From: jsq002@acad.drake.edu
Subject: Re: Atmospheric Destruction (was: Re: WHY?)RE:Atmospheric Dest.3
Reply-To: jsq002@acad.drake.edu
Organization: Drake University, Des Moines, Iowa, USA
Date: Fri, 16 Oct 1992 11:34:32 GMT

In article <1bkti7INNj19@agate.berkeley.edu>, lizi@ocf.berkeley.edu (Cosma R. Shalizi) writes:
> In article <1992Oct14.134041.19380@abo.fi> MANDTBACKA@finabo.abo.fi (Mats Andtbacka Ktf92) writes:
>>In <1b5bciINN89v@agate.berkeley.edu> lizi@ocf.berkeley.edu writes:
>>      Heat up the *sun* ?!? You don't go for second best, do you...
>>Dropping planets into the darng thing: Sorry, unless I misremember
>>Jupiter's only about a one-thousandth the size (and mass) of the sun -
>>or was that a ten-thousandth? Enough zeroes to make the scheme
>>pointless, though.
>     I wasn't thinking so much of giving it more fuel, as of putting a 
> fairly large mass at the center of the thing to increase the gravitational
> pressure and drive up the fusion reaction rate. I haven't gone through the
> math, and stopping the thing in the center would be tough. Perhaps we should
> compress the target mass to neutronium first? You're probably right about
> the mass though. Anyone have an idea of how much the Oort Cloud ways in
> toto, and what percentage of it is hydrogen?
>
 Ok, more stuff here...i THINK that the total mass of the Oort Cloud isn't much
 more than that of the asteroid belt - i.e. just about enough to make up an 
 Earth-sized planet.  In the area of composition, think about what most comets
 are composed of - water ice, miscellaneous rocks, and a carbonaceous sludge
 similar in consistency and composition to crude oil...to sum up there isn't
 too much mass there and it is composed somewhat of hydrogen, but not enough to
 make any sort of difference in what the Sun's energy output is...also, getting
 ANYTHING to the center of the Sun would be extraordinarily
difficult - nearly anything that you get near the Sun would be vapourised in an
 instant and expelled back out into space by the solar wind...to increase the
 gravitational pressure of the Sun and thus its rate of fusion would require
 more mass than is contained in the solar system outside of the Sun...
 
>>      Global warming: I don't *think* the ozone layer contributes very
>>much to that, but I'll go along with it being a good idea. The best
>>greenhouse gas by orders of magnitude is water (well, steam then) - how
>>about nuking the Pacific Ocean? Details, anyone?
>>  Mats Andtbacka is really: MANDTBACKA@finabo.abo.fi (or ABOVAX::MANDTBACKA).
>    Heating up the sun wasn't for global warming - though of course that
> could be fun too :). What heating up the Sun would do is make it put out more
> ultraviolet, so that even if the ozone layer was at full strength more UV
> would get through, leading to skin cancer, mutations, et cetera.
>    Remember that water vapor has the tendency to form clouds, which have a
> high albedo and reflect light back into space, rather than using it to
> steam-cook the planet. Temperature went down after the Dinosaur Killer. We
> might be able to rig it so that the greenhouse effect outweighs the increased
> albedo, but I'd prefer something less chancy.  As to nuking the Pacific: Let
> me think about this...
> 	Cosma Rohilla Shalizi
> 	In Real Life: lizi@ocf.berkeley.edu
> 	larval physicist
> 	VP, Campus Crusade for Cthulhu
> "Now is the time to drop the bomb." - Bertrand Russell
> -- 
> "Apart from hydrogen, the most common thing in the universe is stupidity."
> -Harlan Ellison, _An Edge in My Voice_
 On the subject of the comment on clouding engendering a cooling effect,
remember that the 'Dinosaur Killer,' as you put it, threw DUST up into the 
atmosphere, which DOES have a cooling effect on the Earth.  However, clouds
when at low levels tend to have a heat retaining effect, whereas higher-level
clouds tend to have the cooling effect Ms. Shalizi fears in her missive above.
Water vapour in the quantities that have been proposed (that is, the contents
of all Earth's oceans and icecaps) would be quite sufficient to achieve the
desired warming effect; however, as I said in my first note, the technology 
does not exist to even BEGIN to vapourise all the water in the oceans, as this
would likely involve _boiling_ the water as it would not evapourate on its own.
To expand a bit on the comment I made about much of the water precipitating 
back out of the air, please recall that the Earth's atmosphere is quite heavily
laden with particulate emissions, which are necessary and proper for the form-
ation of clouds.  The more particulates in the air, the more clouds form; the
more clouds form the more rain...you get it.  Unless the global temperature
were rather higher, say 4-6 degrees F warmer on an average, the water would not
stay in a gaseous state long enough to achieve any real heating effect.

	Jason S. Quick			JSQ002@acad.drake.edu
					Des Moines, Iowa USA