Solution to Global Warming or . . . ?

[MattusMaximus]

I find the concept of geoengineering to be fascinating, but I don't know much about it. I have on my bookshelf a copy of "Hack the Planet" which I plan to read on the topic soon.

 

[Locknar]

Folks...the last few posts are teetering on general GW discussion (which can be found here: http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?t=176635)

THIS thread is for, discussing a solution(s) on GW as noted in the OP (found here: http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showpost.php?p=7571428&postcount=1). If you want to discuss GW, please do so in the proper thread.

Replying to this modbox in thread will be off topic  Posted By: Locknar

 

[stevea]

Power for the system isn't the problem. It might cost a namortized $6-12Bln USD / year to fund the power plants and power generation (I'm assuming saturated sodium or potassium sulphate sol'n).

Where does all the sulphate come from (~30Million tones / year).
Is one base pump the pressure would be an unrealistic 30,000 psi. You need staged pumps to the 20km altitude making a ballon structure problematic.

 

[EHocking]

Since we are "riding the tiger" of Global Warming (A or null A) this may be a solution.

The Independent
Scientists and engineers plan to test the "geoengineering" idea at Sculthorpe Airfield near Fakenham next month by launching a helium-filled balloon tethered to a strengthened hosepipe which will spray tap water into the air at a height of 1km.

http://www.independent.co.uk/enviro...-in-fight-against-climate-change-2354305.html


Tap water? I wonder if it's fluoridated?

 

[r-j]

Since we are "riding the tiger" of Global Warming (A or null A) this may be a solution.
http://www.independent.co.uk/enviro...-in-fight-against-climate-change-2354305.html

My first thought was based on this sort of thing working. Be it water, dust, or any other "solution" that would cool the planet down. Especially if it was very low cost to do. Like having ships spread powdered iron behind them to cause plankton blooms, removing huge amounts of CO2 quickly. (assume it would work, like the balloon thing above). Ab actual way to cool the earth, quickly.

if this was possible, couldn't somebody use this to cause an ice age? Like some global bad guy evil genius in a movie, they could actually destroy the world with this technology. Wouldn't that be possible?

 

[Roboramma]

if this was possible, couldn't somebody use this to cause an ice age? Like some global bad guy evil genius in a movie, they could actually destroy the world with this technology. Wouldn't that be possible?

As I understand it doesn't take long for it to come out of the atmosphere, meaning that the effects are temporary and can be reversed quickly by just turning off the pumps

 

[macdoc]

The only permanent solution would be finding ways to generate sufficient energy for our needs without significantly changing the enviroment.
However, as a stop-gap measure, this should also be looked at. It will probably be discarded due to costs and side-effects it would cause in any event, but it just might offer us the lesser evil at a critical moment.

We've already changed the climate out for at least 3,000 years so that is a non-starter tho a desirable goal - it's not a "solution".
Actively pulling C02 out would be a permanent control solution.

Cloud ships are likely hellishly more cost effective than balloons or pumps.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/en...-rays-is-favourite-to-cut-global-warming.html

and micro-bubbles
http://www.fastcompany.com/1600652/geoengineer-floats-climate-change-scheme-blowing-bubbles-sea

The key is reflecting solar out without it converting to IR to be trapped.

Aerosols in the form of S02 is
a) easy
b) the side effects suck

Long term is a relatively closed system perhaps nuclear based that uses baseload power to turn C02 into hydrocarbon fuel as a way of storing electricity.
In theory you could even pair up gas or coal with a nuke

Chemical potential: turning carbon dioxide into fuel

A number of engineering companies are on a mission to make CO2 fuel production not just a physical reality but a commercial one too. Stephen Harris reports

Read more: http://www.theengineer.co.uk/sector...oxide-into-fuel/1013459.article#ixzz2ITVP3ROB

Heavy reforestation along with a plague would work

 

[r-j]

Since it seems to take a long time (and a LOT of fossil fuels) to warm the earth, what if some calamity occurs that cools it? Like multiple large volcanoes in a row, so that we find ourselves in a 2 or 3 degree colder climate? In a few years time.

How would we reverse that? Is it possible? Warming or cooling, a drastic change seems very dangerous for us.

