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Overview
This book not only contains scientific information which has been approved for a long time, it also makes this information easy for everyone to understand and recognize. Many of the phenomena we see every day have been studied and measured thoroughly, yet because we are not able to stop these phenomena from happening, we avoid trying to understand why they occur, and in some cases, we just legitimize our guessing.
The accurate data collected by legitimate sources are used and presented in this book, and when the correct explanation is presented, it is easy to understand that the whole explanation is simple.
The statements presented are clear and simple, and it is not the author who has collected the information, yet all are based on a proven science which is being used in many industries and for a long time.
Once you recognize that these topics are simple, you can begin to have a serious discussion in your own circle, and feel free to scrutinize this author.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781463427429 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | AuthorHouse |
| Publication date: | 06/13/2011 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| File size: | 669 KB |
Read an Excerpt
Global Warming Made Simple
An Interesting Topic For Our TimesBy John Andreadakis
AuthorHouse
Copyright © 2011 John AndreadakisAll right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4634-2744-3
Chapter One
Gulf Stream
This is what Wikipedia says about it:
The Gulf Stream, together with its northern extension towards Europe, The North Atlantic Drift, is a powerful, warm, and swift Atlantic ocean current that originates at the tip of Florida, (Well, not really, this is simply where the phenomenon becomes visible. It originates in a vast area in the tropics extending from Africa to the Caribbean Sea. Because the current in this area is so wide, it appears as an unrelated oceanic current and is given a different name. Eventually, this current enters in the Gulf of Mexico, and once in there, having no place to go west, it turns east between Cuba and Florida where it meets another stream pushing west from the northern side of Cuba. At this point the only escape is to head north by the east coast of Florida. This is the area where the stream not only becomes visible but it also is the strongest.) and follows the eastern coastlines of the United States and Newfoundland before crossing the Atlantic Ocean. The process of western intensification (No matter what the name is, it describes the phenomenon where two spread out and slow currents merge into a narrow area. The speed of the combined current intensifies) causes the Gulf Stream to be a northward accelerating current (accelerating for the same reason) off the east coast of North America. At about 40N 30W, it splits in two, with the northern stream crossing to northern Europe and the southern stream recirculating off West Africa. The Gulf Stream influences the climate of the east coast of North America from Florida to Newfoundland (not really), and the west coast of Europe (that it does). Although there has been recent debate (in my opinion, there is nothing to debate on this issue), there is consensus that the climate of Western Europe and Northern Europe is warmer than it would otherwise be due to the North Atlantic drift, one of the branches from the tail (there is no tail) of the Gulf Stream. It is part of the North Atlantic Gyre (If you give it a Greekish name, does it make it more scientific?). Its presence has led to the development of strong cyclones of all types, both within the atmosphere and within the ocean (This is completely inaccurate. The weather patterns are the ones which influence the stream and also generate the stream). The Gulf Stream is also a significant potential source of renewable power generation.
Some estimate that the Gulf Stream alone packs 100 times the energy consumed in the whole world. And this is not the only strong current in the Earth's oceans. There is a strong stream in the southern Atlantic between South America and South Africa. Another strong stream exists in the Indian Ocean and similar strong streams exist in the Pacific.
Observations and endless studies have been performed on these oceanic currents but very few if any come close to present the actual cause of the phenomenon. There is also a formation of an endless list of words and terms to describe these observations.
You can spend a large portion of your life reading the studies of universities and of private companies on oceanography. When you try to study them, you find that all they try to do is to observe the phenomenon and the ways with which they did the observation. Invariably, depending on their understanding, they develop terminology, and in so doing, they appear occasionally to contradict, and, of course, what they say appears to be confusing or without any special purpose. What they all are missing is the simple fact which is the real cause of these currents.
Niagara Falls
How many of you have stood by the falls? Watching the falls has become a profitable industry. A very small portion of the energy is being used to generate electricity, yet it is not hard to realize that almost all that water uncontrollably keeps running down day and night all year long, year after year, wasting valuable energy. I imagine for the local area it is more profitable to exploit the spectacle rather than use the energy which is provided to them freely. Now, can you imagine how many falls exist on the earth, many of which are even larger than the Niagara Falls?
Standing by the falls, it is easy to visualize the energy hidden under the water which runs down to lower levels of the earth. All rivers flow from somewhere in the mountains and no matter how slow they proceed like the Mississippi or fast like Niagara Falls, the amount of energy released is the same.
