Earth Science Asked by Eric Ramljak on August 25, 2020
https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/aa8390
According to this paper, water is created by burning hydrocarbon fuels. It seems like a major thing to exclude from "reasons the sea levels are increasing".
From the paper:
The annual global formation of water from combustion of hydrocarbon
fuels from 2005–2015 amounted to an average of $1.2 times 10^{13} kg⋅yr^{-1}$, as
shown in figure 1. By comparison, the atmosphere is estimated to hold
on average approximately $1.3 times 10^{16}$ kg of water, while the global
rates of irrigation-induced and natural evaporation are on the orders
of $10^{15}$ and $10^{17} kg⋅yr^{-1}$, respectively.
I understand from the figures, the amount of water introduced into the atmosphere is small compared to irrigation and natural evaporation, but that is only dealing with water that is already there. This paper details that we are essentially pulling hydrogen out of the earth, combining it with atmosphere oxygen and creating water.
Water vapor is already listed as a GHG, so maybe it is just being swept along with that term?
I have to be making a connection that doesn’t exist, right? Otherwise it would be noticed by someone / anyone else.
Make me understand why I am wrong to think that the creation of water by burning hydrocarbon fuels is adding to the amount of water in the oceans.
Thank you,
1.2 x 10^13 kg equals 12,000,000,000,000 l water. One liter equals 0.001 m³, while one km³ equals one billion (1 x 10^9) m³. So we're supposedly adding 12 km³ water to the atmosphere per year.
According to wikipedia the total oceanic surface is about 361,900,000 km². If we spread the added amount of water over all the oceans, we end up with a sea level rise of 0,03316 mm per year. The german wikipedia page on sea level rise claims - based on the 5th chapter of the Fourth Assessment Report by the IPCC from 2007 - that the annual sea level rise between 1993 and 2003 due to thermal expansion was about 1,6 ± 0,50 mm.
Since we didn't take into account sinking surface above oceanic hydrocarbon sources or the increased atmospheric capacity for water vapour due to heating, which both are connected to the effect you are interested in, I'd estimate there is an existing, but almost negligible contribution to sea level rise. Other effects contribute way more - and all of them will likely peter out, once we reduce fossil fuel consumption significantly.
Answered by Erik on August 25, 2020
The current popular view is that the total quantity of water on the planet is a constant value. This appears to be an assumption. There has not been enough study and information published on this subject to prove or disprove that burning hydrocarbons fuels can contribute to rising sea levels.
Thank you to those who have provided comments and an answer. This has been a good learning experience.
The Role of Anthropogenic Water Vapor in Earth's Climate provides a review of the positions taken by various organization concerned with climate about the role of water vapor in the Earth's climate system. I encourage you to review / read this yourself.
Some key items from that review to consider:
"the burning of one gallon of gasoline produces 3,914.6 grams of water. This is equal to 8.6 pounds of water, which has a volume of 1.033 gallons"
"There was about 22 trillion cubic feet of natural gas burned in the United States in 2006...so the water vapor proburninduced (sic) in a year from burning natural gas is 263.4 billion gallons of water. This is per year; per day the figure is 722.4 million gallons."
Answered by Eric Ramljak on August 25, 2020
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