't imaginary aspects that come in to play as you approach boundries. Nature is more complex than we credit it for. Humans strive to bound everything to a linear paradigm. The world is non-linear and failures to respect that lead to crazy situations like thinking the planet could possibly be losing mass due to things like internal nuclear processes. No, it's not. The energy is stored in the state of the matter, not in its mass.
5. Re:Matt Dayyyymon!!! by jamessnell · 2012-02-02 10:39 · Score: 0
  
  E=mc^2 gives us a model to compare nature with, within the bounraries of reality in which we exist. It is not complete in that form. And no, Energy is not mass. They are related. Perhaps not unlike an electric field and a magnetic field. They are components of the universe that interact. I think it's time I removed /. from my rss reader.
6. Re:Matt Dayyyymon!!! by dreemernj · 2012-02-02 10:49 · Score: 2
  
  The energy is stored in the state of the matter, not in its mass.
  So, nature is more complex than we credit it for and, as a result of that, we should dumb down our understanding of modern physics to ignore mass-energy equivalence and binding force. Got it.
  
  --
  1 (short ton / firkin) = 89.1432354 slugs / keg
7. Re:Matt Dayyyymon!!! by jamessnell · 2012-02-02 10:59 · Score: 1
  
  Sigh. Yes. That's exactly what I said. Glad you understood. Finally, we can both move on now.
8. Re:Matt Dayyyymon!!! by bunratty · 2012-02-02 11:51 · Score: 1
  
  Most of the mass of your body is actually the binding energy of the quarks and gluons that make up the protons and neutrons of your atoms. Energy is mass. Deal with it.
  
  --
  What a fool believes, he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.
9. Re:Matt Dayyyymon!!! by jamessnell · 2012-02-02 12:13 · Score: 1
  
  How interesting. Please provide some URLs or something so I can learn more about where this idea has been empirically examined?
10. Re:Matt Dayyyymon!!! by bunratty · 2012-02-02 12:19 · Score: 1
  
  You can look up general relativity and the standard model, both of which have been tested to a high degree of precision.
  
  --
  What a fool believes, he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.
11. Re:Matt Dayyyymon!!! by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-02 14:18 · Score: 0
  
  You should actually learn Relativity.
  http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.881171
12. Re:Matt Dayyyymon!!! by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-02 17:21 · Score: 0
  
  E=mc^2 is just the rest energy of given mass. The temperature is stored as momentum (i.e. movement of particles), which is normally left out of this simplified, but famous, rest-energy equation.
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass%E2%80%93energy_equivalence
  "The simple equation E = mc is not generally applicable to all these types of mass and energy, except in the special case that the momentum is zero for the system under consideration. In such a case, which is always guaranteed when observing the system from the center of mass frame, E = mc is true for any type of mass and energy that are chosen. Thus, for example, in the center of mass frame the total energy of an object or system is equal to its rest mass times c, a useful equality. This is the relationship used for the container of gas in the previous example. It is not true in other reference frames in which a system or object's total energy will depend on both its rest (or invariant) mass, and also its total momentum."
Missionaries... by Oswald+McWeany · 2012-02-02 08:46 · Score: 0

The earth is gaining Mass- thanks to those darn catholic missionaries.

--
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
fringe theory, not mainstream by iggymanz · 2012-02-02 08:49 · Score: 4, Informative

the mainstream view is that the iron-nickel core of the earth is of the same source and composition of iron-nickel asteroids, which have little or no uranium.
AGW has debunked nuclear core theory by dtjohnson · 2012-02-02 08:51 · Score: 1

AGW science uses sophisticated computer modelling to show that the Earth's climate is driven by the carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere...the 'forcing function'. The nuclear core theory provides for a nuclear reactor generating 4 terawatts of heat that must be continuously radiated into space. Moreover, the nuclear reactor output varies over time from full production to zero production to full production.
http://www.rense.com/general25/vore.htm
Such variation obviously has never happened or we would have seen major changes in the long-term climate. Therefore, the AGW science has thoroughly discredited the nuclear core science since there are obviously thousands of scientists who believe the AGW science versus only one or a handful who believe in nuclear core science and we have to give the verdict to the majority opinion. That's how we do science in the 21st century... As for TFA, is the Earth gaining or losing mass? Duh! + 40000 + 160 -15 = a whole lot of gain. There...solved that question too.
1. Re:AGW has debunked nuclear core theory by bunratty · 2012-02-02 09:19 · Score: 1
  
