New Computer Fund

Thursday, October 18, 2012

Thermal Capacity and Amplification of Measured Temperature

This table contains the area of water and land per 5 degree bands of latitude.  The right column, Gain is 4.2*Water/(4.2*Water-1*Land)  Where there is only water, the gain is one.  Where there is only land, the gain is complicated and negative.

The multiplier 1, for Land can vary from ~0.7 to ~3.0.  The multiplier, 4.2 for water, can vary from ~3.9 to ~4.3 depending on temperature and salinity.  The multiplier for ice, whether fixed to land or on the surface of water is ~2.0.

This gain is based on the thermal capacity differences between surface areas of the globe.  The Gain is unitless.  In the Table, the units for Water and Land are million kilometers squared.

This table is useful for illustration, but another table based on Longitude and Latitude to produce gridded values would be required for serious utility.

With the gridded gain, the distance between high heat capacity "cells" (low gain) and low heat capacity "cells" (high gain) could be used to determine the relative impact that thermal capacity has on local surface temperature.

For three dimensional use, the heat capacity of the atmosphere above the "cell" and the elevation or distance from the surface "cell" to the atmospheric "cell" would be used to determine "relative" gain.

That in a nutshell, is the basic building block of a model for determining the impact of internal variability on climate. The central module of a "moist air" or enthalpy model which would need to be compared to a "dry air" or radiant model.


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