Cut In Ship Pollution Sparked Global Heating Spurt 121
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: The slashing of pollution from shipping in 2020 led to a big "termination shock" that is estimated have pushed the rate of global heating to double the long-term average, according to research. Until 2020, global shipping used dirty, high-sulphur fuels that produced air pollution. The pollution particles blocked sunlight and helped form more clouds, thereby curbing global heating. But new regulations at the start of 2020 slashed the sulphur content of fuels by more than 80%. The new analysis calculates that the subsequent drop in pollution particles has significantly increased the amount of heat being trapped at the Earth's surface that drives the climate crisis. The researchers said the sharp ending of decades of shipping pollution was an inadvertent geoengineering experiment, revealing new information about its effectiveness and risks.
Dr Tianle Yuan, at the University of Maryland, US, who led the study, said the estimated 0.2 watts per sq meter of additional heat trapped over the oceans after the pollution cut was "a big number, and it happened in one year, so it's a big shock to the system." "We will experience about double the warming rate compared to the long-term average" since 1880 as a result, he said. The heating effect of the pollution cut is expected to last about seven years. The research, published in the journal Communications Earth & Environment, combined satellite observations of sulphur pollution and computer modeling to calculate the impact of the cut. It found the short-term shock was equivalent to 80% of the total extra heating the planet has seen since 2020 from longer-term factors such as rising fossil-fuel emissions.
The scientists used relatively simple climate models to estimate how much this would drive up average global temperatures at the surface of the Earth, finding a rise of about 0.16C over seven years. This is a large rise and the same margin by which 2023 beat the temperature record compared with the previous hottest year. However, other scientists think the temperature impact of the pollution cut will be significantly lower due to feedbacks in the climate system, which are included in the most sophisticated climate models. The results of this type of analysis are expected later in 2024. [...] The new analysis indicates that this type of geoengineering would reduce temperatures, but would also bring serious risks. These include the sharp temperature rise when the pumping of aerosols stopped -- the termination shock -- and also potential changes to global precipitation patterns, which could disrupt the monsoon rains that billions of people depend on. "We should definitely do research on this, because it's a tool for situations where we really want to cool down the Earth temporarily," like an emergency brake, said Dr Gavin Schmidt, Director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies. "But this is not going to be a long-term solution, because it doesn't address the root cause of global warming," which is emissions from fossil fuel burning.
Dr Tianle Yuan, at the University of Maryland, US, who led the study, said the estimated 0.2 watts per sq meter of additional heat trapped over the oceans after the pollution cut was "a big number, and it happened in one year, so it's a big shock to the system." "We will experience about double the warming rate compared to the long-term average" since 1880 as a result, he said. The heating effect of the pollution cut is expected to last about seven years. The research, published in the journal Communications Earth & Environment, combined satellite observations of sulphur pollution and computer modeling to calculate the impact of the cut. It found the short-term shock was equivalent to 80% of the total extra heating the planet has seen since 2020 from longer-term factors such as rising fossil-fuel emissions.
The scientists used relatively simple climate models to estimate how much this would drive up average global temperatures at the surface of the Earth, finding a rise of about 0.16C over seven years. This is a large rise and the same margin by which 2023 beat the temperature record compared with the previous hottest year. However, other scientists think the temperature impact of the pollution cut will be significantly lower due to feedbacks in the climate system, which are included in the most sophisticated climate models. The results of this type of analysis are expected later in 2024. [...] The new analysis indicates that this type of geoengineering would reduce temperatures, but would also bring serious risks. These include the sharp temperature rise when the pumping of aerosols stopped -- the termination shock -- and also potential changes to global precipitation patterns, which could disrupt the monsoon rains that billions of people depend on. "We should definitely do research on this, because it's a tool for situations where we really want to cool down the Earth temporarily," like an emergency brake, said Dr Gavin Schmidt, Director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies. "But this is not going to be a long-term solution, because it doesn't address the root cause of global warming," which is emissions from fossil fuel burning.
