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 M¢25  Funded By Mahalo ? |  August 23, 2009 04:25 PM

How hot would the earth become, if it had no ocean?

What is the predicted temperature of the earth, if it had no ocean?
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August 24, 2009 11:54 AM
As noted, the presence or absence of oceans has no direct effect on the amount of energy the earth receives from the sun. However, the absence of oceans implies the absence or near-absence of water vapor, and this has some significant effects:

--Water vapor is the primary greenhouse gas in the earth's atmosphere, accounting for roughly 1/3 to 2/3 of the total greenhouse effect, which warms the earth by about 33 degrees Celsius (59 degrees Fahrenheit). The lack of atmospheric water vapor would therefore lower temperatures by roughly 15-20 degrees C (27-36 F), from its current value of about 15 C (59 F) to near or just below zero Celsius (close to 30 degrees Fahrenheit).

--However, the lack of water vapor would also mean the lack of reflective cloud cover. This would decrease the earth's albedo, increasing the amount of sunlight absorbed and raising the temperature. The earth's albedo is presently around 0.3, while the mean cloud-free albedo is about 0.15; in other words, the absence of clouds would increase solar insolation at the surface by more than 20% (the amount of sunlight absorbed at the earth's surface increases from 70% to 85% of the incoming total). A change in the albedo from 0.3 to 0.27 (a 10% decrease) would have the same effect on temperatures as a five-fold increase in atmospheric CO2. I haven't been able to find exact figures for a 50% drop in albedo, but it appears that the heating caused by the decreased albedo would more than offset the cooling caused by the loss of the water-vapor greenhouse effect.
Source(s):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_gas#Role_of_water_vapor
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_effect
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2005/04/water-vapour-feedback...
http://weblogs.sun-sentinel.com/news/weather/hurricane/blog/2009/01/earths_...
http://www-c4.ucsd.edu/gap/Documentsetc/GAP-UAV.pdf

Asker's Rating:
• The lack of water vapor from the ocean would cool the earth. The amount of energy absorb by the surface of the earth would increase by 70 to 85%. On the surface of the earth it would be hot and the atmosphere it would be cold.


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August 25, 2009 04:25 AM
The scenario reminds me of "Caves of Steel" and "Naked Sun"

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August 23, 2009 05:04 PM
In a closed system, I don't think it matters: the oceans don't "cool" the planet, so if the question is "How hot would the Earth become if we magically disappeared the oceans?" I don't think the answer is necessarily "hotter". Here are two other hypothetical ideas:

(1) The oceans could get locked up in the ice caps and glaciers, in which case it would get colder. We know this happens historically from time to time.

(2) Some of the oceans could evaporate to form clouds. Obviously there would need to be heating first, but once the clouds reflected light back into space, the Earth might then cool, the water would condense and it'd rain back into the ocean. But the first question is: How did the initial heating occur? If it was a runaway greenhouse effect, then the Earth might remain warm, even though a significant percent of solar radiation was being reflected back into space.

Just wild conjecture here.
Source(s):
Wild conjecture.


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