A simple experiment on global warming

• Published in: Royal Society open science 2020-09, Vol.7 (9), p.192075
• Main Authors: Levendis, Yiannis A, Kowalski, Gregory, Lu, Yang, Baldassarre, Gregory
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: atmospheric temperature; carbon dioxide; CO2; Earth and Environmental Science; experiment; global warming
• ISSN: 2054-5703; 2054-5703
• DOI: 10.1098/rsos.192075

A simple experiment has been developed to demonstrate the global warming potential of carbon dioxide (CO ) gas in the Earth's atmosphere. A miniature electric resistance heating element was placed inside an inflatable balloon. The balloon was filled with either air or CO . Whereas the CO partial pressure on the earth's atmosphere is approximately 4 × 10 atm, in this experiment, a high partial pressure of CO (1 atm) was used to compensate for the short radiation absorption path in the balloon. The element was heated to approximately 50°C, the power was then switched off and the element's cooling trends in air and in CO were monitored. It took a longer time to cool the heating element back to ambient temperature in CO than in air. It also took longer times to cool the element in larger size balloons and in pressurized balloons when they were filled with CO . To the contrary, the balloon size or pressure made no difference when the balloons were filled with air. A simple mathematical model was developed, and it confirmed that the radiative heat loss from the element decreased significantly in CO . This investigation showed that the cooling rate of an object, with surface temperature akin to temperatures found on Earth, is reduced in a CO -rich atmosphere because of the concomitant lower heat loss to its environment.