Old wine in new bottle (Score:5, Informative)
https://news.slashdot.org/stor... [slashdot.org]
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There was also another same story posted 1 or 2 weeks ago...
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Ah, found the buyer of the former alleged president's meme stock. The verdict will not be turned over on appeal, there are no grounds for an appeal. Just to refresh your memory, the issue was not that he did a porn star or diddled a Playboy bunny, it was because he spent money on a hushing it up and then lied in documents claiming the money was for "legal" expenses. This constituted a campaign finance violations since it was an unreported campaign contribution to stop bad publicity. Had he simply paid the m
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The verdict will not be turned over on appeal, there are no grounds for an appeal.
You need to have a lot of confidence in your legal knowledge to say there are no grounds for appeal.
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No grounds for an appeal other than the insane jury instructions from an obviously corrupt judge bought and paid for by the Democrats.
Re: Old wine in new bottle (Score:2)
Oh boy, now they feel empowered.
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You might have half of a point if the Mueller Report had ever actually been released and we could read it. But we've not actually seen the report yet. We've seen part of the report, gutted by trump's DoJ stooge in order to to hide... well... we don't know what Barr stripped out of it to protect Dear Leader, now do we?
Maybe someday someone in the DoJ will grow some principles and integrity and leak the full report. Until that day... until every one of those black bars blocking the text is gone and we can re
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You might have half of a point if the Mueller Report had ever actually been released and we could read it. But we've not actually seen the report yet. We've seen part of the report, gutted by trump's DoJ stooge in order to to hide... well... we don't know what Barr stripped out of it to protect Dear Leader, now do we?
Maybe someday someone in the DoJ will grow some principles and integrity and leak the full report. Until that day... until every one of those black bars blocking the text is gone and we can read everything... it is as suspect as anything else produced or touched by him or his minions.
And what has stopped the Biden administration from releasing it?
All board SnowPiercer now! (Score:4, Interesting)
Because some lunatic government is going to try some stupid geo-engineering trick with the atmosphere
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Replying to myself to add this bit I just saw after posting the above comment. Japan is looking to build nuclear powered civilian ships too:
https://www.ssyglobal.com/news... [ssyglobal.com]
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Say what you want about global warming but we should all be able to agree one thing: nuclear powered ships are fucking rad. They just are.
And they make a lot of logistical sense as well.
Re:Global "heating" now? (Score:5, Funny)
nuclear powered ships are fucking rad.
My Geiger counter disagrees. However I bet an unshielded nuclear powered ship would be fucking rad.
Re:Global "heating" now? (Score:5, Interesting)
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Thank you sir. This sort of comment is why I can't seem to leave /.
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Ocean shipping is a business that is already splitting pennies and will forego security and maintenance over profit.
I think I'd rather see Soviet Russia return with its approach to Chernobyl than give this particular bunch nuclear anything.
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All pretty simply solvable problems. better luck next time
Re: Global "heating" now? (Score:3)
Yup. Terrorist are very easy to stop. That's why we never hear about them doing stuff anymore.
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Maybe, but there's easier ways to get ahold of 3% enriched non-weapons grade uranium if they really want it that bad, and it wouldn't be in a sealed steel vault with everyone in the world knowing you have it.
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I was thinking they'd just sink the ship in a major port. Or intentionally breach the containment. A commercial ship is way less likely to have the kind of security that is present at a nuclear power plant. The logistics are just too expensive on a non-military vessel.
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Sinking it kinda self defeating, seawater is a fantastic radiation shield. There are nuclear reactors and weapons on the ocean floor today.
I think the containment is a risk but any type of civilian reactor like that I imagine is going to be extremely well encased for such scenarios. boats sink, they have fires, lot's of dangers and there's little reason to have a nuclear reactor core with more than the necessary plumbing to make it work, you can box it up in steel containment structures pretty easily sinc
Re:Global "heating" now? (Score:4, Insightful)
They are, but unfortunately the commercial operators are not. They can't even keep the conventional ships they have from spilling vast amounts of oil and random containers into the seat, and occasionally sinking.
