214
Climbers are melting Everest’s glacier with their urine, study warns (www.the-independent.com)
submitted 2 months ago by to c/nottheonion@lemmy.world
29 comments fedilink hide all child comments
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] 2 points 2 months ago (3 children)

Wouldnt 6 thousand liters of urine a day roughly melt 6 thousand liters of ice a day just in areas concentrated around the base camps if the ice isn't colder than -37C?

And the title aside, I think the article mentioned the study included lots of heat sources, with urine being a smaller part.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 3 child comments
    •
  • [–] 5 points 2 months ago* (2 children)

    Not exactly. The specific heat of ice is about half of the specific heat of water.

    So 6 tonnes of urine at 37°C would take 12 tonnes of ice from -37°C to 0°C.

    That's still ice, though, and it takes way more energy to thaw ice that to warm ice from -37 to 0.

    Actually, I'll just do the math.

    6 Mg piss * 37°C * 4.18 J/g°C = 929 MJ

    Let's say ambient ice temp is -20°C.

    20°C * 2.05 J/g°C * X + 333.55 J/g * X = 929 MJ

    X ~2.5 tonnes of ice melted.

    Not too bad. I suspect the change in albedo is the real problem.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
    •