  The energy released from fission is not instaneously released into the atmosphere. The energy goes through the Earth, which will act as a damper to even out fluctuations.
  This is why the temperature in caves is relatively constant, at about the average temperature of the temperature outside the cave. Cave temperature does not shoot up during the day or even get much warmer in the summer due to fluctuations in solar radiation because of the damping effect. Science -- it does take the slightest bit of understanding and thought!
  
  --
  What a fool believes, he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.
2. Re:AGW has debunked nuclear core theory by mbkennel · 2012-02-02 09:25 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  Huh?
  The knowledge and certainty level about nuclear georeactors is quite low (understatement), and it is a minority opinion that it exists. If it does we certainly don't know enough about its prehistory either and what the consequences to climate would have been, so the climatological record isn't remotely conclusive on this.
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth's_energy_budget#Incoming_energy
  Incoming solar radiation is 173 petawatts, 44 to 47 terawatts from "stored heat and radioactive decay" (probably not from fission), which is 0.025%.
  So a variation of 4 terawatts is about 0.002% of solar insolation. Now the climate can be sensitive but I doubt it's that sensitive. It probably wouldn't be possible to pick up a fluctuation in a 4 terawatt core georeactor in climate data.
  The core georeactor should be actually reasonably easy to detect if you can analyze neutrino scattering data and get initial angle and energy distribution of the incoming particles. That fact that I haven't heard of such a signal (the neutrino experimentalists would have found an unusual pesky background that they couldn't get rid of when trying to measure solar neutrinos) leads me to believe far more directly and without reference to climate that it's unlikely there's any signifcant core georeactor. Maybe it's possible it was just missed, and was in the data.
  Atmospheric physics and dynamics is much, much better understood since we've had experiments and theory for 50 years or so.
3. Re:AGW has debunked nuclear core theory by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-02 11:06 · Score: 0
  
  thousands of scientists who believe the AGW science versus only one or a handful who believe in nuclear core science and we have to give the verdict to the majority opinion. That's how we do science in the 21st century...
  
  No, thats how you "do science" if you have no evidence to back up your scientific theories and have a political agenda behind it. If I found a thousand scientists that said the earth was flat does that make it fact? No, science is REALITY and any group of scientists, no matter how large, cannot affect reality.
4. Re:AGW has debunked nuclear core theory by dtjohnson · 2012-02-10 05:36 · Score: 1
  
  Incoming solar radiation would be about 121 petawatts, not 173 petawatts since you must consider the Earth's albedo which averages about 30 percent. More importantly, though, is your statement 'I doubt it's that sensitive' suggests that you miss the entire point about the AGW debate which is 'does the increase in atmospheric co2 concentration caused by man's use of fossil fuels change the earth's heat balance sufficiently to cause global surface temperatures to increase?' By definition, a change in the co2 concentration of a few tens of ppm would be a perturbation that only a very sensitive climate system would respond to given that by far the majority of the atmospheric 'greenhouse' effect is caused by not co2 but h2o which is both present in the atmosphere at a much higher concentration in its non-condensed form and has a much more potent ability to absorb outgoing radiant energy. Ergo, if you want to believe in AGW, you HAVE to believe that the climate is extremely sensitive to very small perturbations, such as might be caused by the cycling of the planetary reactor which is theorized to lie at the Earth's core. Finally, the 4 terawatt number is obviously a very rough estimate for the heat output from something that no one is even sure exists. The actual number may be orders of magnitude greater (or less) than that.
Old news by sinequonon · 2012-02-02 08:55 · Score: 0

Why the $%#&@*! does this even rate a /. story? The rates are so minuscule that they matter not at all in the Earth's geologic story.