Insurance for nuclear commercial ships would be nearly impossible to get, and most ports have already banned them on safety grounds.
Maybe there could be some kind of work-around, like a nuclear tug that only operates in international waters.
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I assume the first problem is solved practically de-facto with a nuclear vessel, being that the only way this could or really should work is a sealed, "non-serviceable" reactor units, no non-cargo fuel oil to spill . Dropping cargo has little to do with powertrain.
Insurance and restrictions are purely political problems. In both cases it's more of a "easy to ban what doesn't exist" so there needs to be a demonstration of addressing concerns and if you have a passively safe design it starts to check a lot
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There is no such thing as a sealed non serviceable nuclear reactor.
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Not yet but existing naval reactors are built with a 10 year fuel cycle and the cores last 25 years at which point the entire core is replaced.
I am not suggesting we have everything in place immediately, there will have to be plenty of RD work for this but it's very possible to design a ship reactor that is acceptable for civilian use.
Re: Global "heating" now? (Score:2)
He talked about why commercial use is unrealistic and you had to move the goalposts to military before you felt like you had something of value to contribute.
You didn't.
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I'm pro-nuclear, but I call bullshit over this.
First, the commercial sector doesn't have a Hyman Rickover to promote extremely good engineering and extreme safety culture the way the US Navy did. Nor does it have the Navy's essentially limitless funding.
Second, while it's true there have been, (several, in fact,) lost nuclear-powered military vessels, they were all submarines, and in no case, were the reactor vessels breached, to the best of our knowledge. That's significantly different than a surface vesse
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You know what's even more rad?
Nuclear planes.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
I literally don't care if it's absolutely stupid in every single category, plus a few new categories invented just for that device. It's awesomeness is over 9000.
Re: Global "heating" now? (Score:1)
Even radder: "Project Orion", which was to launch spacecraft using a series of nuclear explosions from atomic bombs dropped behind it.
https://www.spacedaily.com/news/nuclearspace-03h.html
Re:Global "heating" now? (Score:5, Interesting)
Say what you want about global warming but we should all be able to agree one thing: nuclear powered ships are fucking rad. They just are.
And they make a lot of logistical sense as well.
On the logistics part, well: Yes an No.
I served on a nuclear carrier back in the day. We still had to unrep at lot at sea (Underway Replenishment). Your ship's propulsion system may not need refueling, but everything else does, including people. You unrep the same amount of food regardless.
The advantage of a nuclear warship is twofold: Higher sustained speeds, and more room for other supplies that bunker fuel would normally take up. On an aircraft carrier, that means more storage for aviation fuel, which is a big deal. And a reactor also means an near endless supply of fresh water at sea, as carriers use seawater as a coolant for the reactor plant, turning it to steam in the process. And that's what naval reactors are, really: a glorified steam engine.
And while I love the idea of civilian nuclear ships, unfortunately the NS Savannah showed that they're just not commercially feasible. The Germans also tried merchant nuke propulsion, and IIRC, they eventually gave up on the costs and converted their ship to diesel or oil boilers. The only non-military nuke ships that I know of still operating are the big icebreakers that the Russians use in the Arctic
Re: Global "heating" now? (Score:2)
And while I love the idea of civilian nuclear ships, unfortunately the NS Savannah showed that they're just not commercially feasible.
To be fair, the NS Savannah was never intended to demonstrate economic viability. It was poorly configured as a cargo ship. Intended to look elegant rather than functional.
Also, it was decommissioned a few years too early. Just before the 1970s oil embargo. Following that, its operation costs would have been competitive with oil fired ships.
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Yeah it was bad timing as well as the late 70s and 80s was the big time of anti nuclear sentiment so there was little political will to push the technology further. That was also the era of if we actually implemented a carbon tax the incentives would have been there to develop it, no need when regular ship fuel is cheap and you don't have to pay for pollution.
