HR: 0800h
AN: U21A-0802    [Abstracts]
TI: Heat Budget of the World Continents Over the Past 154 Years
AU: * Huang, S
EM: shaopeng@umich.edu
AF: University of Michigan, Department of Geological Sciences University of Michigan, Ann Arbot, MI 48109-1005 United States
AB: Changing climate is accompanied by changing energy in various climate system components including the continental landmasses. The heat content (thermal energy) of a rock is proportional to its temperature. At the annual to centennial time scales, the temperature and, therefore, the heat content of the uppermost layer of the crust are dominantly controlled by the temperature at the ground surface. When ground surface temperature rises, more heat will be deposited to the rocks, whereas when ground surface temperature falls, certain amount of heat will escape from the ground into the atmosphere. Based on global meteorological records, I analyze the annual heat budget of the world continents except for Antarctica. I assemble continental surface temperature anomaly time series from the variance adjusted version of the 5-deg by 5-deg grid-box basis land-only air temperature anomaly dataset of the Climate Research Unit of the University of East Anglia. Although there is regional variability in the continental surface air temperature, all six continents demonstrate a strong warming trend in the second half of the 20th century. With no exception, the mean 1951-2000 surface heat fluxes in all six continents are downward into the lithosphere. I estimate that between the period from 1851 to 2000 a total of 10.4 10²¹ J of thermal energy had been absorbed by Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe, North America, and South America landmasses, over 65 percent of which was acquired during the second half of the 20th century. The build up of the landmass heat content has been intensified recently. In just four years from 2000 to 2004, another 1.34 10²¹ J energy had penetrated beneath the ground surface of these continents. The recent global warming has speeded up the heating of the continental landmasses.
UR: http://www.geo.lsa.umich.edu/~climate/
DE: 0434 Data sets
DE: 1620 Climate dynamics (0429, 3309)
DE: 1622 Earth system modeling (1225)
DE: 1645 Solid Earth (1225)
SC: Union [U]
MN: Fall Meeting 2005