‘New math’ of scientists works

By John Burke, Henderson

Wednesday, Dec. 24, 2014 | 2:02 a.m.

In his Dec. 11 letter “New math clouds global warming,” a letter writer wondered how 20 pounds of carbon dioxide could be created from 10 pounds of gasoline. He further implied this to be but one example of things stated by “global warming alarmists” that “can’t possibly be true.”

Unfortunately, one must fall back onto math (old math, not the “new math” mentioned by the letter writer) and elementary chemistry to show that the weight of carbon dioxide created when burning gasoline will be greater than the weight of the gasoline burned. Briefly, however, each carbon atom in gasoline is associated with approximately two hydrogen atoms (much of gasoline is compounds of the general formula CnH2n+2.), and when gasoline is burned, each carbon atom combines with two oxygen atoms to create carbon dioxide. Since the relative weight of oxygen to hydrogen is about 16:1 (and ignoring the “+2” in the “n+2” of the formula), each carbon atom will lose 2x1=2 units of hydrogen weight and gain 2x 16=32 units of oxygen weight, for a net gain of 30 units of weight. (For the curious, burning 10 pounds of octane, formula C8H18, will create about 31 pounds of carbon dioxide.)

Perhaps the letter writer would be wise to accept the “new math” of climate scientists. Don’t worry. Unlike the “truths” of climate change deniers, climate models are created to explain factual data, and models are modified as new knowledge is gained.