Thermodynamic Analysis of Climate Change

Entropy (Basel). 2022 Dec 30;25(1):72. doi: 10.3390/e25010072.

Abstract

The climate change assessment of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate change is based on a radiative forcing methodology, and thermodynamic analysis of the climate does not appear to be utilized. Although equivalent to the radiative model, the thermodynamic model captures details of thermodynamic interactions among the earth's subsystems. Carbon dioxide emission returns the net chemical energy exchanged with the climate system to the surface of the earth as heat. The heat is equal to the sum of the heat produced by fossil fuels and deforestation minus the heat of surface greening. Accordingly, trends of climate parameters are calculated. Nearly 51.40% of carbon dioxide production has been sequestered by green matter, and surface greening is approximately 3.0% per decade. Through 2020, the heat removed by surface greening has approached 12.84% of the total heat. Deforestation on the other hand has contributed nearly 22.85% of the total heat of carbon conversion to carbon dioxide. The increase in sea and average land surface air temperatures are 0.80 °C and 1.39 °C, respectively. Present annual sea level rise is nearly 3.35 mm, and the calculated reductions in the temperature and geopotential height of the lower stratosphere are about -0.66 °C and -67.24 m per decade, respectively. Unlike natural sequestration of carbon dioxide, artificial sequestration is not a photosynthetic heat sink process and does not appear to be a viable methodology for mitigating climate change.

Keywords: Carnot cycle; deforestation; energy consumption; psychrometry; surface greening; thermodynamics.

Grants and funding

This publication was funded by the author.