Scientists Boost an Idea Long Thought Outlandish: Reflecting the Sun's Rays (msn.com) 119
"The idea of artificially cooling the planet to blunt climate change — in effect, blocking sunlight before it can warm the atmosphere — got a boost on Thursday when an influential scientific body urged the U.S. government to spend at least $100 million to research the technology," reports the New York Times:
That technology, often called solar geoengineering, entails reflecting more of the sun's energy back into space through techniques that include injecting aerosols into the atmosphere. In a new report, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine said that governments urgently need to know whether solar geoengineering could work and what the side effects might be.
"Solar geoengineering is not a substitute for decarbonizing," said Chris Field, director of the Woods Institute for the Environment at Stanford University and head of the committee that produced the report, referring to the need to emit less carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. Still, he said, technology to reflect sunlight "deserves substantial funding, and it should be researched as rapidly and effectively as possible." The report acknowledged the risks that have made geoengineering one of the most contentious issues in climate policy. Those risks include upsetting regional weather patterns in potentially devastating ways, for example by changing the behavior of the monsoon in South Asia; relaxing public pressure to reduce greenhouse gas emissions; and even creating an "unacceptable risk of catastrophically rapid warming" if governments started reflecting sunlight for a period of time, and then later stopped.
But the authors argue that greenhouse gas emissions are not falling quickly enough to avoid dangerous levels of global warming, which means the world must begin to examine other options. Evidence for or against solar geoengineering, they found, "could have profound value" in guiding decisions about whether to deploy it.
"Solar geoengineering is not a substitute for decarbonizing," said Chris Field, director of the Woods Institute for the Environment at Stanford University and head of the committee that produced the report, referring to the need to emit less carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. Still, he said, technology to reflect sunlight "deserves substantial funding, and it should be researched as rapidly and effectively as possible." The report acknowledged the risks that have made geoengineering one of the most contentious issues in climate policy. Those risks include upsetting regional weather patterns in potentially devastating ways, for example by changing the behavior of the monsoon in South Asia; relaxing public pressure to reduce greenhouse gas emissions; and even creating an "unacceptable risk of catastrophically rapid warming" if governments started reflecting sunlight for a period of time, and then later stopped.
But the authors argue that greenhouse gas emissions are not falling quickly enough to avoid dangerous levels of global warming, which means the world must begin to examine other options. Evidence for or against solar geoengineering, they found, "could have profound value" in guiding decisions about whether to deploy it.
Horrible idea (Score:1)
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> You don't fix something you fucked up by fucking it up more.
Like detonating a bomb over a oil well fire?
Re:Horrible idea (Score:5, Insightful)
Except this is way, way, way more complicated. For example, atmospheric CO2 warms the troposphere but *cools* stratosphere. This will cool both, so it's not exactly like turning back the clock on climate change, instead it sends us in a different but equally new direction.
Rising CO2 and temperatures are disrupting local ecosystems; this solution keeps the rising CO2 but replaces the rising temperatures with reduced sunlight. Again, this doesn't eliminate ecological stress, it changes its character.
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It's also literal pollution.
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For example, atmospheric CO2 warms the troposphere but *cools* stratosphere.
It's nice of you to try and educate him, but warming alarmists can't get past the part where a heat lamp warms up the inside of a glass jar.
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Tell me, which mid range prediction has NOT come true?
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Does that deserve to be the first "Insightful" comment? Mayhaps.
I'd actually been thinking about this in an even more complicated form. Orbital mirrors that can be rotated to block sunlight or direct it to certain places. Imagine each of them as a large wire loop stretching a reflective film with gyroscopes to spin it to any orientation.
Then we get the programming bug that fries Greenland like an ant. "Slipped a decimal point on that one."
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I don't know about "insightful". "Stating the obvious" would be closer to the mark.
Bad for Photosynthesis (Score:5, Insightful)
Even then I am not sure we have a solid enough track record with deliberate ecological interventions to try something like this on the planetary scale when the intended side effects may be worse than the problem we are trying to fix.
