More Climate Scientists Now Support Geoengineering 458
ofcourseyouare writes "The Independent is a UK newspaper which has been pushing hard for cuts in CO2 emissions for years. It recently polled a group of 'the world's leading climate scientists,' revealing a 'growing support for geoengineering' in addition to cutting CO2 — not as a substitute. For example, Jim Lovelock, author of The Gaia Theory, comments: 'I disagree that geoengineering the climate is a dangerous distraction and I disagree that on no account should it ever be considered. I strongly agree that we now need a "plan B" where a geoengineering strategy is drawn up in parallel with other measures to curb CO2 emissions.' Professor Kerry Emanuel of MIT said, 'While a geoengineering solution is bound to be less than desirable, the probability of getting global agreement on emissions reductions before it is too late is very small.'"
Re:So wait (Score:5, Informative)
Bonus points to the article for misspelling "fertilizing".
OMG troll. It's from a UK newspaper. Your local dialect and its alternative spellings are irrelevant to them.
Re:Great work if you can get it! Follow the Money (Score:3, Informative)
Like it's the climate scientists who design and implement CO2 abatement policies? No, that's economists and politicians. Geoengineering is an ENGINEERING project. Scientists might tell engineers how much needs to happen, but they're not the ones who would design, build, or deploy the devices.
Besides, if you're insinuating that climate geoengineering is all a scientific conspiracy to get funding dollars, that's pretty lame. Even if you're a conspiracy nutjob, how is inventing a cheaper solution (geoengineering) than existing plans (emissions abatement) going to get them more money?
Re:So wait (Score:5, Informative)
Then of course there is the ph problem with fertilizing the oceans discovered in the past 2-3 years. Forcing the absorption of CO2 into the ocean tends to cause the creation of carbonic acid, which eats calcium. Calcium provides the building blocks and protective shells for many simple microscopic oceanic plant/animal life. It also will eat away at the sells of crustaceans.
Just a small pH change in the ocean can collapse the entire food chain.
Of course you can counter this by adding quicklime to the ocean (which is pretty costly). And you can balance the nutrition loss by adding more nitrogen to the water. Of course that means that you essentially have dumped a bunch of materials you mined (by producing a lot of CO2) into the ocean to re-balance an already balanced ecosystem.
Considering just 5 years ago the prevailing thought was that the ocean could sequester an almost unlimited amount of CO2, its pretty obvious that we don't fully understand how badly tinkering with it could f-things up.
Simplest solution of all... (Score:3, Informative)
Comment removed (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Terraforming Earth (Score:5, Informative)
Not really. All we know is that the general trend of the earth's temperatures have been rising.
We know a hell of a lot more than that. Start here [ucar.edu].
We don't have a clue what caused it, if it will continue, or anything.
We know that the greenhouse effect predicts enhanced surface warming, stratospheric cooling, changes in the diurnal cycle, etc., which have been observed. We know that the warming isn't coming from the oceans (they're gaining heat, not losing it). We know that the heat isn't coming from the Sun (irradiance hasn't gone up to match the temperatures), or reduced volcanic activitiy, etc. Basic atomic physics predicts that the greenhouse effect exists and will grow as CO2 levels increase.
Plus, it isn't even global warming, its local warming some places have higher highs and others don't.
It is global warming, as the global average temperature has increased, as has the average temperature of most locations on Earth.
Just take a look in an Almanac and you will see that the highest temperatures for a given day don't correspond with the CO2 emissions for the year.
Duh. They're not supposed to. The existence of weather doesn't mean that global warming doesn't exist.
Ok, so some of the costland is gone and cities must be moved further inland.
Oh, that's all. Let's just relocate some cities. Need to move Manhattan? No problem, technology will solve that, it'll be cheap. Venice goes underwater for good? Who cares, it has no historic value, we can build a new city. 10 million coastal Bangladeshis decide they need to move to India or Pakistan? I'm sure that won't have any political consequences. Technology will just solve that anyway.
That is also assuming that technology will not advance to where that is no longer a problem which my guess is based on technology throughout history is that if there is a problem humans will solve it.
Yeah, that's why there aren't any more problems in the world. Technology solved them all.
Yes. (Score:5, Informative)
Because we have done such a wonderful job in the past. Things like killing off the wolves in Yellowstone, and changing the hydrology of Florida. Yes, we are so good at "geoengineering" that this could not possibly go wrong.
