A Parametric Heat Flow Model in the Spherical Earth

In this paper, we model the temperature profile of the Earth with two heat sources: the first is the interior source, generally understood by geophysicists as the primary, if not only, source; the second is a source closer to the surface, explained herein. The model temperature profiles with our chosen best-fit parameters are compared with data from the Preliminary Reference Earth Model (PREM) to examine the relative sizes of the two sources; the near-surface source is found to be much larger than the interior source. If correct, the near-surface source could explain a number of paradoxes involving the heat coming from the Earth that have until now not been resolved.