Thermodynamics

So I haven’t been posting much on this site, but I’ll try and get back into it about now. Stupid economy’s had me pretty damn busy lately, not to mention making a move a third of the way around the world.

In this time I was able to get a paper of mine finished, submitted and accepted to a conference on global climate change that takes place at the university of McMaster (Hamilton, ON) in May.

here’s the link, which I can’t officially post yet … n00b

cctc.mcmaster.ca/index.php/cctc/2009

For those who are currious my paper takes an unconventional approach to the climate change problem. In about 2006 I wondered what would happen if global warming was considered a thermodynamic problem and not a CO2 problem. The methodolgy doesn’t ignore the CO2 part of the problem but it does reduce the roll that it plays in the global energy balence system.

My overall exploration is to see how much energy human activity is causing to build up in the atmosphere. The paper that I finished explores this in terms of deforestation.

I started with the bio-chemistry of photosynthesis which is well understood and essentially beyond debate. This balenced reaction relates solar energy uptake to CO2 uptake.

The next step was to find estimates about the amount of CO2 that forest cover absorbs per year. I figured these numbers would be acurate enough for a first model, I think I used 1000 metric tonnes / year / km2 of forest.

Using both of those things it wasn’t hard to assign forest cover an energy absorption value (in kJ / year / km2).

Numbers about the area of forest destroyed per year are a bit more difficult to find so this is where my confidence about the model’s assumptions starts to lag. If good numbers can be found about forest destruction then the above energy absorption value can be used to figure out how much less energy is absorbed per year due to any amount of deforestation.

Finnally, the tie to global warming is the most difficult to ‘prove’. Since the amount of energy not being absorbed by destroyed forest cover is known it is a fact that the energy needs to go somewhere. I don’t know where it goes.

If the energy did stay in the atmosphere and acurate numbers for the mass of the atmospher are known then the direct effect on global warming can be determind.

************************

Summary / Conclusion

Deforestation is likely to have two effects on global warming. Firstly less forest cover means there is more CO2 in the atmosphere which contributes to the green house effect. Secondly less forest cover means there is more solar energy in the atmosphere which needs to be dispursed or stored. Since energy storage is frequently heat it’s possible that the extra energy has a heating effect on the atmosphere.

The calculations in the paper suggest that the amount of extra solar energy is enough to contribute significantly to global warming but not enough to be considered a major cause.

Thermodynamics is the branch of physics which deals with work,heat and internal energy.
It is impossible to extract heat from a cold body and convert the whole of it into work.

______________

link

Lately, attention has revealed that Michigan has a great opportunity to lead the nation by example. While Michigan Diesel motor and fuel producers didn’t focus on pollution, ecologists and politicians now are, and are voicing their opinions in support of our Governors call for legislation like a Truck Idling Program and particulate filters modifications for our Michigan’s owned and leased diesel vehicles.
While Particulate Matter(PM) standards need to be established, education about the achievements of compression ignition engines utilizing cleaner technologies like catalytic converters (i.e. Mercedes Bluetec system) cleaner fuels (i.e. V.W.’s Fischer-Tropsch Diesel) (FTD), free market Biodiesel(BD) along with particulate filters are poised to portray a future of energy production from, new, used, renewable sources capable of making less pollution.
I only hope terminology and education is capable of transcending the transition we are about to undertake. Diesel (compression ignition motors) have had a bad pollution history, but have a brighter future to an educated society, who is cleaning up their “pollution” perceptions with recently revealed wise use technologies that can be more energy efficient to produce (than Alcohol gasoline), less polluting(than current Gasoline or Diesel), and are now known to be sustainable to an agrarian mentality that predated the industrial revolutions unsustainable and polluting achievements. Haber-Bosch, Fischer-Tropsch, Rudolf Diesel, and the American Chemurgists of Henry Ford,Charles Kettering and George Washington Carver, were all revolutionaries under the Industrial age. Then there is the big picture. Options for Trucks,Trains,Planes,Furnaces,Boilers,Automobiles and Electricity,that can be replace dirty Coal, Crude Oil, and Nuclear, do exist , and can all benefit from the same refined knowledge. Your kind help, may help maintain the faith of avid print readers.

Thermodynamics meaning Heatand dynamis, meaning “[U]power[/U]“) is the study of energy conversion between heat and mechanical work, and subsequently the [U]microscopic[/U] variables such as temprature, volume and pressure. Its progenitor, based on statistical predictions of the collective motion of particles from their microscopic behavior, is the field of statistical Thermodynamic (or statistical mechanism ), a branch of statistical phusics. Historically, thermodynamics developed out of a need to increase the efficiency of early steam engine.
___________________
link
link

thanks………………………..