I wasn't suggesting cargo ships don't ever need supplies but there is a shitload of infrastructure to build, fuel and maintain those massive diesels
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... which themselves are rapidly going the way of the non-avian dinosaurs.
Re: Global "heating" now? (Score:2)
The Russians built one in 2007. They use those for 40+ years. Nuclear icebreakers aren't going away anytime soon.
Re: Global "heating" now? (Score:1)
Global melting. I have cheese. I'm ready.
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As for talking about solutions: we know what the solutions are to climate chan
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As I recall, it was at one point unknown whether clouds produced a net cooling or a net warming effect. That seems to be settled now.
Yes, the answer is "both."
Whether the net result is heating or cooling depends on the type of cloud, the thickness of cloud cover, the time of day (midday clouds tend to cool, night clouds tend to warm), the altitude, and the latitude.
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Perhaps "warming" no longer seemed appropriate when it's over 50 C (122 F) in Delhi, or the Gulf of Mexico is "warmer" than a hottub.
Re: Global "heating" now? (Score:2)
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No, we'll have to boil the oceans before getting to "frying" temperatures.
But, since at pre-industrial temperatures we had about 15 degrees (Kelvin, centigrade, Celsius) of greenhouse effect from the water vapour in the atmosphere at those temperatures, you can rest assured that at today's elevated temperatures, there will be another tranche of temperature increase in the pipeline, just from that. (No, this is not news ; and yes, it has been taken into account in GCMs used to calc
Old solution to old problem... (Score:2)
You know, the European countries used to ship goods around the world without emitting either sulfur or CO2. And to make matters even worse, the average speed of clippers - 20 knots, is faster than the average 12 knot speed of cargo ships today.
Re: Global "heating" now? (Score:3)
China is thinking of nuclear powered cargo ships
But that's heading in the wrong direction. According to TFS, it's the lack of sulfer emissions that is causing temperatures to rise. We (and China) need to switch back to high sulpher oil. Or better yet, high sulfer coal.
Better yet, lets stop listening to climate "scientists" until they have completed their Chem and Physics 101 courses.
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I don't understand why we don't have sterling engine solar powered cargo ships. Would be nothing to get an IR light pipe down 15 stories to the hot side, the cold side you've got the world's biggest heat sink for.
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I'm not talking about solar collectors, I'm talking about sterling engines.
Any heat source will do for the hot side. Solar Collector, a propane ring, fire. If you've ever started a fire with a magnifying glass, you'd know we're talking about a different technology entirely.
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You mentioned sterling engines running on solar power, that means needing some kind of collectors to focus that energy into the engine. The power a solar collector can collect will depend on the area that is exposed to the sun. A magnifying glass will produce enough power to start a piece of paper on fire but to produce enough power to bake a cake will require something larger. To move a ship at any reasonable speed will require a much more area exposed to the sun, even if the cold side of the heat engin
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And for the difference in temperature between the sun and the average temperature of the ocean, a simple magnifying lens will do.
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Less mist over the surface of the ocean contributes to global heating. It doesn't actually have to be from pollution though, we can do this safely with plain seawater. Of course there's going to be a bunch of rednecks and oil barons using this as the foundation for their false dichotomy arguments though.
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(You can tell they hate when I warn people because they always mod me down inappropriately just for pointing out their strategies.)
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It's kind of weird that the fossil fuel and nuclear industries put so much effort into shilling on Slashdot. I love this site but is it really worth attacking? Are the people here that influential? Maybe, I guess.
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Are they? There are plenty of "free thinkers" who will do it for free. Nothing like going against the prevailing opinion to make one feel smart.
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"It's kind of weird that the WEF bootlicks and and "green" industries put so much effort into shilling on Slashdot. I love this site but is it really worth attacking? Are the people here that influential? Maybe, I guess."
Fixed a few incorrect words.
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I had to google what WEF was. What do you suspect them of? I can't keep track of who is a commie, who is a fascist, who is a globalist, who is a lizard, and who is some combination of them all.