--
-Bob-
Re:Why don't I feel upside down when at the S. Pol by mark-t · 2012-02-02 09:04 · Score: 1

I'm not entirely sure if you're being serious or not.
Nonetheless, assuming you are, your sense of up/down is actually derived from gravity, and not merely spatial positioning. Since gravity is always pulling you towards the center of the earth, you cannot perceive any difference in your orientation with regards to what direction is up.
However, if you use a specific star as a reference point, and look at how high in the sky it is at a certain time of night at on a particular day of the year at each location (or, if you are feeling lazy, use the north star, which has a roughly fixed position in the sky, so the time of year and time of evening won't matter), then you should be able to logically convince yourself that, when you are at different lattitudes, the direction that you call "down" has genuinely changed..

--
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Oops by getto+man+d · 2012-02-02 09:04 · Score: 1

Sorry, we are losing about 2.4 LOC per year.
There's No Georeactor by Diamonddavej · 2012-02-02 09:07 · Score: 5, Informative

There's no evidence of a georeactor in the Earth's core. We know this by measuring the abundance of geoneutrinos - neutrinos generated by radioactive decay and nuclear fission. The KamLAND, Japan and Borexino, Italy discovered a ~50% deficit in geoneutrinos i.e. 22 of 44 TerraWatts of heat comes from radioactive decay. The rest is primordial, left over from the Earth's cataclysmic formation. If there was a georeactor there would have been an anomalous abundance in geoneutrinos (KamLAND detected fission neutrinos from nearby Japanese nuclear reactors).
The hypothesis of a georeactor, powered by a 16km diameter sphere of Uranium, was put forward by maverick scientist J. Marvin Herndon. He also believes the Earth is expanding and he rejects plate tectonics. Despite that, mainstream science did not ignore him but enthusiastically tested this georeactor theory.
Gando, A. et al., 2011. Partial radiogenic heat model for Earth revealed by geoneutrino measurements. Nature Geoscience 4(9), 647-651.
1. Re:There's No Georeactor by pz · 2012-02-02 09:51 · Score: 4, Interesting
  
  If you read the linked article, it all sounds very interesting, and reasonable plausible, and even perhaps worth serious investigation. That is, until you hit first the part that sounds like a crank complaining about being ignored by mainstream science, and then the absurd notion that the fusion reaction in stars can only ignite from a running fission core (where did that fissile material come from then?), or the equally absurd notion that thermonuclear bombs are proof that stars can ignite in that way.
  That said, I'm glad that someone took the idea of a sustaining nuclear reactor seriously enough to test it.
  
  --
  
  Put my fist through my alarm clock with its ding-dong death inside my ear. - The Blackjacks.
2. Re:There's No Georeactor by joe_frisch · 2012-02-02 12:36 · Score: 1
  
  A very good point. Any idea of what limit they can put on fission power generated in the earth's core?
  There might also be some information from seismometry - woudl a 5-mile diameter high density central core be noticable (I don't have any feel for the resolution of these techniques).
  I would think that if there is significant heat generatio in the inner core, it could only be carried by convection and that would quickly dilute (or more likely prevent from forming) any central reactor. This is just a guss though - my intuition may be very broken on these scales.
3. Re:There's No Georeactor by ElitistWhiner · 2012-02-03 05:19 · Score: 1
  
  Exactly!
  mod+1 TinHatDeflector
Do the people and animals add mass? by realsilly · 2012-02-02 09:15 · Score: 0

With all the food that is consumed and reproduced, for all living things, I would think that the people and animals on this planet do add mass. Take all the people off and then ask the question.
Of course, this is just a silly opinion.

--
Life takes interesting turns, but the most interest is when you're off the beaten path.
the article is self-contradictory by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-02 09:20 · Score: 0

TFA isn't self consistent.