In many instances, people in our day close the down-flow of a river to form a dam which is then used to transform the energy to electrical energy and have this produce a considerable amount of renewable energy. When I was very young I remember us taking our grain to be milled in a place like this outside of our town. If you live next to a river or you are using the river for your boat, you have never asked how this water was channeled into the river. The existence of rivers has marked their place in human history for thousands of years. Can you imagine how much energy you need to fill these rivers with their water? Let's imagine that there was no rain to fill them up and you had to pump that water with electricity. What amount of electricity would we need to use to accomplish this task? Some will say, "Well, there is no need to use any energy because there is no energy in having snow and rain in the mountains." Let me assure you that there is real energy which is consumed in having snow and rain carried to the mountains and, indeed, lots of it. In fact, there is exactly the same amount of energy for the rain to take the water there as if we had to pump that water there. We just do not consider it because we do not have to do it. It is done freely for us.
Water
Lake Effect
Both examples, the Gulf Stream and Niagara Falls, which I have mentioned above, are related to water. These examples use a different aspect of the characteristics water exhibits, but both are equally important and related.
The information I will provide in this section in layman's terms is commonly known and used by both science and technology.
Lately, due to the introduction of Doppler radar and new equipment in meteorology, we hear more frequently the term "lake effect". Some people who are not very familiar with the term sometimes feel annoyed with it, saying, "All of sudden, we have a new reason for having snow." With a little more attention and with the aid of the radar images, you can see what takes place in the case of "lake effect". And with a photo such as the one above, you can immortalize a lake effect view that you cannot get standing next to the lake.
In pictures like this it is easy to see how much moisture evaporates even in cold weather, and immediately it becomes visible, thanks to the very low temperature. These pictures also show that the evaporation is continuous. Some associate the term "Lake Effect" even in the scientific community just with snow. They do this because snow has its inherent problems, is visible, and being visible leads you to discover there is no snow on the other side of the lake. The important aspects of the phenomenon are these: You have snow because there is continuous evaporation over a body of any water, not just in a lake, but also at sea. Sometimes during the winter in Maine by the coast they have the exact same phenomenon. They do not call it "lake effect" of course. They call it "Nor'easter". But make no mistake the conditions are identical. You have continuous evaporation over the surface of water, any water, lake, sea or wet clothes on a clothesline. Evaporation of water happens all the time and is the strongest when it is invisible, especially when the temperature is the highest. Evaporated moisture in the air, depending on the air temperature, can be invisible, or can become visible like a cloud, fog, rain or even snow. This is all it is. The result may seem dramatically different yet the phenomenon is always the same. I should add here that evaporation only stops when all the water has been evaporated or when a layer of ice has been formed over it. Even in the case of lake effect or Nor'easter the important thing to understand is that evaporation is continuous and lasting over water. If it was not so, the wind would take the moisture away and you would see a cloud going away and not replenished. Today is January 23, 2011 and it is one of the coldest days we have experienced here in Maine in many years. The weather report showed a similar picture of white stripes of white clouds, not above a lake but above the sea extending out into the ocean. The stripes, as in the picture above, are the proof that evaporation is continuous and on the whole surface of the water.
There is always evaporation that takes place on the open surface of water. It is the same reason wet cloths dry out when hung on the clothesline. But in the tropical open seas this evaporation per square foot is hundreds of times larger and yet is invisible. We know about lake effect today and talk about it because we have the means to see it. But for the real and enormous evaporation which takes effect in the open seas, there is not even a special word to describe its astronomical magnitude.
Fog, Cloud and Dew Point
Fog and clouds are really one and the same thing. Simply a fog is a cloud on the ground. Normally the air we breathe can contain a certain amount of moisture. The amount of moisture air can contain varies in accordance to the temperature. The higher the temperature, the larger the amount of water it can contain. For example, the same amount of air at saturation point is not the same when the temperature is 30 degrees or when it is 60 degrees. Eventually, the moisture in the air can reach the saturation point beyond which no evaporation can take place. When the air becomes saturated at a particular temperature, this is called the dew point. So when the temperature on the ground becomes the same as the dew point, then the fog appears. This is why when the sun comes out in the morning it burns off the fog patches quickly. It happens because even a small rise in the temperature above the dew point makes the presence of moisture in the air disappear. As the warm air rises, eventually it reaches to a point where the temperature is equal to the dew point, and then the moisture becomes visible as a cloud. If the temperature drops farther, the excess of moisture condenses to water (rain), which in lower temperatures eventually becomes snow.
Specific Heat Capacity
1. What I have described so far about water appears simple and normal. When we study water in a lab, it demonstrates some interesting peculiarities not readily observed when compared to other elements. These peculiarities are well-documented as is shown with the graph and the table above. The statements below serve to explain what the data means. The graph above demonstrates these peculiarities of water.
2. The energy needed to change the temperature of 1 lb of water 1 degree is called 1 BTU. To change the temperature of one lb of any matter one degree is specific and constant for that particular matter in a certain state. One lb of any item in the vast list of the different known elements only needs a portion of 1 BTU to change its temperature one degree. Very few elements need one BTU or slightly more than one BTU. A metallic element not only needs a small amount of energy to change its temperature, it also absorbs it easily. In contrast insulating materials resist absorbing any energy.