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Inadvertent Example (Score:2)
As I said our track record of deliberate ecological intervention is not a good one because ecological systems are incredibly complex which often results in unintended side effects that nobody thought of. The p
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MIT looked at this [mit.edu]. It would affect weather on a large scale.
I better like the idea of radiative cooling [physicsworld.com]. It's not a complete solution but would clearly help, especially in cities. This could be added to the building code.
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We need some sort of technological solution, as you're not going to convince the world to outright ban cars/planes and meat-eating and more. And breaking the taboo around discussion of world population is almost as unlikely.
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Re:Horrible idea (Score:4, Insightful)
Standards of living are raising total consumption far faster than that can compensate.
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> Standards of living are raising total consumption
Don't worry, the deficits caused by COVID spending will take care of that. (I wish that was sarcasm, but debt repayment either through increased taxes or inflation will drop middle class consumption.)
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It will eventually be self limiting, but probably not any time soon. I doubt climate will be the limiter.
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Standards of living are raising total consumption far faster than that can compensate.
Actually, nope.
Most energy is used by industry and in cold reagins for housing.
And there is in China not much to change regarding standard of living.
India has more problems in that regard.
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Like putting a cast on your broken leg?
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And then signing "break a leg" on it for good luck!
Right-wing sex ed (Score:2)
Condoms are not a substitute for abstinence.
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Anime is taking care of that
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OK, Kleenex is not a substitute of abstinence.
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^^ This. But some humans, particularly the scientists in this article, are really fucking stupid.
They made a movie about that (Score:2)
Snow piercer is now a TV series isn't it?
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It does seem like this is a very bad idea. As it is the world has already been dimming as a result of the same problems leading to global warming. The problem is, we need the sunlight. We need it to grow crops. Increasingly we need it for solar power. We also need it to keep the water cycle going. If we reduce sunlight in order to reduce global warming, that's just going to lead to desertification.
Mad scientists (Score:2, Troll)
We should verify that the results of AGW will actually be worse than the results of darkening the sun before we try that. Science says AGW largely won't be that bad.
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Science says AGW largely won't be that bad.
It’s all relative. Sure, not bad compared to the global war that breaks out over the changing water accessibility and what crops can be grown where that will drive hundreds of millions of climate refugees. Like Carlin said: “The earth will be just fine, we’re fucked.”
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the global war that breaks out over the changing water accessibility and what crops can be grown where that will drive hundreds of millions of climate refugees
Yeah this is what I'm talking about. This idea is hyped but not well supported by science.
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Large parts of the southern USA will become desert, and large parts of northern Canada will become usable farmland and forest.
This is hypothesis, but some scientists will agree.
Americans will suggest diverting Canadian rivers to the southern USA so they can grow rice in the desert.
Your idea here is speculation (not science), but I'm really interested in the engineering idea you have to dig a river that flows from Canada to New Mexico. Which river are you talking about exactly, and how will you route it through the rocky mountains?
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Your idea here is speculation (not science), but I'm really interested in the engineering idea you have to dig a river that flows from Canada to New Mexico. Which river are you talking about exactly, and how will you route it through the rocky mountains? I have to admit, I'm interested in how that could be engineered as well, just from an engineering point of view. There seem to be two possible ways you could do it. One way is just to tunnel right under any mountains in the way and run the river through the
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This seems like it would require a massive amount of power, and it would, however, it is important to remember that you can recover most of that power from the water running down the pipeline on the other side of the mountain. Looking at pumped hydro storage, they get better than 80% end to end efficiency, so it is entirely feasible to pump the river over the mountain using less than 20% of the required power from other sources such as solar and wind.
Interesting point
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In general in smaller systems you can always get water from a higher hydraulic head to a lower one, even if you have to go uphill, but the pressure limit on how high you can siphon water is kind of a showstopper. Using electrical power generated as the water drops on the other end to power pumps is just one method though. While there are absolute limits (under standard Earth gravity anyway) to how high you can lift water with negative pressure, you can push it to basically any height with positive pressure
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For that you would need a functional government and a population that wants one. /. is full with posts from Americans who do not want a real government, claiming it is against the constitution, and we want to keep it like that.