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I don't get the charge that lizards are lying about global warming anyway. Wouldn't they actually want it? They would be saying "global warming is great, and could you push that rock over here so I can do push-ups on it?"
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True, it's definitely the pro warming camp that has been infiltrated by lizardmen.
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(You can tell they hate when I warn people because they always mod me down inappropriately just for pointing out their strategies.)
No, they're modding you down for being a dick.
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Re: Less Pollution Now Causes Global Heating? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: Less Pollution Now Causes Global Heating? (Score:2)
Exactly. Correlation is not causation. There's zero evidence that it was reduced particulates and not some other variable. TFA even says "[Pollution particles] are one of the largest uncertainties in the climate system, and pretty hard to measure."
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i wonder why there were never any treehugging cavemen? why no neanderthal vegetarians? why no hominid environmentalists?
Re: Less Pollution Now Causes Global Heating? (Score:3)
The news will always be bad for the rest of your life because even in the best case it would take that long just to slow things down.
It didn't happen spontaneously, it was anthropogenic. You got to see part of it happen and somehow you still won't believe.
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You talk out your ass yet don't know shit. What sort of idiot thinks something can't be pollution if it isn't also a greenhouse gas? Learn what albedo is if you don't want to keep sounding as smart as you are.
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You talk out your ass yet don't know shit. What sort of idiot thinks something can't be pollution if it isn't also a greenhouse gas? Learn what albedo is if you don't want to keep sounding as smart as you are.
I used to work for Al Bedo. Nice guy.
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Only for the terminally stupid, such as you. This effect is expected. It comes from less dust in the air.
Re:Less Pollution Now Causes Global Heating? (Score:5, Insightful)
Take a house with lots of windows. Insulate it. That's greenhouse gas pollution. More insulation traps the heat the gets in through the glass.
Now take that same house on a cloudy day. That's sulfur particles from shipping, blocking sunlight from getting into the house in the first place.
Both are pollution. Both are bad. But they're bad in different ways with different results.
Complex things like climate change aren't simple and trying to apply intuition to them doesn't work. Education works.
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Sulfur dioxide is extremely effective as a coolant (Score:5, Interesting)
The cooling you get from sulfur dioxide is ~10^6 the warming you get from carbon dioxide. I.e., releasing 1 pound of SO2 into the atmosphere can offset a million pounds of CO2.
The reason for restricting it in exhaust emissions is that it can combine with atmospheric water to produce acid rain.
But if you release it into the stratosphere instead of the troposphere, that ceases to be much of a problem. And you get even better cooling effects.
Re:Sulfur dioxide is extremely effective as a cool (Score:4, Interesting)
The average atmospheric lifetime of sulfur dioxide is about 10 days.
The average atmospheric lifetime of carbon dioxide is at least several centuries, probably a lot longer. It's not actually that well understood because of the way the ocean is constantly absorbing (and releasing) atmospheric CO2. Ocean acidification, by the way, also a big deal.
If sulfur dioxide, or any readily available molecule for that matter, could feasibly be released into the atmosphere to reverse warming without risking even more adverse consequences, then the scientific community wouldn't be jumping up and down about how big a fucking problem anthropogenic global warming actually is.
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however if a base aerosol is used instead, we can then not only block some of the sunlight but also reduce ocean acidity, which we have increased because oceans absorb near half of the CO2 we create.
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So instead of compelling ocean shipping companies to /stop/ using high-sulfur fuels, we should instead be compelling every ship to float a schnorkel exhaust tube to a blimp running at 50,000m ?
Honestly that sounds like a far more fun engineering challenge. :)
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The cooling you get from sulfur dioxide is ~10^6 the warming you get from carbon dioxide
Very interesting. Intuitively, a layperson with superficial knowledge such as me would think that while it would produce some amount sulfurous acid (not sulfuric, quite a difference), given the small amounts, even compared to the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere (~~0.3%?) would not that be the lesser of two evils? apparently not, but the details would make very interesting reading indeed.
