Looks like the scientific data again points toward a warming planet. At least over the last century. Earth’s been around a lot longer and apparently has been much warmer and colder than today. Yet, this may be the first time an indigenous species is the culprit.

As a demonstration, the troposphere has warmed up by 0.2degrees Celsius in the last decade. Taking a volume of 8.14e18m3, an average air density of 0.69kg/m3 and a latent heat of 1.0428kJ/kg-degC calculates to an energy deposition of 1.19e18 Joules.

Over the same decade, people have consumed about 4e21 J of energy. A good energy cycle works at 33% efficiency. Thus, there’s been 2.6e21J of wasted energy that dissipates into heat. Given this amount of waste, it’s a surprise that the Earth’s troposphere has heated by the little amount that it has.

Image credit-NASA