Anyone else notice that there is an assumption that thermal energy has mass when global warming is considered, but thermal energy is also assumed not to have mass when nuclear fission in the core is brought up?
1. Re:the article is self-contradictory by riverat1 · 2012-02-02 13:18 · Score: 1
  
  The energy for global warming comes from an external source, the Sun. The thermal energy in the core is internal to the Earth so converting from mass to energy doesn't change the total mass of the Earth.
Re:Why don't I feel upside down when at the S. Pol by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-02 09:20 · Score: 0

DFTT be damned, that is truly the best answer ever for that question!
Global warming at 1%? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-02 09:31 · Score: 0

Do you actually believe that out of 10^24 J the Earth keeps 10^22 J per year? You must be in hell already.
1. Re:Global warming at 1%? by blueg3 · 2012-02-02 09:41 · Score: 1
  
  Not necessarily. I certainly don't buy numbers just because a scientician was quoted in a BBC article. But the point is that 160 tons is not an unreasonable quantity of heat.
Re:Why don't I feel upside down when at the S. Pol by M8e · 2012-02-02 09:32 · Score: 1

It's because of evolution. Animals falling towards earths center have the evolutionary advantage of not floating off into space.
There is even an xkcd comic that's slightly on topic:
http://xkcd.com/417/
and this video explains it very well (even if you don't understand swedish)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8SNZuOHnFDk
Re:Why don't I feel upside down when at the S. Pol by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-02 09:44 · Score: 0

Earth has a plasma core.
There is NO URANIUM SPHERE! by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-02 09:45 · Score: 0

Wow more pseudoscience bull$#!T.
One kilogram of mass = 40 minutes by cnaumann · 2012-02-02 09:48 · Score: 1

It takes about 15TW to power modern civiliation. That is about 500 exajoules of energy annually. In terms of mass, that works out to about 5,500 kilograms per year. One kilogram of mass converted directly to energy would last about 40 minutes.
1. Re:One kilogram of mass = 40 minutes by Gordonjcp · 2012-02-02 10:04 · Score: 3, Funny
  
  One kilogram of mass converted directly to energy would last about 40 minutes.
  (Picks up a bag of sugar, eyes it thoughtfully)
  40 minutes, eh? That's still pretty cool...
2. Re:One kilogram of mass = 40 minutes by countach · 2012-02-02 17:08 · Score: 1
  
  Right, so go easy on that sugar!
UNAEC by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-02 09:53 · Score: 0

Is the United Nations Atomic Energy Commission aware of the illegal nuclear reactor at the earths core?
Everybody Panic! by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-02 10:01 · Score: 0

OMG! At this rate the Earth is going to lose 0.0000000008% of it's total mass over the next 1,000,000 years. We are doomed!
Let's get off this rock as fast as possible!
Grade School Physics by Dareth · 2012-02-02 10:05 · Score: 1

Grade school physics says we can then fix this whole issue by slowing down the acceleration of the Earth.

--

I only look human.
My mother is a halfling and my dad is an ogre, so that makes me an Ogreling
my fav comment by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-02 10:10 · Score: 0

"lobal warming which adds about 160 tonnes a year because as the temperature of the Earth goes up, energy is added to the system, so the mass must go up"
Dumbest thing Ive ever read on Slashdot.
Re:Good grief. Religious zealots really annoy me by Chris+Burke · 2012-02-02 10:15 · Score: 5, Informative

Dude, your math is WAY off. How'd you go from mass to required energy without determining the specific heat of the earth?
Here, let me calculate the energy required to heat just the iron content of the earth (34.6% by mass) by 1 C: 9.278* 10^26 J, which is equivalent to 1.037 & 10^7 metric tonnes.
You are off by a LOT of decimal places. A mere 23kJ should have immediately tipped you off as not passing the smell test. That's less than 1/1000th of the energy released by burning 1 liter of gasoline!

--

The enemies of Democracy are
Re:Why don't I feel upside down when at the S. Pol by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-02 10:19 · Score: 0

Have you tested this? I'm at the south pole right now (pretty decent wifi down here) and I'm hanging on by my toes. Feels upside-down to me!
as the temperature of the Earth goes up...!? by scorp1us · 2012-02-02 10:34 · Score: 1, Insightful

Another factor increasing the earth's mass is global warming which adds about 160 tonnes a year because as the temperature of the Earth goes up, energy is added to the system, so the mass must go up.
How does adding energy result in increasing mass, unless you're converting energy to matter? Surely if you heat something, it expands, but that does not increase mass!