But
Good luck to run a project - that is not a military one - that spans more than four presidential terms ...
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Well, the context of the discussion is basically an apocalyptic situation and a war with Canada. I was really only considering the engineering, but I think we can probably safely assume some sort of military dictatorship, or at least an unusually empowered military in that situation. Not great for things like basic human rights, but maybe a situation where giant infrastructure projects can get done.
I would really like to believe that democracy and functional government are not mutually exclusive. It does se
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Don't be so stressed. Want to reflect light back into space, do it on the ground, instead of the ground absorbing light and converting it to heat. Make that surface shiny and reflective, now you people should have readily figured out how to do that over a very large scale and make it profitable.
Put shiny solar panels on the roofs of every house in the burbs, any light being absorbed is converted to electricity and the panel should reflect light it can not use back up and out. Every house in the burbs, why
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not only is it getting hotter as CO2 rises, it is doing so in the middle of the 40 year old projections
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Well that's brilliant, I make a comment about climate refugees and you respond with a comment on climate models. Those are two different things, your comment is a non-sequitur, if you will. In other words, learn logic, scrub.
Or at least learn to stay on topic.
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Yes, it is.
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LOL you can't even figure out what "it" refers to. You don't understand context. You never learned how to stay on topic. Still, you're typing, which is impressive for an autodidactic lab rat.
Next up for you: learn to understand the context, what "it" refers to. Also, if you think everything in climate science is equally well supported, you are wrong: it's not.
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Well,
I guess for no brainers one does not need science.
And predicting where it will be dryer and where it will be wetter is not easy anyway.
One ocean current changes a bit and all previous modelling is for nought.
However last 2 years both Germany as well as Thailand were unusually dry.
Most parts of Thailand could not do a second rice harvest.
Despite the dryness, the singel rice harvest in 2019 was a record harvest for my wife, however 2020 even the single harvest had not enough rain, we only got like 50% fr
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I guess for no brainers one does not need science.
You don't need science if you don't have a brain.
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> We only have 7 more years
Sounds unavoidable. We may as just accept it and go out with a bang. Fire up the CO2 generators and party like it 1899!
New costing system (Score:5, Insightful)
Should be by the number of F-35's this would cost. Using the price I found of an F-35C Navy variant being $117,000,00 this research program cost 0.85 F35's.
Regardless of whether it's a good idea or feasible chances are we will get more human utility out of this research program than that single aircraft would provide.
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New costing system. Should be by the number of F-35's this would cost. Using the price I found of an F-35C Navy variant being $117,000,00 this research program cost 0.85 F35's.
That's a really great way to put things into perspective. Thanks for the idea.
Hard to do (Score:5, Informative)
The problem is that this is hard to do. Sulfate aerosols do cool the planet, but only temporarily: they drop out of the atmosphere on roughly a six month time scale. We know this because volcanoes sometimes emit megatons of sulfates, and when they are powerful enough to put those aerosols into the stratosphere (and only when they inject the aerosols into the stratosphere), you get a cooling blip that decays with a half life on the order of six months.
Unfortunately, carbon dioxide has a half life in the atmosphere that's more on the order of a hundred years. So you'd need to keep injecting sulfate aerosols to counter an effect that keeps on running by itself.
I'll also point out that reflecting incident sunlight will also have an effect on plant growth. This could counter the cooling effect by slowing the removal of carbon dioxide.
The fact that Pinotubo injected an estimated twenty million tons of ash and aerosols into the stratosphere, and yet had only a year's effect, is somewhat daunting. https://earthobservatory.nasa.... [nasa.gov]
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in$ane enviro - semi permanent source just removed (Score:1)
On top of pulling sulfur / sulfates out elsewhere for the last 50 years at huge costs.
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Much like ozone, releasing it at sea level is just pollution. It will fall out as acid rain. You have to get it into the upper atmosphere to get the positive effects.
