Japanese idea of using satellite for split water on the ground

> In a message dated Fri, 11 Jan 2002 7:44:36 AM Eastern Standard Time, "James D. Traill" jdt@... writes:
>
>>Imagine all the massive amounts of energy added to the Earth's biosphere
>>over the next thousand years.....
>>
>>Now...
>>
>>What will that do?
>>
> Earth has a natural equilbirium heat balance. Provided the

> atmosphere remains fairly transparent at IR frequencies, you

> can pump in all the energy you like and the surplus heat simply

> gets radiated out to space.

That's not really the case, there are naturally greenhouse gases
that vastly outnumber the greenhouse gases made by man- also
there are sinks for CO2 such as limestone that react with the gases
and produce carbonates. Also, some of the key processes are
probably rate controlled by life ('Gai'); additionally I have heard
that the biggest greenhouse gas of all is water vapour.

> As you increase the energy input, the radiation output increases

> to compensate, and Earth returns to the same average temperature,

> which is dictated by its distance from the Sun.

Again, not as simple as that. It also depends on how much land is
being irradiated (the continents slide around) and volcanic
activity. Also life probably pays a part in ways we don't
completely understand yet- there are some suggestions that bacteria
are able to control temperature by seeding clouds for example.

> The one thing that can screw up the equilibrium is greenhouse

> gas emissions, which reduce the Earth's ability to radiate its

> heat to space, resulting in an overall increase in temperature.

There's probably lots of things that can do that, but it's
certainly not going to help. Still, the earth has been both hotter
and colder than this in the past. We may still be coming out of the
last ice age which was only about 10,000 years ago IRC.

> A relatively small amount of fossil fuel burning generates

> greenhouse gases (CO2 primarily) which trap much more heat

> (approx thousands of times more) than is actually produced by

> the fuel consumer.

Maybe. It's still dwarfed by natural variations though. Which isn't
to say it doesn't have an effect, and quite likely a very negative
one.

Still, one good thing. A runaway greenhouse effect looks extremely
unlikely- all of the CO2 used to be in the atmosphere, and yet
the earth is rather different to Venus. It's thought that the
temperature will only go up by a degree C or two in the next
hundred years.

It's all horribly complicated; I vote we get off the planet and
consider the problem from space ;-) Do I hear a second?