*snirk* I crack myself up.
Re:Non-solution to non-problem (Score:2, Informative)
You need to seriously learn to tell the difference between weather and climate. One or two years doesn't tell you squat about what the climate trend is doing. Clue: this [nsidc.org] does not mean that the Arctic sea ice has stopped melting.
Re:Substitute? Sounds good (Score:4, Informative)
Yes, all that extra research and development, and all that spending on new technology sure is horrible for the economy.
Yeah, it is horrible for the economy to spend billions inefficiently. Its called the broken window fallacy. If global warming can be mitigated for less than the cost of reducing greenhouse gas emissions, then that's what we should do. To do anything else is to throw away money and resources.
Re:Substitute? Sounds good (Score:4, Informative)
DDT isn't that toxic,
DDT is classified as "moderately toxic" by the US National Toxicological Program[40] and "moderately hazardous" by WHO, based on the rat oral LD50 of 113 mg/kg.[12] It is not considered to be acutely toxic, and in fact it has been applied directly to clothes and/or used in soap.[41] DDT has on rare occasions been administered orally as a treatment for barbiturate poisoning.[42]DDT toxicity [wikipedia.org]
and it's not forbidden all over the world either,
DDT was subsequently banned for agricultural use worldwide under the Stockholm Convention, but its limited use in disease vector control continues to this day in certain parts of the world and remains controversial.[5] DDT [wikipedia.org]
Re:Substitute? Sounds good (Score:2, Informative)
The side effects of geoengineering could kill EVERYTHING.
There should be at least some care taken before any major operation is undertaken, with that in mind.
Not to mention that it might interfere with my plan to buy up land in Florida a half-mile from the ocean, and sell it as waterfront property in 20-30 years.
Re:Substitute? Sounds good (Score:5, Informative)
the ozone hole that appeared over antarctica and caused all the panic is a natural and annual phenomena.
Uh, you know that's bullshit, right?
the annual ozone hole was first measured in 1956-57, long before the ozone destroying CFCs were in common use.
You're confused. There is a seasonal cycle in ozone concentrations. CFCs have added a long-term downward trend on top of that seasonal cycle, meaning that each winter the hole is on average larger it used to be.
There is no overall or permanent depletion of the ozone layer.
The data disagree [nasa.gov].
Re:Substitute? Sounds good (Score:5, Informative)
I'll add one more thing to my post - people old enough will remember back in the 70 and early 80's when we thought we were causing a massive cooling and heading towards and ice age.
"We" (meaning the climate science community) didn't actually think that (see, e.g., here [confex.com]). There were a few papers that got a lot of media hype, but the general view among scientists at the time was "we don't know enough yet, but it's more likely to warm than cool". 30+ years later and the view is "it's very likely to warm, but we're not totally sure how much".
We better be *damn* sure we know what will happen when we intentionally release more change into the world than what we are trying to fix.
Well, one virtue of some of the present geoengineering schemes is that they're fast-acting, and conversely, quick to turn off if they start having side effects. Take stratospheric aerosol injection. Aerosols precipitate out of the atmosphere in a year or two; CO2 stays up for a century or more. If erroneously think the planet is warming and cool it with aerosols, you can turn them off within a few years if you need to. If you erroneously think the planet is cooling and warm it with CO2, your mistake stays around a lot longer. The decision problem is asymmetric.
That being said, your basic point is valid: geoengineering is a lot riskier than just reducing CO2 concentrations back to earlier levels.
Re:Terraforming Earth (Score:5, Informative)
The IPCC figures are extremely suspect.
And you believe that because a skeptic web site said so. Perhaps you should investigate the science a little more closely and, I don't know, read something written by climate scientists. You might want to re-evaluate your biases if your default response is to automatically dismiss pretty much the entire scientific literature on every climate related topic.
When, for some reason, their modelling produces figures they don't like, there always seems to be an "adjustment" in their favor.
That's nonsense. There are places where models agree with data, and places where models disagree with data, which is the case in any science. There isn't any conspiracy to make everything fit; if there were, there wouldn't ever be any disagreement.
There is an interesting website examining the work on global temperature mesurement, Urban Heat Islands etc somewhere, damed if i can find it though.
