Entropy and Climate Change

Vincent J. Curtis

8 July 23

A glass of water does not spontaneously separate into hot and cold sections, even if it were insulated.  Such a separation would reduce the system’s entropy, and that doesn’t happen spontaneously.  Air conditioners, refrigerators, and heat pumps do external work to separate ambient air into hot air and cold air.  The earth’s weather patterns, and the separation into hot air and cold air needs external work from energy supplied by the sun.

Now, climate change is supposed to make storms more intense, the wet, wetter; the dry, drier; the hot, hotter; and cold colder.  These are reductions in entropy. To do this means more work is being done.  Where is the energy to do this additional work to come from?  Not the sun, as solar irradiation is constant.

It can’t come from the earth’s atmosphere itself, as this work would reduce the heat content of the atmosphere, cooling it, and reducing its entropy.  This is impossible; it would be like the insulated glass of water spontaneously separating into hot and cold.  We would observe a reduction in the heat content of the atmosphere in the form of a reduction in global average temperature.  The oceans could put heat into the atmosphere resulting in a reduction in ocean temps. (El Nino)

In sum, intensification cannot occur spontaneously.  It would require a reduction of the atmosphere’s entropy, and that requires external work.  It requires energy input above the current energy balance.  More insulation won’t enable spontaneous reductions in entropy, any more than insulating a glass of water will enable the spontaneous separation of the water in it into hot and cold sections.

Climate change in the form of intensification is impossible as it requires a spontaneous reduction of the earth’s entropy.  Insulating the system still won’t permit a spontaneous reduction in entropy.  We need to see higher global average temperatures for intensification to occur, and that additional heat has to come from greater solar irradiation or heat pumped into the atmosphere from the oceans.

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