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1. Re: as the temperature of the Earth goes up...!? by jmottram08 · 2012-02-02 11:23 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  Because E equals MC^2, not E sometimes equals MC^2.
  Adding energy increases mass, you normally dont notice it because c^2 is pretty big.
2. Re: as the temperature of the Earth goes up...!? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-02 14:03 · Score: 1
  
  How does adding energy result in increasing mass
  It doesn't. Relativistic mass is nothing more than a mathematical concept and does not represent a physical quantity.
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_in_special_relativity#Modern_view
3. Re: as the temperature of the Earth goes up...!? by Linknoid · 2012-02-02 17:54 · Score: 2
  
  Ever look at the periodic table of elements in detail? Notice how hydrogen is not exactly one, helium is not exactly 4, nitrogen is not exactly 12, etc.? Well partly that's because of different isotopes (carbon 12, carbon 13, carbon 14, etc), but even if you had a pure isotope, it wouldn't come out exactly. That's because part of the mass of an atom is tied up in the binding energy in the nucleus, and the binding energy between the electrons and the nucleus.
  If you take hydrogen and oxygen and react them together, it will give off heat, and the resulting water will have a mass reduced by the amount of heat given off. I think I've even read that most of the mass of protons and neutrons is tied up in the binding energy of the quarks, and that the quarks by themselves don't weight that much.
  Like another reply said, the only reason you don't notice this effect is because a even a few hundred degrees temperature change is so minuscule compared to c^2.
4. Re: as the temperature of the Earth goes up...!? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-02 19:06 · Score: 0
  
  There is only kinetic energy and rest energy. If you are external to a system that has increased the kinetic energy of its components, you tally it as rest energy. Heating an object does indeed increase its rest energy. If you look at the rest energy of a proton, you see that it exceeds the rest energy of its quarks. Binding energy reduces the rest energy. A great deal of the rest energy ("mass") of a proton is due to the kinetic energy of the quarks.
  If you stretch or compress a spring from its equilibrium length, you increase its rest energy ("mass"). If an external force lifts an apple from the Earth's surface, the rest energy ("mass") of the Earth-apple system increases. Relativity doesn't have "potential energy", so any changes in classical potential energy are tallied as increases in rest energy.
  Gravitation couples to energy, whether rest energy or kinetic energy, so both inertial and gravitational "mass" increase.
5. Re: as the temperature of the Earth goes up...!? by pradeepsekar · 2012-02-03 04:43 · Score: 1
  
  When something is burnt, energy is only being converted - from chemical energy to heat energy. Even when someone talks about the (supposed) nuclear reaction inside earth's core, the mass lost really is converted into heat which is spread on to the mantle and perhaps the atmosphere, but definitely not radiated away. This increased energy would add to an equal amount of mass as lost by the (supposed) nuclear reaction if calculated using E=MC^2. The quantity (E+M*C^2) is conserved in a closed system.
  The only real increase to this would be the energy from the sun, which would be approx 173 petawatt, of which 30% is reflected out (Albedo). Given that 25million kilowatt-hour is a gram, this would only contribute to an increase of just 4.8tons.
6. Re: as the temperature of the Earth goes up...!? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-03 06:05 · Score: 0
  
  E = MC^2 is a conversion formula ... ie... One Dollar Bill * 10 = Ten Dollar Bill
  Energy and Mass are separate but related, if you take a kilogram of iron and lower it's temperature I wouldn't expect it's mass to drop, nor would I expect it to increase as the iron was heated.
  To put it another way... No matter the price for Silver and no matter how many dollar bills someone stuffs in your shorts... they don't automatically change to silver.
Honey, does this solar system make me look fat? by gestalt_n_pepper · 2012-02-02 10:37 · Score: 0

I mean, does it?

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Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
Re: Good grief. by BergZ · 2012-02-02 10:58 · Score: 1

What I find interesting is that you have taken issue with the (admittedly back-of-the-napkin) claim that Global Warming accounts for the Earth "gaining ~160 tonnes/year". I'm willing to bet that the calculations Dr Smith used to arrive at the estimate that the Earth is "losing ~16 tonnes/year" due to the core cooling are even less accurate... and yet you don't seem to have any problem with those!
All that is to say: Your comment makes me think that you saw the words "Global Warming" in TFA and issued a knee-jerk "that's absurd!" reaction.

