Green Options » geo-engineering

Emergency Climate Control: Geoengineering Risks

Michael Ricciardi — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 19:01:25 +0000

With the news that climate change is occurring at a faster rate than climate models have predicted, geoengineering solutions have been brought to the fore and are being taken more seriously. The main focus of these emergency geoengineering strategies is a reduction in “shortwave” radiation entering the Earth’s atmosphere via the solar wind.

The short-term goal here is an overall reduction in global atmospheric temperatures to slow, or even reverse, warming trends. These solutions include increasing the amount of reflective particles surrounding the Earth by placing reflective particles (”mirrors”) outside the atmosphere. Such a solution may be justified to quickly curtail an emergent crisis–such as the rapid disintegration of the polar icecaps. Another strategy is to blanket the upper atmosphere with sulfur particles to block shortwave energy from reaching the Earth’s surface, thus producing a pronounced cooling effect (of variable duration).

However, in a recently published paper, Climate Engineering Responses to Climate Emergencies by Blackstock et al, this and other controversial strategies are analyzed in terms of feasibility, short-term impact, and also, the potential risks and dangers. The authors are also calling for a study phase. The major criticism in the paper is that current geoengineering strategies focus on a reduction of temperature without due consideration of the impact on precipitation, which also drives climate change. The cooler the surface temperature, in general, the less overall precipitation ( due to the fact that there is less energy for evaporation). Focusing only on temperature reduction, via incoming solar radiation, could backfire, leading to a shift in global hydrology cycles and, possibly, drought. Also, sulfur in the atmosphere combines with water to form sulfuric acid–the primary source of “acid rain”–a problem dramatically reduced since the passage of the Clean Air act.

Inventor Wants to Geo-Engineer a Planetwide “Refrigerator”

Susan Kraemer — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 17:58:01 +0000

Bailing out the entire human race might turn out to be cheaper than bailing out Wall Street:

Spray gigatons of seawater into the air, mainly in the Northern Hemisphere, and let Mother Nature do the rest, suggests inventor Ron Acer in a patent petition for “a colossal refrigeration system with a 100,000-fold performance multiplier.”

“The Earth has a giant air-conditioning problem,” he said. “I’m proposing to put a thermostat on the planet.”

He estimates that his design would cost only a few billion dollars to implement on a global scale. (Much less than $700 billion)

Environmental Defense: Global Warming Science — Ten Top Stories of 2007

edfblog — Thu, 27 Dec 2007 22:14:01 +0000

This post is by Lisa Moore, Ph.D., a scientist in the Climate and Air program at Environmental Defense.

All year long we’ve been monitoring developments in climate science, and posting about the important new developments. I thought now would be a good time to look back over 2007 and summarize what we’ve learned.

Here are ten noteworthy science stories we covered in 2007:

1. The Sun is (really, really) not responsible for global warming. This paper wasn’t breaking news, just an extremely thorough review of the science showing why the sun can’t be blamed for global warming. The folks over at RealClimate said it best: “That’s a coffin with so many nails in it already that the hard part is finding a place to hammer in a new one.”

2. American Southwest climate is becoming drier. Global warming has caused a long-term shift in rain patterns. An author of the study said, “You can’t call it a drought anymore, because it’s going over to a drier climate. No one says the Sahara is in drought.”