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lol what year exactly did "we have all of this solved "
"we did it folks, we balanced the environment"
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lol what year exactly did "we have all of this solved "
"we did it folks, we balanced the environment"
Was that the same year that President Clinton got a blowjob that was so good it made him forget what the word 'is' means?
Every silver lining has a cloud (Score:2)
So we get lower sulphur pollution at the cost of some extra global warming...
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No good deed goes unpunished.
Status quo. Disturbed. (Score:5, Insightful)
Just shows how fragile and unpredictable the planet ecosystem is. Like in any complex system, changes should be introduced gradually, observed and adjusted along the way. Meanwhile, we're going all in on a relative revolution. No wonder we're seeing unexpected results.
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What is unexpected about banning high sulfur fuels resulting in less sulfur emissions, or about less sulfur emissions decreasing the Earth's albedo? As for gradually introducing changes, maybe we should have thought about that before doubling the CO2 levels during the industrial revolution, or before deciding to continually increase the rate at which we're pumping it into the atmosphere even now.
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Just shows how fragile and unpredictable the planet ecosystem is.
It is not. The geological record has sufficient evidence to disprove this assertion.
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That's why we still have dinosaurs walking around... oh wait!
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What are you talking about? There is no status quo.
20000 years ago, mile thick glaciers covered most of Canada, Northern US, and parts of Europe. Earth is still warming up naturally from that ice age, one of dozens of ice ages the planet has experienced in the past few million years. For most of the time that complex life has existed, the planet has been warmer than today.
40MYA Antarctica was ice free. Even in historic times there were natural climate disruptions: 'The little ice age" during mideval tim
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The status quo is for climate to change.
The status quo for climate is slow change.
When we have fast change-- the Chicxulub impact event, for example-- results can be catastrophic.
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Just shows how fragile and unpredictable the planet ecosystem is. Like in any complex system, changes should be introduced gradually, observed and adjusted along the way. Meanwhile, we're going all in on a relative revolution. No wonder we're seeing unexpected results.
And these proposed "fixes" have an interesting side effect - they allow and even encourage using the filthiest petrochemicals without restraint - and allow the petrochemical people to brag about how they are saving the planet, who cares about CO2 and Methane? We just inject some more sulfur into the air, so there is no problem.
Well, other than thousands of years of acid rain, killing off marine and riverine life, destroying buildings and infrastructure and forests, and harming humans and wildlife.
And s
Going to need a technological solution (Score:2)
Just highlights the need for technological solutions. And the hubris ship has obviously already sailed (pun intended), so don't let that stop you.
We aren't going to de-industrialize, no matter how much some people emote about it, so we'd better find cooling mechanisms ... perhaps like this one.
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Just highlights the need for technological solutions. And the hubris ship has obviously already sailed (pun intended), so don't let that stop you.
We aren't going to de-industrialize, no matter how much some people emote about it, so we'd better find cooling mechanisms ... perhaps like this one.
Well, as long as we don't mind making things worse.
The good news is that the oil industry will be incentivised to remove all pollution requirements, and thye price of high sulfur petroleum will skyrocket. Bituminous coal will suddenly be in high demand, as we enable the "cure" and help out the worst polluters at the same time.
And do it for thousands of years, all the time injecting more Carbon. The Carbon cycle is quite long, the aerosol cycle is measure in days.
Is this petroleum and coal stuff go
Add (Score:2)
Isn't there an additive you could add that does this but in a more "green" way? Assuming sulfur is really that bad.
Unscientific claims (Score:2)
I'm all for more geoengineering (Score:2)
pollution good; non-pollution bad (Score:2)
It is my considered opinion that climate, and the weather it creates, is a very complicated process, a very very very complicated process, and anyone who claims they can tell you what will happen in 50 years is full of shit.
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It's quite amazing what we can do with observations, analysis, and math. Let's restate your supposition, but put it back into the 1960s:
Thankfully, we have people who learn things. We call this "edjumicat
Your Damned if Do and Damned if You Don't (Score:1)