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RE the Uranium by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-02 11:21 · Score: 0

So the energy we get from the sun increases our mass... but the decay of the uranium decreases our mass? Doesn't the decay of the uranium result in a release of energy? Isn't that energy trapped at the center of the Earth? Thermodynamics FTW!
DUPE by sexconker · 2012-02-02 11:28 · Score: 1

http://slashdot.org/submission/1929193/is-the-earth-gaining-or-losing-mass
Re:Good grief. Religious zealots really annoy me by froggymana · 2012-02-02 11:46 · Score: 2

[...] 23kJ[...] That's less than 1/1000th of the energy released by burning 1 liter of gasoline!
And that's why cars are causing global warming! duh.

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Re:Good grief. Religious zealots really annoy me by Chris+Burke · 2012-02-02 12:00 · Score: 3, Funny

Yeah it sucks how the earth warms 1000 degrees every time I drive to work. Sorry for cooking everyone! :)

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The enemies of Democracy are
global warming and increase in mass is bullshit. by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-02 12:03 · Score: 0

There is such a thing as conservation of mass, basic physics.
How does the mass increase happen? by GPS+Pilot · 2012-02-02 12:14 · Score: 1

I've always wondered, where does the increased mass manifest itself? Is it distributed amongst all the atoms in the object?
Say I have a lump of copper comprising 10^23 copper atoms. When I take it out of the freezer, does the mass of each one of those copper atoms increase? Taking the question down still one more level, do only the nucleons of those atoms gain mass, or do their electrons become more massive as well?

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That that is is that that that that is not is not.
1. Re:How does the mass increase happen? by bunratty · 2012-02-02 12:32 · Score: 2
  
  The energy we think of as heat is actually the kinetic energy of the motion of atoms. So the parts of the copper that are moving faster would have more of the energy than those that are moving slower.
  
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  What a fool believes, he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.
2. Re:How does the mass increase happen? by pclminion · 2012-02-02 12:48 · Score: 2
  
  To put it crudely the mass is "in" the energy, so wherever the energy is is where the mass is. In the case of kinetic energy it's simply a property of the moving object (and varies depending on frame of reference!) In the case of potential energy it manifests itself as the field between the objects which are interacting with each other. For instance two protons close together have more mass than two protons far away from each other -- the additional mass-energy resides in the EM field between the protons. Or to be quantum about it, the energy is manifest in the form of virtual photons which constitute the interaction between the protons.
3. Re:How does the mass increase happen? by CtownNighrider · 2012-02-07 14:55 · Score: 1
  
  This is why I have so much respect for theoretical physicists.
pwnstein by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-02 12:49 · Score: 0

Are there theories (or studies) on exactly what the created mass is, when more energy is put into the system? An extra atom doesnt just pop into existence surely. And existing atoms dont just get bigger..or do they? its all pretty wtf to me. What is the mass thats converted from the enrgy?
Also, I thought the basic concept was that when you add more energy to a system, it only increases in mass if its already travelling at the speed of light, but I'm happy to be told otherwise.
1. Re:pwnstein by bunratty · 2012-02-02 12:56 · Score: 1
  
  The extra mass is the kinetic energy of the system. Energy is mass.
  
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  What a fool believes, he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.
Bizzarre thing to be mentioned on slashdot for by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-02 12:55 · Score: 0

I am the Dave Ansell mentioned in the story (unfortunately for my bank balance not a professor though), we were asked to do some maths for a radio program, all it is doing is taking the difference between power in vs power out per square metre of the earth, and then multiplying it up over the earth's surface. I am not sure why it has got everywhere...
There is some slightly less mangled background here
http://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/index.php?topic=42905.msg379510#msg379510
We certainly didn't say anything about a sphere of Uranium at the centre of the earth!!!
No China Syndrome? by tomhath · 2012-02-02 13:59 · Score: 0

