A last-ditch global warming fix? A man-made 'volcanic' eruption
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
The international panel charged with reining in climate change said this week that the world needs to take "unprecedented" steps to remake its energy, transportation and agriculture systems to avoid the worst effects of global warming.
What the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change did not discuss was an even more radical potential response — one that would re-engineer Earth’s stratosphere to create a massive heat shield by effectively duplicating the fallout that follows a volcanic eruption.
That view was seconded this week by the “grandfather” of modern climate science, by the founder of the Harvard laboratory that is a center of geoengineering research and even by scientists who have raised serious reservations about human tampering with the Earth's singular climate system.
“I think it makes sense to have a substantially larger research effort on solar geoengineering,” said David Keith, the professor of applied physics who leads Harvard’s Solar Geoengineering Research Program. Like others who have looked at the unusual alternative, Keith believes that humankind’s primary focus should be on reducing greenhouse gas emissions by cutting coal-powered energy, shifting to non-fossil-fuel burning vehicles, and many other changes.
The climate intervention most commonly discussed by researchers grows out of observations made following two very large volcanic eruptions — at El Chichon in the Mexican state of Chiapas in 1982 and at Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines in 1991. In both cases, sulfur dioxide gas from the volcanoes spiraled into upper layers of the Earth’s atmosphere known as the stratosphere. There, the gas combined with hydrogen and produced the fine droplets or powder that scientists called “aerosols.” Those particles reflected enough sunlight back into space to cool Earth’s surface by 0.3 to 0.5 degrees Celsius (nearly 1 degree Fahrenheit). In the case of Pinatubo, the cooling lasted for about a year.
Researchers have envisioned duplicating the phenomenon by launching jets equipped to fly to 70,000 feet, the lower reaches of the stratosphere, where they would release a sulfur compound. The effort would bleach blue skies a lighter color and make sunsets more vivid, while shielding Earth from some of the sun's rays.
The flights would have to be numerous and long-running to create anything like the reflective power of the volcanic eruptions. But Keith and others believe the technical hurdles could be cleared and an aerosol “umbrella” created, at least for a time.
Without endorsing or rejecting such a project, the National Academy of Sciences in 2015 recommended more research . The Obama administration also endorsed more study.
So what are the potential drawbacks?
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As a science teacher, I have always known that specific large volcanic eruptions that produce dust, reduce the temp of the planet.
So the question becomes, do we fool around with mother nature even more?
Personally, before deciding to fool around with mother nature, it may be wise to pay attention to the realities of mother nature.
Here is a graph from NASA. It is not from a "nut job" of any direction. It is NASA.
Let's focus on 2 areas here.
1. Younger Dryas.
2. 8,200 year cold event.
YOUNGER DRYAS was a recognized ICE AGE.
It is pretty clear we can see the sea levels continued to RISE during this ICE AGE.
8,200 YEAR (BP) COLD EVENT.
Becoming recognized as cause for the arrest of early agriculture.
Notice the waters kept rising.
This is not political wingnut nonsense of any direction. This is reality. IMHO, people need to get the hell off their political high horses and come to grips with the BIG PICTURE better before playing around with Mother Nature.
JMO
I have one simple wish......
they STOP using the words IF, Maybe, possibly, WE believe, we think etc, etc, etc.....
I will start considering what they have to say when they stop with I don't really know and say it will, with demonstrable proof.
When they stop using this fear mongering to demand more and more from us.
Before that it doesn't pay to fuck with mother nature! (so leave her well enough alone)
Not possible.
Well, the smell of sulfur, for one thing. Yech!
Then there's ash falling on my car. That's not ok.
Honestly, though, short of exploding a few actual volcanoes, I don't know how you'd amass a useful quantity of the desired gases. Even if you could generate it, bottle it, and stick it on airplanes, we'd probably burn so much fossil fuels in the effort that it would offset anything we would accomplish.
And if it ever does? Do NOT wipe it off with your hands... My dad did that with my moms new caddy after Mt. St. Helens erupted. Wrecked the new paint. Momma was NOT happy.
I thought I had a comment on this post already???
Me too. I see it above now, but when I looked at this seed last night, it wasn't there. Now it's back. Are there two seeds on this topic?
Yep, there are 2 versions of this discussion floating in the etherware.
I duplicated my earlier post from further up into the other version of this discussion yesterday or maybe before. Sorry, lost track of days.
But, I agree, there are a couple versions of this floating around here.