You're probably thinking of "Watts Up With That". They were crowing a lot about the urban heat island effect, but got a lot quieter after one of their own contributors analyzed the data from stations with no risk of urban contamination and found basically no difference in the temperature record. This is unsurprising, because the urban heat island effect was already found to be insignificant, and at least one of the surface records cross-checks against rural stations anyway. Not to mention the oceans are also warming (no urban heat islands there), the satellites agree with the surface stations (no contamination there), etc.
Re:Substitute? Sounds good (Score:3, Informative)
Because that money doesn't disappear from the economy, it circulates? And more money circulated means a stronger economy?
Only in a free market. If you force the circulation in a particular direction, you might have a strong economy in that particular area, but not in general - maybe even a weakened economy.
Imagine a law that would subsidize the bicycle industry - you would get *paid* for using the bicycle, since it has less emissions. Clearly that would boost the bicycle industry, but I doubt that you would get your fresh tomatoes in time and your taxes would stay the same.
Snake Oil (Score:4, Informative)
Most of these people are not "climate scientists". Many are activists and science bureaucrats who haven't done any real science in decades. The best that can be said of them is that they are well-connected mathematicians, engineers and scientists with an opinion on Geoengineering. One of them is a lawyer.
For the rest, David Archer, Steven Sherwood, Frank Schwing and Andrew Gettleman are not too keen on the idea. Kevin Trenberth and LuAnne Thompson are dead-set against it.
Steven Ghan stands pretty much alone as a practicing geophysicist and climatologist in favour of geoengineering (as long as it is constrained to CO2 reduction).
Finally, it's notable that only half, 22 out of 44, of the respondents come out in favor of the idea.
Gaia == Biosphere. (Score:4, Informative)
James Lovelock [wikipedia.org] has been called the the father of Earth Science [wikipedia.org], climate science is a subset of Earth science. The term Gaia [wikipedia.org] is more or less interchangeable with the term Biosphere [wikipedia.org]. The hippies picked up the idea and made Gaia into some sort of god that has feelings, this initially confused the hell out of many of his scientific peers (eg: gaia was initially critisied by Dawkins & Gould). Those who have a vested interest in fucking up the planet still encorage that mis-informed view and consequently the term has fallen into disrepute since the general population now see gaia as the God of the bush-bunnies rather than the glue that holds the Earth sciences together.
The term "climate scientist" was not invented when he gained his Phd. He was initially trained in medicine so it's no surprise that he proposes that problems with the Earth's biosphere be tackled the same way as a doctor treats a patient (patient = unique living system), "first do no harm". However, Lovelock is no Hippie, he has upset Greenpeace and other like minded political organisations for proposing nuclear reators as a short term (50-100yr) solution to AGW. In my book he is a genuine "giant" of the 20th century who's theories/ideas have allowed others to see further and have upset both sides of environmental politics at various times over the last four or five decades.
There are piles and piles of papers available that treat the biosphere as an oragisim (unique living system), eg: life makes it possible for methane and oxygen to exist together in atmosphere, plants and plankton consume C02 and produced the ALL the available oxygen currently in the atmosphere, limestone and peat are produced by life, islands are built from coral, rainforests create their own rain, etc, etc, etc. It's definitely not crackpottery, in fact the idea that the biosphere is a unique living system is now so entrenched in modern science that most papers don't even bother defining "biosphere".
BTW: In TFA (which I have not read), I believe he is not speaking as a climate scientist but as a "futurist", futurists are confined by their imagination not by practicalities (eg: Dyson).
Re:Terraforming Earth (Score:1, Informative)
You're probably thinking of "Watts Up With That". They were crowing a lot about the urban heat island effect, but got a lot quieter after one of their own contributors analyzed the data from stations with no risk of urban contamination and found basically no difference in the temperature record...
I think he's thinking of Climate Audit. Here is the URL to the item http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=1859
You will see that there is a huge difference.
Re:What Could go Wrong? (Score:2, Informative)
The most benign project I've seen is to attempt to spur plankton growth by seedy the oceans with iron.
I actually thought that was a pretty decent experiment since it would most likely be a slow run up to the growth of the plankton, there would be time to modify it before we found ourselves in an ice age.