Shouldn't that 5 mile lump of melted uranium melt right through the Earth and come out in China?
Wake Up Slahsdot!!! by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-02 14:05 · Score: 0

Seriously? Hello? Slahsdot moderators? Is there anybody home? Or have CmdrTaco and Cowboy Neal been replaced by auto-accept robots? This kind of uncritical reporting-on-reporting is worse than an echo chamber. It's more like the leftover cardboard tube from a toll of toilet paper -- open at both ends and less useful than the product it carried. This is the kind of uncritical "publishing" which gives /. the reputation it sadly too often deserves .
Massive by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-02 14:23 · Score: 0

Well, considering the dump I took this morning, I'd say "gaining".
vacuum cleaner by quenda · 2012-02-02 15:18 · Score: 1

'The Earth is acting like a giant vacuum cleaner powered by gravity in space, pulling in particles of dust,
Could this be the first ever genuinely witty pun in a /. header, or merely a freak accident?
Re:Why don't I feel upside down when at the S. Pol by Cimexus · 2012-02-02 16:02 · Score: 1

One quite vivid way of doing this is looking at the moon from different hemispheres too. Most people have looked at the moon and seen the mares on it, darker grey areas contrasting with the 'white' areas (yes I know they aren't actually white and in fact still quite dark, the moon has a very low albedo etc.)
I'm Australian, but when I first went to the northern hemisphere, I got this vague impression that something looked 'wrong' with the moon, but I couldn't quite figure out what. I eventually realised that it's because it was "upside down" from how it normally looks (since in the northern hemisphere the moon will be in the southern sky, and vice versa, you're going to be looking at it from a different angle unless you like bending your neck back over your head greater than 90 degrees...)
Correction by Ambitwistor · 2012-02-02 16:48 · Score: 1

Oops, HTML got garbled. And I got the timescale wrong (1.5 * 10^22 J of heat accumulation is over about the 10-year period of 1995-2005, not the "latter half of the 20th century".
Here's the intended post:
Your innumerate ranting about needing to do math refused to do any math. And come on, merely mentioning global warming's contribution to the Earth's mass budget makes one a zealot? Sounds like you have an axe to grind. Who's the zealot here?
Let me do the math for you.
Cumulative ocean heat uptake over the 1995-2005 decade, largely due to global warming, is almost 1.5 * 10^23 Joules for the upper 700 meters of the ocean alone (reference). By E = mc^2, this works out to about 1700 tons over about 10 years, or about 170 tons per year, as the article claims.
The mass-equivalent from global warming is not due to the energy released by combustion, but rather to the excess heat trapped by the greenhouse effect. The latter is about 100 times bigger than the former (rough calculation).
You are, at least, correct in saying that the mass equivalent of global warming is probably dwarfed by the error bars on the Earth's net mass budget.
Krypton, 1956 or before by harvey+the+nerd · 2012-02-02 16:53 · Score: 1

Dr. Herndon: I first came upon the idea of planetary-scale nuclear fission reactors by considering the Gas Giants.
I first came upon the idea of planetary-scale nuclear fission reactors while reading Superman comics as boy. I think Krypton's uranium core was described by 1956. Hope we do better...
And you both seem to have missed... by CountBrass · 2012-02-02 18:50 · Score: 3, Informative

The most baseless claim in the summary is that there is a 5 mile wide sphere of Uranium acting as a nuclear reactor at the centre of the Earth.
There is no evidence for this, it's just wild speculation.

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Bad analogies are like waxing a monkey with a rainbow.
1. Re:And you both seem to have missed... by MickLinux · 2012-02-03 05:19 · Score: 1
  
  Oh, no... it's been scientifically proven by now, as demonstrated by the fact that it shows up at this link .
  