 

[macdoc]

We are IN a drastic change already.

SO2 from volcanoes fall out within 2 years or so - you would have to have a multiple serial massive eruption to bring on any sort of long term cooling tho the short term consequences could be very dire. A single sizeable one like Pinatubo could be be seen in the climate signal for two years.

A ten year Krakatoa level event or say a long term Iceland eruption could indeed cool things abruptly but there'd a lot more consequences than just cooling.

If one of the big ones go off it could be millions dead.

In 300 years we've bumped the climate regime to a state not seen in 15 million years -THAT is sudden and the impact is still in the pipeline thanks to the buffering of the ocean and polar ice.

Volcanoes buy us some time - carbon is forever.

 

[Dinwar]

I just want to point out that reflecting solar radiation is a major cause of the K/Pg extinction event. The impact really didn't have that much of an effect outside of North America--it was the gas that blocked enough sunlight that only the polar photosynthetic marine organisms (which have a dormant stage) could survive in many places that did the real damage.

This is an example of what I was talking about when I said that we need to learn ecology before we act. We are playing with EXTREMELY dangerous ideas here--ideas that demonstrably have a much greater impact on the biosphere than warming does (the demonstration is the fossil record--both occurred, and blocking solar radiation has a MUCH greater impact than warming does).

 

[Pixel42]

Since it seems to take a long time (and a LOT of fossil fuels) to warm the earth, what if some calamity occurs that cools it? Like multiple large volcanoes in a row, so that we find ourselves in a 2 or 3 degree colder climate? In a few years time.

How would we reverse that? Is it possible? Warming or cooling, a drastic change seems very dangerous for us.

It's worth pointing out that volcanoes also kick out a lot of greenhouse gases. A period of volcanism sufficient to cool the world by 2 or 3 degrees in the short term would warm it in the long term.

For example it would probably have been greenhouse gases from such large scale volcanism that broke the earth out of its hypothesised "snowball earth" phase.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snowball_Earth#Breaking_out_of_global_glaciation

The carbon dioxide levels necessary to unfreeze the Earth have been estimated as being 350 times what they are today, about 13% of the atmosphere.[54] Since the Earth was almost completely covered with ice, carbon dioxide could not be withdrawn from the atmosphere by release of alkaline metal ions weathering out of siliceous rocks. Over 4 to 30 million years, enough CO2 and methane, mainly emitted by volcanoes, would accumulate to finally cause enough greenhouse effect to make surface ice melt in the tropics until a band of permanently ice-free land and water developed;[55] this would be darker than the ice, and thus absorb more energy from the sun — initiating a "positive feedback".

 

[r-j]

This is an example of what I was talking about when I said that we need to learn ecology before we act. We are playing with EXTREMELY dangerous ideas here--ideas that demonstrably have a much greater impact on the biosphere than warming does (the demonstration is the fossil record--both occurred, and blocking solar radiation has a MUCH greater impact than warming does).

That is exactly what I was thinking about. A wealthy mad scientist (or well funded terrorist country maybe) could destroy the world by freezing most of us to death. In a year or less. But warming the planet, that seems to be an enormous task. Even if we deliberately spread black soot on the arctic (rather than the haphazard but effective method employed now), to speed up the melting of ice, even if we torched the oil wells and lit the coal seams on fire, it wouldn't push us into a deadly hothouse just like that.

But causing volcanoes to blow, or spreading chemicals in the air, or the ocean, according to good evidence we could actually push the entire world into a little ice age, and if it was a serious effort, in a matter of years.

It almost seems unfair. A huge effort to warm the world, over a long time. Not much to cool it, and it can be done quickly.

Oh great. One more thing to worry over.

 

[macdoc]

blocking solar radiation has a MUCH greater impact than warming does).

ummm we've been doing that for a while and that's a way over the top statement without qualification.
There is a massive resistance to change given the size of these geo-systems.
To put the current warming in perspective it's the thermal equivalent of 1 Hiroshima bomb a second being added to the air/ice water of the planet. We've set this in motion and there is no stopping even if we stopped emitting. So we cope, mitigate the future emissions and maybe deflect some incoming radiation so IR is not trapped.

