Climate Change, What If?

[Independem]

Climate Change, What If?

1 gallon of oil weighs 7.3 pounds and World uses about 85 million barrels of oil a day
At 42 gallons to the barrel, that’s three billion, five hundred and seventy million gallons of oil (3,570,000,000 x 7.3 = 26,061,000,000 lbs ), 365 x 26,061,000,000 lbs = 9,512,265,000,000 pounds of liquid mass that disappears into other forms in one year.

Now the gravitational pull of the moon, sun and other planets has changed with the adverse weight change of the earth. To sum it up, the world will soon be out of orbit with the moon at a increased rate equaled to the mass change that will be irreversible only when the weight is changed back to its original weight and or mass and orbit.

That perhaps is total inhalation or a couple hundred billion years of floating around in space without a atmosphere or a dead rock, makes for a lousy home!

I am not a Scientist nor do I play one on TV, it just seems like Climate Change will be irreversible when, not if, we hit a certain point!

Merry Christmas?

[Salviati]

1. The mass doesn't dissapear. It stays on earth in the form of carbon dioxide and the other exaust

fumes and byproducts of oil refining.

[Independem]

2. energy used looses weight

Burn a gallon of gas in a automobile and collect it at the exhaust pipe in a bag and weigh, it no longer weighs the same amount, the energy has been used.

[tabatha]

4. you must be joking.

That has to be one of the most uninformed, unenlightening statements I have read.

Of course the energy has been used. That is the whole point.

What is yours?

[tabatha]

6. Here is a table of efficiencies

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brake_specific_fuel_consumption

[laconicsax]

5. Sorry, you're wrong.

If the gallon of gasoline were completely converted to energy, the resulting explosion would be roughly equivalent to 70 megatons of TNT (assuming I did the math right: e=mc², m=3.3kg so e=2.96x10¹⁷J). In a gasoline engine, only an infinitesimal amount the gasoline's mass is actually converted to energy.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass-energy_equivalence

[tabatha]

3. 2 degrees is already irreversible.

[Independem]

7. Altering the mass changes the pull to a unknown factor.

The effect of the Moon inching away from Earth is barely noticeable on human timescales. But millions of years from now, the effects will be more tangible. The tides will be weaker because of the Moon's weaker gravitational pull. The release of tidal energy in Earth's oceans and crust will continue to slow our own planet's spin and thus increase the length of our day (it is increasing at a rate of one second every 50,000 years). Our distant descendants will not be able to view a total solar eclipse, because the Moon's apparent diameter will always be smaller than the Sun's, making only annular eclipses possible. So in at least one respect, we live in a very lucky time! — JIM BELL, CORNELL UNIVERSITY

http://www.astronomy.com/en/sitecore/content/Home/News-Observing/Ask%20Astro/1999/03/Ive%20heard%20that%20the%20Moon%20is%20moving%20away%20from%20Earth%20by%20about%20an%20inch%2025%20cm%20each%20year%20Why%20is%20this%20happening.aspx

Ounce the liquid energy has been turned into gas in the atmosphere it changes its mass, that would change its gravitational pull.

Altering the mass changes the pull to a unknown factor.

[laconicsax]

8. Mass cannot be created or destroyed!

You admit in your OP that you don't know what you're talking about, so please, let those who do know what they're talking about educate you on this.

Climate change cannot affect the Earth's gravitation.

[Orsino]

10. The Moon's inching away from Earth has nothing to do with a change in mass...

...or with the combustion of fossil fuels. The article you linked describes the real cause.

The Earth does not lose mass because we burn oil.

[Salviati]

13. and in fact, it's estimated the Earth gains about from 10^5 to 10^6 kg each day

from dust, meteors, and meteorites falling to Earth.

[Orsino]

14. I've been unable to find any sort of estimate...

...on the mass the Earth actually loses to the solar wind. I think it has to be minuscule compared to meteoritic gains, but I'm still curious.

[TheMadMonk]

17. The moon is inching away for reasons having to do with the conservation...

...of angular momentum. Frictional forces of the tides slow the Earth's rotation. The angular momentum can't just disappear, instead it transfers to the moon and consequently it's orbit must increase in diameter.

One effect of fossil fuel burning is to CHANGE the mass distribution of the Earth slightly without affecting the overall mass. This may have a tiny effect on things like continental drift, axial tilt and our spin rate. Again angular momentum is conserved. Like a skater throwing out their arms, moving mass from the crust to the atmosphere will slow us slightly.

But even moving 4 teratons a year from the geosphere to the hydrosphere and atmosphere is going to have negligible overall effect on a planet weighing trillions of times as much.

[Ozymanithrax]

9. The energy gained from the chemical process of burning gasoline..

is not from a loss of mass, but from relasing energy stored in the form of molecular bonds. Actually oil is mostly sunlight converted to fat and stored in the earth. No mass is destroyed when you burn gasoline. You do, however, create a lot of nasty byproducts.

[trotsky]

11. If every tailpipe and smokestack were extended up out into space...

beyond the reach of the earth's gravity, you'd have an interesting point.

Since that is not the case, you don't.

[Ready4Change]

12. Mass of the Earth is FAR larger.

Think if it this way. People compare the Earth to an apple. If so, then the atmosphere is about the thickness of the apples skin. Pretty small, compared to the rest of the apples volume, yes? But we aren't there yet. Most of that atmosphere is in a layer about 10 miles deep, that covers nearly the entire planet. Compare that to the oceans. They only cover 70% of the planet, and most of them are less than a single mile deep. So the oceans contain far less volume than the Earths 'thin' skin of air. Now think of petroleum. The total volume of petroleum available to us is puny compared to the volume of the oceans. So, if oil is puny compared to the oceans, and the oceans are puny to the atmosphere, and the atmosphere is puny compared to the volume of the Earth, you can see that the total mass of oil is seriously dwarfed by the mass of our planet.

I'll try my unskilled hand at some numbers. Math people please correct me:
Wikipedia puts the Earths mass in kilograms at about a 6 followed by 24 zeros, which in pounds is about 12 followed by 24 zeros. Your oil number is about 10 followed by 12 zeros. A difference of 12 zeros. That's not smaller by half. That's about 10 TRILLION times smaller.

[trotsky]

15. That's some good back-of-the-envelope stuff.

Nice reasoning. :thumbsup:

[Ready4Change]

16. Thanks!

Scientific notation isn't my strong suit. My brain don't think thatta way.