This just in, (h/t to Sonicfrog) the swamp cooler is being re-invented as a global warming solution. No mention of what the increased global humidity will do for the planet’s radiative balance. No mention of what the increased humidity would do for night-time low temperatures.
SUNSTOP writes to tell us that a relatively unknown Maryland scientist has proposed a public patent that he claims could combat global warming. The proposed plan would require massive amounts of water to be sprayed into the air in an effort to bolster the earth’s existing air conditioning system.
Ron Ace, a 69-year-old, has been researching the earth’s climate for years and has found what he calls the most “practical, nontoxic, affordable, rapidly achievable” and beneficial way to curb global warming and a resulting catastrophic ocean rise.
Ace proposes to spray gigatons of sea-water into the air and in effect, build a “a colossal refrigeration system with a 100,000-fold performance multiplier.” He contends a number of positive effects would be in action at the same time to help stave off warming.
“The Earth has a giant air-conditioning problem,” he said. “I’m proposing to put a thermostat on the planet.”
First, the sprayed droplets would transform to water vapor, a change that absorbs thermal energy near ground level; then the rising vapor would condense into sunlight-reflecting clouds and cooling rain, releasing much of the stored energy into space in the form of infrared radiation.
Kenneth Caldeira, a climate scientist for the Carnegie Institution’s Department of Global Ecology at Stanford University whose computer simulation of Ace’s invention suggests it would significantly cool the planet. The simulated evaporation of about one-half inch of additional water everywhere in the world produced immediate planetary cooling effects that were projected to reach nearly 1 degree Fahrenheit within 20 or 30 years, Caldeira said.
But it appears that maybe they just haven’t thought this through carefully:
“Some complications related to releasing huge amounts of water into the air are not well understood, however.”
In the Slashdot comments there is this that caught my eye:
by cthulu_mt (1124113) on Friday December 19, @04:42PM (#26177863)
I think this gem earns a “whatcouldpossiblygoright“.
Hmmm…let me get this straight, this knucklehead wants to create a device[s] that’ll generate huge quantities of the No. 1 GHG and inject into the atmosphere?
Okaaay…
That’ll turn out well…sorta like giving a gaggle of five-year olds a box of detonators to play with.
This gives new meaning to the classic phrase …’what could possibly go wrong?’…
Yikes!!!
Any bets that he will get grant funding for a small scale proof of concept project? However, he needs to think bigger. How much money can you get for pointing a water hose in the air? Maybe he should enhance his project with a tilting bird shredder (wind turbine). This way he can produce energy to run the system from the horizontal oriented axis shredders, and enhance the convection with the vertical ones. It would work like those misting fans you can buy at the ballpark. If placed correctly the vertical shredder would pull air from the surrounding area causing air flow to power the horizontal axis power generators. You could model it on a computer and show it works, and that should be enough for the fruit loops at many of these grant agencies or carbon credit exchanges.
If done properly think of the carbon credits that could be generated out of thin air and thicker water! And since the laws of physics do not apply to computer models, carbon credit trading exchanges, or the global warming religion everything should be great. At least the money would not go into vapor ware carbon credits, but into actual equipment that could cool the next “Live Earth Concert”. Oops, I forgot you didn’t need to cool them down since they are in the real world and the Gore Effect is in full force.
Since hurricanes and typhoons (and the storms that routinely rumble through “Tornado Alley“) feed off of warm, moist air, wouldn’t these additional gigatons of fairy dust-powered* warm, moist air, oh, I don’t know, feed more and stronger hurricanes and typhoons (and storms rumbling through “Tornado Alley“)?
Inquiring minds want to know.
*Note: How does he propose to power the tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of gigantic pumps that would be needed to pump gigatons of water into the atmosphere for decades? Also, how would he possibly get past Green Peas and their army of lawyers, when word got out that they’d be sucking up billions of tons of sea life and adding to the noise pollution that is driving the whales insane?)
Why doesn’t this yahoo patent Cold Fusion instead. His perpertual motion generator could then power all the devices we need to freeze the Earth harder than it’s freezing right now.
So, turning all of our window air conditioners around so they cool the outside won’t work either?
Darnit.
With the group of science advisers recently appointed in Washington, you can look forward to a stream of stuff, much like this, coming from the new administration.
Let’s see. AGW theory says that CO2 will cause catastrophic warming by increasing water vapor in the atmosphere. To combat the extra heat from the water vapor, let’s add more water vapor.
As long as this genius doesn’t fire boneless chickens at the sun with a cannon, I will refrain from filing a patent challenge.
I’ll be laughing at the very first lawsuit this sea water mist injection would produce.
Could you imagine the claimants asking for money because a hurricane may have increased in strength because of increased humidity? Someone gets flooded out of their village and it’ll be inevitable that someone claims some of that rain was first injected into the atmosphere on purpose?
Silly stuff, really.
Will these crackpots never be still? Where does this
tin-foil hat nutcase think the terawatts of energy to pump all
this water is going to come from? What’s that? “The sun”? So
just how is creating more clouds going to help with
solar energy? Cleverness. The downfall of the clever. D’oh
Even the IPCC says that the climate models don’t understand clouds. So when these unfortunate fellows turned to a popular climate model, they ended up using what is known to be the wrong tool for proving the effect of more water vapor.
They also think the same effect could be caused by thousands of smaller sprinklers. I’m certain just the U.S. golf courses have thousands of sprinklers, and there are quite a number of farms using large sprinklers. I saw mention a few years ago of the possible increase in local warming due to water vapor from the many sprinklers and ponds which have appeared across the U.S. (I can’t find the paper).
“and a resulting catastrophic ocean rise.”
