Is that significant? I am too lazy to do the math, but 6 tons of urine at 37 temperature while cooling to whatever temperatures are there, could free 4kJ * 6k * 40 ~= 1GJ ~= 300 kW*h. Which is pathetically low in the scale of the mountain.
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.
Is that significant? I am too lazy to do the math, but 6 tons of urine at 37 temperature while cooling to whatever temperatures are there, could free 4kJ * 6k * 40 ~= 1GJ ~= 300 kW*h. Which is pathetically low in the scale of the mountain.
I do no math, isn’t this about a lower freezing point for water due to the extra chemicals?
I believe that effect would be even less noticeable.
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.
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.