Saying we should study the impact is all well and good but bottom line we are already well down a dangerous path for both the land biome and ocean biome with surface warming and acidification. And if you know more than the marine scientists that signed the Monaco Declaration outlining the high risk to the ocean I'd be mightily impressed.

Cooling by way of brightening - either via cloudships or micro-bubbles are low regional impact and very scaleable.

Geo engineering with space mirrors is stupid costly and with aerosols just stupid period.

 

[bobwtfomg]

That is exactly what I was thinking about. A wealthy mad scientist (or well funded terrorist country maybe) could destroy the world by freezing most of us to death. In a year or less. But warming the planet, that seems to be an enormous task. Even if we deliberately spread black soot on the arctic (rather than the haphazard but effective method employed now), to speed up the melting of ice, even if we torched the oil wells and lit the coal seams on fire, it wouldn't push us into a deadly hothouse just like that.

But causing volcanoes to blow, or spreading chemicals in the air, or the ocean, according to good evidence we could actually push the entire world into a little ice age, and if it was a serious effort, in a matter of years.

It almost seems unfair. A huge effort to warm the world, over a long time. Not much to cool it, and it can be done quickly.

Oh great. One more thing to worry over.

Just in case this isn't supposed to be a joke, can I point out

1)" A wealthy mad scientist (or well funded terrorist country maybe) could destroy the world by freezing most of us to death." This sounds like the sort of hollywood disaster fantasy plot compared to which "The day after tomorrow" or "2012" would almost be credible.

2)Noone has made a "huge effort to warm the world", the world is warming because of an unintended consequence of industrial civilisation (mainly FF use).

p.s. I'm certainly not advocating geo-engineering to block solar radiation as it would lead to less photosynthesis/food production and numerous other reasons as listed by Trakar earlier.

 

[geni]

Since it seems to take a long time (and a LOT of fossil fuels) to warm the earth, what if some calamity occurs that cools it? Like multiple large volcanoes in a row, so that we find ourselves in a 2 or 3 degree colder climate? In a few years time.

How would we reverse that? Is it possible? Warming or cooling, a drastic change seems very dangerous for us.

There are various way of obtaining rapaid warming. The most brute force would be to release large amounts of Sulfur hexafluoride into the atmosphere.

 

[bobwtfomg]

I agree with Hansen that the best solution is a carbon tax

An effective fossil energy policy should include a tax on carbon emissions… Fuel taxes should encourage conservation, but with rebates to taxpayers so that the government revenue from the tax does not increase. The taxpayer can use his rebate to fill his gas-guzzler if he likes, but most people will eventually reduce their use of fuel in order to save money, and will spend the rebate on something else. With slow and continual increases of fuel cost, energy consumption will decline. The economy will not be harmed. Indeed, it will be improved.

 

[Trakar]

I agree with Hansen that the best solution is a carbon tax

That is policy more than science, but I agree that a graded, revenue neutral carbon tax is probably one ot the best policy tools available to help us address climate change issues within our nation (US), I'm not too sure how applicable such solutions would be in the international arena.

 

[r-j]

There are various way of obtaining rapaid warming. The most brute force would be to release large amounts of Sulfur hexafluoride into the atmosphere.

So now you are saying a mad scientist could also destroy the world by warming it? or that would only work if it was cooling due to light blocking pollution? I have no idea what Sulfur hexafluoride would do.

 

[anor277]

So now you are saying a mad scientist could also destroy the world by warming it? or that would only work if it was cooling due to light blocking pollution? I have no idea what Sulfur hexafluoride would do.

As a greenhouse gas, sulfur hexafluoride, SF₆, is 20000 times more potent than CO₂ - it's heavier; it has got more atoms; it has got more degrees of freedom. Nike used to fill their trainers with this gas (because it couldn't leak out of the soles) until someone pointed out that the used trainers would release the equivalent of million of tonnes of CO₂ into the atmosphere. Whoops!

 

[geni]

So now you are saying a mad scientist could also destroy the world by warming it? or that would only work if it was cooling due to light blocking pollution? I have no idea what Sulfur hexafluoride would do.

Mad scientist? No. The amounts are simply to great. Mad industrialist? If they weren't stopped sure.