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A "blip", you say? (Score:1)
"Tell me more about this so called blip..." -Thanos
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they drop out of the atmosphere on roughly a six month time scale
That can be a good thing, though. One of the big problems with CO2 is that it stays around so long, making it so that we're stuck with the consequences of our mistakes long after we make them. Something with a short half-life would give us a tight control loop, so we can start ramping it up, observe what happens, and start adjusting in either direction on a year-by-year basis, instead of across generations.
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It will also do a number on all the solar generation that has been installed in response to Obama alarmism and subsidies, mostly the latter. Anything we do should be done with full knowledge of expected effects on other mitigation efforts. In this case they clearly have not thought this through.
{^_^}
{^_^}
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Temporary sounds like a good thing. If this is a horrible mistake it will be detected and be able to be turned off quickly.
Solar Power (Score:2)
Will this not just result in making solar power generation less efficient?
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It will also negatively affect plant and phytoplankton growth.
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Will this not just result in making solar power generation less efficient?
It will also negatively affect plant and phytoplankton growth.
No worries. They know exactly how the climate all works, so they have thought of everything. (In reality, these people scare me much more than climate change does. They actually believe they know how it all works.)
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Same here.
Because there is a huge list of this kind of people causing unintended consequences.
Seen the Movie Already (Score:1)
Comment removed (Score:4, Interesting)
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All the remaining forests in the world store about 40 years of carbon emissions, I doubt storing even a year's worth with new forests is a realistic option.
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What could possibly go wrong ? (Score:3)
. . . Everything !
"Most ideas are wrong" - someone smart.
First step earth, next step Venus.... (Score:1)
Of course the Venusian day is kind of long.
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Of course the Venusian day is kind of long.
That's ok, it means you can go out skiing longer.
An added "benefit" ... (Score:2)
that the politicians will like is that: if you can reflect the sun's rays then you get to chose where to. Physical climate too hot: back out into space; political climate too hot: down onto the country that you do not like. Sounds like a James Bond plot that might become reality. Do we know which political leaders own white cats ?
You do have to wonder sometimes (Score:1)
It's happening! (Score:1)
We don't know who struck first, us or them. But we do know it was us that scorched the sky.
He said scorched, but blocked is the same thing... no sunlight.
Upper levels of government must have some really out of control AI now solar powered. Or, possibly an attempt to induce a new global ice age in order to stave off the lizard people for a while longer?
It's not new (Score:2)
It's not a new idea, a "prestigious" USA University proposed putting an "umbrella" (yes) in the space to do so.
Nonetheless, both idea that share the same core (blocking the so much needed sun required by the plants) is plainly put stupid.
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So... Umbrella Corporation?
The Side-Affects (Score:2)
Real Fat Chance! (Score:4, Insightful)
Like, this will work Great!
You think?
Scientists, being human beings, don't see the "entire picture". And being human, tend to create many more "unintended consequences". Typical "unintended consequences" that end up create more damage than the consequence that they wanted to remedy.
HIghlander II is the literary reference.
Heresy! Re: Real Fat Chance! (Score:3)
Before they do that, they need to (Score:2)
This would be useful if sunlight varied much (Score:2)
One thing that AGW opponents often claim is that any global warming is the result of a solar cycle. If it were true then you might well want to employ some sunlight-reflecting technology.
But what we really ought to do is preserve and conserve our environment, because even if you could establish a new yet livable stasis the cost of the upheaval is incalculable.
Look on my works ye mighty and despair (Score:2)
I'm very close to giving up on humanity. What could possibly go wrong here? As a species we have an absolutely atrocious track record for predicting the negative effects of things like this -- how crazy would it be to unleash a bunch of aerosols into the environment confident that =this= time we definitely know everything about what we are doing? Ludicrous.
Much more cheaply and safely (Score:2)
Switch the "carbon-heavy" power sources to orbital solar mirror based power. It would occlude much less of the sky, interfere _far_ less with weather and ecologies, and focus the affected areas to relatively safe microwave antenna farms, with far less pollution than current large-scale power sources. If and when large scale solar filtering would be necessary, the solar mirrors could be scaled up and point the relected power to desirable uses, not just block it. Since so much of the "carbon" pollution is fro
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Substitute (Score:2)
"Solar geoengineering is not a substitute for decarbonizing,"
But it is probably going to have to be, since decarbonizing 1) is probably not going to happen and 2) is much too expensive if it did happen.
