Back-of-the-envelope equilibrium estimate: if we increase the energy added to the atmosphere by 1%, then the Stefan-Boltzmann law says that a blackbody would need to be 0.010.25 warmer, or 0.4%, to radiate that much more. At the Earth’s temperature of ~288 K, this would be ~0.7 K warmer.
This suggests to me that it will have a smaller impact than global warming. Whatever we use to solve global warming will probably work on this problem as well. It’s still something to keep in mind, though.
Note: since most global warming statistics are presented to the American layman in degrees Fahrenheit, it is probably useful to convert 0.7 K to 1.26 F.
I’d assume the opposite, since I don’t think physicists (and other thermodynamic scientists like some chemists) make up a majority of LW readers, but it’s irrelevant. I can (and did) put both forms side-by-side to allow both physicists and non-physicists to better understand the magnitude of the temperature difference. (And since laymen are more likely to skim over the number and ignore the letter, it’s disproportionately more important to include Fahrenheit.)
Edit: wait, delta-K is equivalent to delta-C. In that case, since physicists ⋃ metric-users might make up the majority of LW readers, you’re probably right about the number of users.
Ah thanks, so the equilibrium is more robust than I initially assumed, didn’t expect that to happen.
So the issue won’t be as pressing as climate change could be, although some kind of ceiling still exists for energy consumption on Earth nevertheless...
Back-of-the-envelope equilibrium estimate: if we increase the energy added to the atmosphere by 1%, then the Stefan-Boltzmann law says that a blackbody would need to be 0.010.25 warmer, or 0.4%, to radiate that much more. At the Earth’s temperature of ~288 K, this would be ~0.7 K warmer.
This suggests to me that it will have a smaller impact than global warming. Whatever we use to solve global warming will probably work on this problem as well. It’s still something to keep in mind, though.
Note: since most global warming statistics are presented to the American layman in degrees Fahrenheit, it is probably useful to convert 0.7 K to 1.26 F.
I would assume Kelvin users to outnumber Fahrenheit users on LW.
I’d assume the opposite, since I don’t think physicists (and other thermodynamic scientists like some chemists) make up a majority of LW readers, but it’s irrelevant. I can (and did) put both forms side-by-side to allow both physicists and non-physicists to better understand the magnitude of the temperature difference. (And since laymen are more likely to skim over the number and ignore the letter, it’s disproportionately more important to include Fahrenheit.)
Edit: wait, delta-K is equivalent to delta-C. In that case, since physicists ⋃ metric-users might make up the majority of LW readers, you’re probably right about the number of users.
About half of LessWrong users (or at least visitors) are from places other than the U.S., which means there are a lot more metric users.
Ah thanks, so the equilibrium is more robust than I initially assumed, didn’t expect that to happen.
So the issue won’t be as pressing as climate change could be, although some kind of ceiling still exists for energy consumption on Earth nevertheless...