Re:Terraforming Earth (Score:4, Informative)
The term climate change was used original by detractors of global warming to signify that the climate changes but it wasn't because of the political accusations being made. It was to signify that it was natural. After some of the loudest predictions of gloom and doom failed to come true, the science community started using Climate change in an effort to capitalize on the anti global warming crowds momentum. The IPCC actually used the term climate change to seem legit but it was little more then a political effort to justify the Kyoto accords which was more or less a political ploy to relieve third world debt. It would have worked too if the US would have jumped on. Fortunately, about 80% of Americans already have something to believe in so they were running for the next things that makes their life feel meaningful and we wanted more proof.
I'm pretty sure we have talked about this political hijacking of global warming before.
I have no dispute with this answer other then I want to add that I don't think alternate causes have largely been ignored. It was well established for quite a long time that the sun revolved around the earth until someone started looking at other possibilities. Currently, when someone else is brought up, it get dismissed as "something the oil companies want you to believe" or "a crack pot non-believer". I have a feeling that this is more because of the politics that have skewed global warming then the science itself. But there are some scientists I wouldn't take off the blame list. James Hanson from NASA fame comes to mind. He, after getting caught purposely manipulating the stuff he was presenting, said in an interview that he thought it was ok to exaggerate global warming to draw the attention to it that he feels it deserves. As far as I'm concerned, you can't ignore other sources or possible causes and have someone who is willing to falsify things to push the agenda without having some skepticism. Well established is in question about as much as Barnie Frank's claim that Fannie and Freddie were doing a fine job a week before the financial meltdown that they were at the center of. And yes, Frank was in charge of their oversight just like Hansen is in charge of a lot of the American Global warming research findings.
We can't do the changes in Co2 production fast enough without causing too much damage to the economy and stabilization of governments. I agree that Co2 abatement is the ultimate end game but I don't agree that it is the sole cause or even the cause or that the problem is as big as it is being proclaimed.
In either case, it's a catch 22 sort of. We can't really replace our carbon emissions fast enough to not have the damage they claim the emissions are going to cause to geoengineering should be part of the solution is symptoms actually exist. Blaming hurricanes during the hurricane season or other natural things wouldn't necessarily actually be real symptoms. But say things do go haywire, sure, drop some sort of fix into the enviroment as long as it's effects are short terms and know well enough to control (IE, it doesn't survive more then a short time past our efforts).
Re:What Could go Wrong? (Score:3, Informative)
I'm pulling it from the Climatic Research Unit [uea.ac.uk] in the UK. They've been very meticulous about maintinaing and publishing their data sets. The basic FAQ on the dataset and collection methodology is here [uea.ac.uk]. Among the many papers published over the years on the methodology and estimation of uncertainty, there is at least this [uea.ac.uk] freely available, though you can check:
as well if you like (and have access to the respective journals).
The entire "this century is hotter then last" has been disproved back when they found errors in the calculations the US made.
Actually no. There were errors, and they did have an effect on which years were the hottest for the US, but had a much smaller (almost neglible effect) on the calculated global temperatures. And, of course, that is the NASA GISS dataset that you are speaking of. The datasets I'm referring to, HadCRUT3 and CRUTEM3, from the UK, are quite independent in their processing of raw data, and did not contain the same errors.
In fact, I haven't heard claims like your making in over 4 years after they revised a bunch of shit found to of been faulty.
Really? He claimed:
which is actually a very reasonable claim. We can put it to the test easily enough. Here [uea.ac.uk] is the latest CRUTEM data, fully up to date, including 2008 data. According to the file format description [uea.ac.uk], we find the average annual global anomaly (from the average temperature from 1961-1990 [uea.ac.uk] used as a base point) in the last column of every second row. Scan down. You'll find the the original poster is indeed correct in his claims.
Just because you are so certain, let's go with the dataset you're referring to: Hansen's GISTemp from NASA [nasa.gov]. Again, let's grab the latest data with the relevant corrections you are complaining about made: here [nasa.gov] (that's global averages for land and sea surface temperatures). Again, scan down and you'll see that, surprisingly enough, the original poster is still correct in his claims.
One of the wonderful things about the internet is that it actually puts a vast array of resources and data right at your fingertips, so you can actually go to the source data itself rather than relying on second and third hand reports. Apparently that was too much work for you. Hopefully, however, with the links laid out above, you can click through and verify for yourself that the data actually shows what it is claimed to show.