"Oceans have about 200 times the mass of the atmosphere."Not...

  1. 47,086 Posts.
    "Oceans have about 200 times the mass of the atmosphere."

    Not quite.

    From Bob Carter's Climate: the Counter Consensus

    The heat capacity of the ocean

    The ocean covers more than 70 per cent of the Earth's surface, and
    over much of its area it is 3-5 km deep. Comprising water, which is
    one thousand times denser than air, the ocean has far more mass
    than the atmosphere (1.5 x 1018 tonnes compared to 5 x 1015
    tonnes) - notwithstanding that the atmosphere covers the entire
    planet and is 50 km high to the top of the stratosphere. The result
    of this is that the ocean has a much greater heat capacity than the
    atmosphere, specifically 3,300 times more. Put another way, all the
    heat energy contained in the atmosphere is matched by the heat
    content of only the upper 3.2 metres (m) of the worldwide ocean.
 
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