3. When water is ice it only needs one-half BTU to change the temperature of 1 lb of ice one degree. In other words, to change 1 lb of ice from -400° to ice +320°, it needs 36 BTU.
4. One lb of ice takes a larger space than one lb of water. This is what makes ice float, to the detriment of the Titanic. If ice was to sink in the oceans, then the conditions on our planet would have been completely different than what they are now.
5. At 32 degrees, ice melts to a liquid. The peculiarity here is that one lb of ice needs 144 BTU to become liquid water at the same temperature of 32 degrees.
6. Changing liquid from 32 degrees up to the boiling point of 212 degrees needs one BTU per degree of temperature change for a total of 180 BTU.
7. Finally here is the astonishing characteristic: Converting 1 lb of water at 212 degrees to 212 degrees of vapor needs 970 BTU. Almost 1,000 BTU. This last peculiarity may seem untrue because you do not see the 212 degree temperature.
8. Evaporation, though, takes place at any temperature of liquid water. Boiling is the state where water or any other liquid is forced to evaporate meaning changing its state from a liquid state to a vapor state. The way we force liquids to evaporate (bring them to a boiling state) is performed in three different ways. One is to provide the energy to heat it; another is by providing the same amount of energy, reducing the pressure in its container as we do in refrigeration, and the third is relatively slow by maintaining the air above the water below saturation. The temperature at which a liquid can evaporate without providing heating depends on the pressure inside the container of the liquid.
You can easily demonstrate water boiling without providing any heat. If you have access to a vacuum pump, you fill a clear glass bottle halfway with water. Then you connect the pump to the bottle and you start pulling the air out. Within seconds you see the water boiling while the bottle becomes super cool to the touch. This is because the evaporation takes energy from the liquid and from the bottle. This is exactly what happens when a refrigerant is released inside the refrigerator or in the air conditioner.
These conclusions are scientific conclusions and are well-documented. Yet the effect of evaporation was well known without the science. I was a young lad on my island when I was spending my summer days working with my family in the fields. We were getting our water in a clay container. Then we were taking a wet towel and wrapping the container with the towel and placing it in a breezy shadowy place. You could easily tell the difference this produced to the water inside. You had nice cool water to drink.
Concerning water and its peculiarities, I need to clarify what science knows and what science does not know. Or what science is telling and what science is not telling us. With the help of a lab, science is attempting to measure and to prove a certain theory. With water they have studied thoroughly its characteristics or, in other words, irregularities. Raising the temperature of ice one degree is a consistent half BTU. And to go from -40 to +32 you need 36 BTU. To just change the state from 32 degree ice to 32 degree water you need 144 BTU and this is one irregularity. Going from 32 degrees water to 212 degrees water, the rate of change becomes 1 BTU per degree. The change in rate again is an irregularity but remains consistent in the whole water range. The biggest irregularity manifests itself in the evaporation. We need 360 BTU to go from -40 degree ice to 212 degree water, but just to change the state from water to vapor you need almost 1000 BTU, 970 to be exact. Scientists know very well these irregularities and have figured out how to use them. When I was young in my hometown in Greece they needed a lot of ice for their fishing boats, and just in our hometown, there were three ice-making factories. Were they scientists or inventors to have these factories? No, they just were able to find the knowhow from somewhere. Still there is a lot of information scientists do not know. They know that evaporation needs a lot of energy to take place. The clearest way to understand this is the following: If you want water to evaporate, you need somehow to provide the energy. When we boil water, you need to provide the electricity. But what happens with the lake? There is no free lunch. The vapor steals the energy from the surface of water. In so doing, the water becomes cooler. It is simpler yet to say that the energy is hidden in the water vapor and that it defeats gravity. When the vapor finds cooler air it gives the hidden energy to the cool air, becomes water and at the same time, loses its ability to defeat gravity. Scientists can see it happening and they know it, but they do not understand why it happens and this does not mean that I understand. It is the same in a lot of scientific work. If we knew how water defeats gravity with evaporation, we may be able to defeat gravity as well.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Global Warming Made Simple by John Andreadakis Copyright © 2011 by John Andreadakis. Excerpted by permission of AuthorHouse. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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Table of Contents
Contents
Introduction....................viiAn Interesting Topic for Our Times....................vii
Gulf Stream....................1
Niagara Falls....................3
Water....................5
Lake Effect....................5
Fog, Cloud and Dew Point....................7
Water Idiosynyrasies....................9
Specific Heat Capacity....................10
Glaciers....................15
An Important Calculation....................17
Cooling and Evaporation....................21
Global Warming....................22
Wind and Oceanic Currents....................29
Sun's Energy Heating the Air....................40
Sun's Energy Manifestations....................42