The oceans are currently not rising and up until recently had only been rising 1-2mm per year.
Sound the alarm.
Build a few nuclear power plants in the regions where evaporative cooling would be most helpful at managing the earth’s weather. Remember: nuclear plants add nothing to global warming — no CO2, no chemical polutants, no radiation, nothing bad. During daytime hours use that electrical power to run great banks of seawater pumps and sprays to increase evaporation, cloud cover and rainfall. Whamo, you have compensated for increased CO2 in our atmosphere. That’s a lot more reasonable than extracting CO2 from the atmospere and storing it underground or deep in the oceans.
By the way, don’t we need more rainfall in many places around the globe?
The problem with Ron Ace’s patent application is that it is “not invented here”. By that I mean it is not the result of government funded work of scientists in the global warming “community”.
A side note: “If Global Warming is the Problem, Nuclear Power is the Answer.”
You know, they used to tar and feather snake oil salesmen…
I think I found the problem.
‘Kenneth Caldeira, a climate scientist for the Carnegie Institution’s Department of Global Ecology at Stanford University whose computer simulation of Ace’s invention suggests it would significantly cool the planet.’
‘computer simulation’ The frogs are flying!
Let me see if I got this right.
We’re going to spend Trillions to stop ourselves from putting one minor greenhouse gas into the atmosphere while we build Giant Patio Evaporative Coolers all over the planet to increase the level of the dominant greenhouse gas? And then the pesky climate will stop changing?
Yeah, that ought to do the trick.
…. so, when I’m using a sprinkler to water my lawn…. I’m actually cooling the Planet!….. I’ll have to remember that, if the city council catches me using one during water restrictions….. My defence from now on…. I’m cooling the planet and making more clouds. hehe.
Sounds like you live in Kalyfornya!
Roof-mounted home/business unit?
Let us hope he remembers that all this water won’t be available during a drought (as in the SE and FL and CA lately.
Plus all that nice humidty. Grows LOTS of fungi, insects, mold, slime, mildew and funky-green-living things ALL OVER the nearest 15-25 feet of EVERY available surface.
(Hope no roofs collapse because of the extra weight up topside.)
(And how people will die from falls cleaning, installing, maintaining these ugly boxes on millions of rooftops? (On the ground? )
I thought the sun already did the heavy lifting in putting water back into the atmosphere. But not being a climate scientist I’ll not defend that idea.
Crosspatch mentions the white cities idea. And I think there may be something in it for reducing UHI effects.
Gradually we could build and manufacture with whiter materials and paint with white. I suppose the vehicles of the Earth, which must total over half a billion, could move to lighter colors also. Roads seem more problematic, the best cost/durability choices may be what we already use.
Living in Arizona I inquired about the new paints that promise less absorption even for darker colors; a property that rattles my inadequate knowledge of physics a little.
Apparently the paints do exist but cost significantly more – requiring on-site mixing of some titanium compound just before application.
Wow, if this thing starts really working what will happen to this map:
http://mapcenter.hamweather.com/records/7day/us.html?c=mintemp
Correction on the title – Ace’s patent was issued in 2004.
United States Patent 6,688,129
Ace February 10, 2004
Geothermal space conditioning
Scientists doubt inventor’s global cooling idea — but what if it works?
(with video of Ace describing his invention.)
Water in the atmosphere and precipitation is actually little understood. see: Global Warming and Nature’s Thermostat by Roy W. Spencer, Ph.D.
It will be very interesting to see how Ace’s swamp cooler fits with Miskolczi’s planetary greenhouse theory – e.g. where Miskolczi predicts that energy conservation and energy minimization will maintain about constant optical depth.
Greenhouse effect in semitransparent planetary atmospheres, Ference M. Miskolczi, Quarterly Journal of the Hungarian Meteorological Service, Vol. 111, No. 1 Jan-Mar 2007, pp 1-40
Miskowlczi observes:
Ferenc Miskolczi – Physics of the Planetary Greenhouse Effect
Miklos Zagoni, Dr. – Paleoclimatic Consequences of Dr. Miskolczi’s Greenhouse Theory
See also:
http://hps.elte.hu/zagoni/Miskolczi/hartcode_v01.pdf
http://www.met.hu/idojaras/IDOJARAS_vol108_No4_01.pdf;
Umm, saltwater tends to be very bad for plant life on land. Wouldn’t flinging all that saltwater up in the air be bad for the plants the salt or saltwater landed on? They wouldn’t be able to convert CO2 into O for us. They cannot get anything growing in Galveston. Everything is crusted in salt.
Comparing this idea to the intelligence of a sack of rocks insults the intelligence of the sack of rocks.
My bet is that it is powered by enviro-friendly perpetual motion.
The fallacy of this, yet its being supported by any sort of climate scientist, has already been pointed out: If water vapor is indeed a negative climate forcing, then the claims of Hansen &co. are wrong.
Need someone who knows what he is talking about (not me) but If I remember correctly burning one gallon of gasoline produces more that one gallon of H2O. So if we want to increase the water vapor we should drive around in an SUV.
Next we will discuss how a propane refrigerator works, and then boil up some ice cubes.
Years ago Popular Science had a article about a much more detailed plan. The proposal was to build a large hollow 1km high tower in the desert and pump sea water spray into the top. This would create a cool falling column of air in the tower that would in turn power a turbine at the bottom to create electricity. The whole idea was to create electricity in excess of that needed to power the sea water pumps. Excess water would would wash the salt back to the ocean. The cooled moist air could be used to grow plants or air condition a small town.
All you need is that 1km hollow tower that doesn’t blow away in the first windstorm.