Newest geo-engineering plan is salt water daffy

7 09 2008

Here we go again, more geo-engineering. From Physicsworld:


Artist’s impression of a Flettner spray vessel. The wind would be blowing from the right-hand side of the image, the rotor spin would be clockwise as seen from above, and the rotors would push the vessel to the left. (Courtesy: J. MacNeill).

Cloud-seeding ships could combat climate change

It should be possible to fight the global warming effects associated with an increase of dioxide levels by using autonomous cloud-seeding ships to spray salt water into the air.

{The proposal]  involves increasing the reflectivity, or “albedo”, of clouds lying about 1 km above the ocean’s surface. The idea relies on the “Twomey effect”, which says that increasing the concentration of water droplets within a cloud raises the overall surface area of the droplets and thereby enhances the cloud’s albedo. By spraying fine droplets of sea water into the air, the small particles of salt within each droplet act as new condensation nuclei when they reach the clouds above, leading to a greater concentration of water droplets within each cloud.

This project would require the deployment of a worldwide fleet of 1,500 free drifting ships. Read the rest of this entry »


Comments : 96 Comments »

Categories : Technology, climate_change

Pachauri’s at it again – shun meat, he says (but what about the buffalo?)

7 09 2008
Shun meat, says UN climate chief

By Richard Black
Environment correspondent, BBC News website

Cow road sign 
Livestock production has a bigger climate impact than transport, the UN believes

 

People should consider eating less meat as a way of combating global warming, says the UN’s top climate scientist.

Rajendra Pachauri, who chairs the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), will make the call at a speech in London on Monday evening.


Pachuri

UN figures suggest that meat production puts more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere than transport.

But a spokeswoman for the UK’s National Farmers’ Union (NFU) said methane emissions from farms were declining.

Dr Pachauri has just been re-appointed for a second six-year term as chairman of the Nobel Prize-winning IPCC, the body that collates and evaluates climate data for the world’s governments.

“The UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has estimated that direct emissions from meat production account for about 18% of the world’s total greenhouse gas emissions,” he told BBC News.

“So I want to highlight the fact that among options for mitigating climate change, changing diets is something one should consider.”

More of the BBC article plus my response follows….

Read the rest of this entry »


Comments : 120 Comments »

Categories : climate_change, politics

Track Hurricane Ike with near realtime satellite imagery

7 09 2008

Hurricane Ike has many people worried, much like with Hurricane Gustav. As many of you may know, I produce a variety of weather imagery maps for web and broadcast in SD and HD. Since there is a lot of interest in the path of hurricanes, I thought I’d post a few near-live images, which will update every 30 minutes. Here is Hurricane Ike, entering the frame on the right:


Click image for full size or animate this image: Click for loop >>>  

Click image for full size or animate this image: Click for loop>>>

Here is a wider view:

Click image for full size or animate this image: Click for loop>>>

Here is the NHC 5 day track, Havana, Houston, and Galveston seem to be the targets this time. Ike will probably weaken as it goes ove Cuba, and may regain strength as it passes into the Gulf. Though, the last time, Gustav didn’t recover much after passing over western Cuba. Read the rest of this entry »


Comments : 20 Comments »

Categories : Science, hurricanes, weather