Need some help with this question please: Human beings produce 16 terawatts (10^

Question

Need some help with this question please:

Human beings produce 16 terawatts (10^12 watts, a thousand billion watts) of power (continuous usage over time) worldwide - this includes all the electrical power, all the fuel in vehicles, etc. over the whole world. As a result, we have accumulated enouth CO2 in the atmosphere to produce a climate of forcing of about 0.7 W/m^2. The earth's area is 5.1x10^8 km^2. There are 10^6m^2 per km^2. How many terawatts of warming input power to the earth are we getting due to climate forcing, and how much bigger is this number than the power that humans generate?

Please show work, thanks in advance.

Explanation / Answer

Firstly,Climate forcing is defined as the difference of the Sun's energy absorbed by the earth and energy radiated back to space(in watts/m² of Earth's surface)

Given,climate forcing = 0.7W/m²

Earth's surface area = 5.1×10^8 Km² = 5.1×10^14 m²

so,total energy difference created = 5.1×10^14 × 0.7= 3.57×10^14 W = 357 terawatts

hence ,the warming input is 357 terawatts, 22.3 times greater than total human energy production.

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