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  Correct Horse Battery Staple: 72 bits of entropy. Enter "Correct H" into google. When it generates the phrase, that's
2. Re:And you both seem to have missed... by nobodie · 2012-02-05 03:22 · Score: 1
  
  Yeah, that was what i was waiting for someone to challenge
  
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  Subversion of spatial scale luxury decoration ideas.
Me too! by XrayJunkie · 2012-02-02 19:55 · Score: 1

I am gaining mass too! For several years now. Cant stop it!
no subject by don_oles · 2012-02-03 00:36 · Score: 0

aren't you tired of lying to people? what global warming?
slashdot has been converted to another propaganda machine ?
Losing mass by SirGarlon · 2012-02-03 02:00 · Score: 1

I am pretty sure the Earth is losing mass if you count the atmosphere. Gas molecules in the atmosphere have a velocity distribution based on their temperature. Way up at the high end of the bell curve are some with speed exceeding 11.2 km/s. And some portion of those are moving in a direction where they won't collide with the earth's surface, so, goodbye! My understanding is that light gases in the upper atmosphere (H2, CH4) are most susceptible to this because they can receive impulses from collisions with heavier molecules, and in the rarefied upper atmosphere they are less likely to be deflected earthward due to a subsequent collision. This model was described to me in Astronomy 101, literally, as the prevailing theory why Mars has a thin atmosphere and Mercury and the Moon have none. (Venus ostensibly still has an atmosphere for the same reason Earth does: large mass so high escape velocity.) I am very surprised to not see it even considered in the "balance sheet" since I'd expect it to massively outweigh the mass equivalent of solar heat retained.

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[Sir Garlon] is the marvellest knight that is now living, for he destroyeth many good knights, for he goeth invisible.
1. Re:Losing mass by SirGarlon · 2012-02-03 02:04 · Score: 1
  
  OK, I'm a nitwit, this is in TFA but I missed it first time around. It was very brief. That's what I get for skimming TFA without reading every word.
  
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  [Sir Garlon] is the marvellest knight that is now living, for he destroyeth many good knights, for he goeth invisible.
More clarification please? by JSBiff · 2012-02-03 02:18 · Score: 1

Ok, so I understand the mass-energy equivalence with regards to the fact that energy can be *turned into* mass, e.g. through nuclear reactions (Fission of light elements [lighter than iron] or fusion of heavy elements [heavier than iron]).
But, so far as I know, heat energy at "normal" levels doesn't drive fusion or fission? Does the mere increase in vibration and rotation of atoms cause those atoms to gain mass even without undergoing a nuclear reaction?
1. Re:More clarification please? by PAStheLoD · 2012-02-06 19:07 · Score: 1
  
  Yes, precisely. More kinetic energy, more mass. That's how you get to infinite (or zero, if you started with zero) mass at lightspeed, after all.
Mass-energy Equivalence by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-03 02:44 · Score: 0

How on Earth would add to the mass the global warming? That adds _energy_ to the system of Earth as such. It only turns to mass... wait, it doesn't. The "global warming" is caused by the increasing amount of green house gases in the atmosphere so but it manifest it self in the vibration of the existing mass.
To put it in a different way, the Earth receives energy from the sun on a constant 24/7 basis. If the "global warming" means more mass, how do we account for the plants who are absorbing energy from the sun? An Earth with complete plant-cover would make the Earth gain mass faster?
I know what mass-energy equivalence is about, but to state, that the higher energy vibration of the _surface_ of the earth is in anyway alter the mass of the Earth is just telling how much the person knows about phyics.
Hmmmm but...does the core loss count? by TheCarp · 2012-02-03 05:48 · Score: 1

Ok... I am out of my depth here but lets give this a try....
Increase in energy = Increase in Mass according to the ratio we get from: E=mc^2
But the core is at the center of the earth. So.... some amount of mass is converted to energy, I am ok with that but, isn't that energy mostly absorbed into the surrounding core and layers of earth around it? Wouldn't that mitigate what would otherwise be a net loss in mass? Or is this 16 tonnes the amount that escapes as neutrinos or some other manner?
Or am I just plain missing something?

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"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
Uranium BS by PJ6 · 2012-02-03 06:20 · Score: 1

Even if there were a large ball of Uranium at the center of the Earth, there would be no net change in mass from nuclear decay as the energy it created would have a mass identical to the matter that was annihilated to create it. Yes, this energy would eventually come out as heat and could be lost to space, but it would get rolled into all the other planet-wide processes that generate or lose heat. No meaningful measure of "planetary mass loss due to fission in the Earth's core" is possible.