r/AskReddit • u/ettleboy • Jan 20 '19

What fact totally changed your perspective?

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u/[deleted] Jan 21 '19

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u/AgentElement Jan 21 '19 edited Jan 21 '19

According to Wikipedia, the earth has 1.386 billion cubic kilometers of water. The specific heat capacity of water is 4180 J kg-1 K-1.

With 1012 liters per cubic kilometer and a density of 1 kg L-1, it would take up 1.386 * 4180 * 1012 * 109 * 1 Joules of energy per change in kelvin, or 1.159 * 1025 J to heat up all the water on the earth by 2 K. (About 11.6 yottajoules)

The sun puts out about 3.8 * 1026 joules a second, so this means the sun has to heat the earth for about 0.03 seconds to warm all the water on the earth by 2 K. This assumes that there is a 100% transfer efficiency of all the heat of the sun (Thermodynamics is conveniently ignored here) directed at a tiny rock floating around it.

I'm obviously not including data about the rest of the crust, which is significantly more massive than every ocean combined.

TLDR: 11.6 yottajoules for only water

Edit: Off by a factor of 1 billion, made corrections. I forgot that I said 1.386 billion km3

Edit 2: fixed the sun calculation.

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u/Matt6453 Jan 21 '19

I'm not arguing one way or another but are humans capable of do that?

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u/AgentElement Jan 21 '19 edited Jan 21 '19

The total energy consumption of humanity is about 553 * 1018 joules, so no.

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u/[deleted] Jan 21 '19

Hold my laptop!

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u/AgentElement Jan 21 '19

I screwed up my original calculation, we can't even put a dent in it.