How many BTU's does it take to raise the oceans temperature 1 degree F?

Question

One btu is the amount heat that is required to raise one pound of water one degree farenhight.(British thermal unit)

Answer 1

okay, we need to evaluate what we know:
1. one calorie is the amount of energy needed to heat one g of pure water by 1 degree C
2. earth's oceans contain an estimated 1.347 × 10^9 km^3 of water
3. 1 calorie = 0.003 968 Btu

if I'm not mistaken, that figures out to....

53 448 960 000 000 000 Btu


That's a lot of energy.

Answer 2

Assuming ocean is just water and not accounting for minerals:

from http://ga.water.usgs.gov/edu/earthhowmuch.html
Oceans, Seas, & Bays 321,000,000 cubic miles

from http://www.solcomhouse.com/water.htm
Water Weighs: 62.416 pounds per cubic foot at 32°F
Weight: 61.998 pounds per cubic foot at 100°F

from http://mathcentral.uregina.ca/QQ/database/QQ.09.01/william1.html
cubic mile box you need 5280 x 5280 x 5280 cubic foot boxes or
147197952000 cubic feet in a cubic mile

from http://www.windows.ucar.edu/tour/link=/earth/Water/temp.html&edu=high

Average temperature is approximately 34 degrees farenheit
We'll adjust the weight to 62.4 pounds. (due to temp)
and get 9185152204800 pounds of water or equally
9185152204800 BTU's.

There would be additional BTU's actually required to raise the temperature, due to the polar ice caps that would be cooling the water as it rose in temperature. Impacts of warmer water would also change weather paterns which could hinder the temperature change.

Answer 3

Amount of water in worlds oceans 3.612 x 10 20 gallons (361,200,000,000,000,000,000) http://pao.cnmoc.navy.mil/educate/neptune/trivia/earth.htm

Seawater weighs 1.026 times more than fresh water ( http://hypertextbook.com/facts/2002/EdwardLaValley.shtml ) that weighs 8.33 lbs per gallon (
http://ga.water.usgs.gov/edu/waterproperties.html )

Seawater weighs 8.54658 lbs per gallon

8.54658 x 361,200,000,000,000,000,000 =

3,087,024,696,000,000,000,000 lbs

1 btu per lb... Now ther is a big number!