Environmentalists tend to approach their hobby as a "money is no object" proposition, but reality sets in, and those that are already financially struggling when the hobbyists force the price of this or that higher cause the poor to die. Poverty is deadly. Higher energy prices cause increased poverty.
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Poverty isn't deadly, the things surrounding it are. Lack of shelter, lack of quality food for example. Climate change will take these things from people directly, without needing to use money as an intermediary. But they will go broke too, having to replace everything that climate change took from them. If they even can do it.
The "migrant crisis" that's going on all over the globe is just the beginning. Once they start running out of food and water, not just money? They won't be asking nicely anymore, they
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Guns don’t kill people, low blood pressure does (from bullet holes)
In other words, I don’t think the word poverty refers exclusively to exchanged currency, but the overall circumstances of people having the ability to obtain what they need in order to live well. So yes poverty is deadly, because it means a person doesn’t have the means to avoid death.
Anyway, I agree with the rest of your post but the first sentence was very distracting.
Why not put the mirrors here on earth... (Score:1)
Mmm. Sounds reasonable.
What Could Go Wrong? (Score:1)
You've got a self-balancing system that's arguably being thrown out of balance by human activity. I say "arguably" because human activity is only partially to blame and the extent to which it is to blame is uncertain. Science doesn't fully understand all the external forces that affect the climate. That's why climate study is ongoing. There are many factors that affect the climate: human activity, the solar cycle, weather, volcanic activity, natural methane release, etc... And the climate has never been sta
I seem to remember this being tried before. (Score:1)
I distinctly remember reading an article a few years ago about Harvard attempting this as well as China planning it but backing down due to UN concerns.
My memory isn't the greatest though.
Interglacial Period (Score:1)
Yep (Score:3)
We're going to need technological solutions. Bitching and blaming don't seem to be solving the problem.
(Of course, some people don't want technological solutions ... because we lose all the religions aspects like penance.)
Let's do 2 birds with one stone (Score:2)
... reflecting more of the sun's energy back into space through techniques that include injecting aerosols into the atmosphere
How about using aerosols that contain the COVID-19 virus including all the regional variants, plus measles and polio. That way the anti-mask/anti-innoculation crowds can develop herd immunity.
Mars (Score:1)
_This_ is what's wrong with climate lobbying ... (Score:2)
... motivation through fear leads to the acceptance of otherwise questionable decisions and actions.
The scheme in this case is proposing changing the amount of sunlight reaching the surface. Think about what that means and ask yourself: ... they don't know ... no, esp. in the case of aerosols
a) are the means of doing so benign in every respect
b) can the process be immediately reversed without collateral consequences
c) can the consequences be quantified in terms of what exactly they will be, how long they w
snowpiercer (Score:2)
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Yes, this has been a common sci fi scenario for a long time. Larry Niven did one back in the 1970's (he wrote earlier things but seems to have confused global warming with waste heat from industry).
Groening called it, again (Score:1)
"I call this enemy: the sun!" [youtu.be]
I'm going to start TSC "The Shield Corporation" (Score:1)
And the first recipients... (Score:2)
And, the first recipients of the grants would be... drum roll... the scientists proposing that $100M be spent on it. Tada!
Not to be a negative nancy (Score:1)
...but they HAVE seen The Matrix, havenâ(TM)t they?!
...reflecting the sun's rays... (Score:2)
We've talked about installing a Texas-sized array of solar panels in the Sahara Desert.
We've talked about giant mylar mirrors at the L1 position in space.
We've talked about aerosol injection into the stratosphere.
We've talked about seeding the oceans with iron particles to stimulate algae growth.
What about a Texas-sized strip of mirrors (or any extremely high albedo surface) at/near the equator? Wouldn't that be a (comparatively) low cost, low risk alternative to achieve similar goals? I've been pushing thi
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Stupid
If you put that in your signature you won't need to type it at the bottom of your posts.