Here’s an excerpt of an AP story posted on Brietbart by President Obama’s science advisor, John Holdren, suggesting putting particulate matter into the air to reflect sunlight.
It seems like we’ve already tried that and then cleaned it up in the last century.
Excerpt:
The president’s new science adviser said Wednesday that global warming is so dire, the Obama administration is discussing radical technologies to cool Earth’s air.
John Holdren told The Associated Press in his first interview since being confirmed last month that the idea of geoengineering the climate is being discussed. One such extreme option includes shooting pollution particles into the upper atmosphere to reflect the sun’s rays. Holdren said such an experimental measure would only be used as a last resort.
“It’s got to be looked at,” he said. “We don’t have the luxury of taking any approach off the table.”
Full story here
Note to commenters, while this is a political story also, please keep the discussion limited to the science. – Anthony
h/t to Mark Danner
Particulates Drive a Significant Part of Global Warming
http://www.physorg.com/news158423459.html
There is always a huge danger when you give real power to people who have become fanattical about their own dogma … it happened in Germany in the early 40’s, in Russia in the 50’s and in Cambodia n the 70’s ……
…. a complete twit …..
Arctic team: ‘London, we have a problem’
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7991801.stm
It would appear that the Catlin Artic Survey have been beset with problems from the outset but have delibrately kept quiet about it till today.
I wonder why that was?
The notion that CAT has actually been collecting any meaningful data has now been knocked on the head.
CAT have been outed, if they are not bringing home the science then you cannot call this a survey. It is a PR exercise in stupidty.
Hehe, too right, eh? I think PEI is the worst of the lot road-wise. Beautiful place otherwise, and THE place to go for lobster.
I guess it’s a good thing man did not develop our current line of technology a few hundred years earlier. At the onset of the LIA we would have surely blamed ourselves for the dropping temperatures and determined that we were headed for another ice age.
I wonder what “solution” we would have invented then?
Well, abraxas – I tried that a few months ago – only to find out it’s a “conspiracy theory”…;)
Anyway – while “just waiting” for the “theory” to appear in a “peer (pressure?) reviewed” publication – and for the “theory” to become accepted as at least “plausible” within the “open minded” science communes… I mean, community – I found this:
“Welsbach seeding for reduction of global warming”
Patent number: 5003186
Filing date: Apr 23, 1990
Issue date: Mar 26, 1991
Inventors: David B. Chang, I-Fu Shih
Assignee: Hughes Aircraft Company Stratospheric
http://www.google.com/patents?id=MJUjAAAAEBAJ&dq=5003186
The patent can also be found at:
http://www.docstoc.com/docs/3344696/Hughes-Aircraft-Chemtrail-Patent
How much stuff would need to be placed where in the atmosphere to have any appreciable effect? Above it’s said that a major volcanic explosion put 15 Million tons into the air and lowered global temp by 0.6 deg C for 2 years. So would this scheme require 7.5 Million tons a year indefinitely, or would the stuff stay up there for a long time (what kind of knowledge do we have on this? How would we propose to get some, before we run this irreversible experiment?).
Suppose we have to throw 7.5 Million tons a year into the stratosphere. That’s a big lift. How would we do it, and where is the needed energy coming from?
As many others have said, this idea is pretty undeveloped. It’s not smart governance to talk too freely about half-baked ideas. Presumably Holdren will learn from the fuss his unguarded comments have caused?
In the past few days I’ve seen
“Obama wants to engineer climate with particles”
“Obama wants to restrict tourism in Antarctica”
—-
Ok who the hell does Barack think he is? He is the president of the USA, not the president of the world. What gives him the right to say what goes on in Antarctica. He has no more power over Antarctica than a McDonalds drive thru attendant in Idaho. Why does he think he runs the world? How can he engineer the climate of the USA without engineering the climate of the EARTH? Something needs to be done to this man, and I’m not going to say what. Hopefully some crazy whack job will step up to the plate before it is too late.
Great, what happens when the week after we seed the stratosphere there is a Krakatoa type erruption, or worse. Is there a plan for a giant catalytic converter to fly around the stratosphere to clean up the mess?
Where is King Canute when you need him. Should have brought him up in the sea level thread….
“We are getting to them”
Read the New Scientist Article ( http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/shortsharpscience/2009/04/has-global-warming-really-stop.html ) keeping up the hoax of Global Warming although the figures leave them completely empty handed and the spot on comment by Greenie Watch http://antigreen.blogspot.com/
We are getting to them, they only have to admit it.
Great, now they want to fabricate a nuclear winter. Well as long they do it over north america and keeps it there to their ruin.
Worse than that, what happens when the seeding doesn’t have the desired effect, and we end up worse than the supposed problem they’re trying to “fix”? Like the ACoE trying to keep a river under “control”, it can’t possibly end well.
I’ve seen cost estimates of a few billion dollars per year for a Global Warming antidote like this. If there is a Global Warming problem (I don’t think there is) then this seems like a relatively easy technical solution at a cost equal to a very small percentage of the current stimulus/bailout program. It can be applied only if, and when needed.
Just Want Truth… (13:30:39) :
charles,
I don’t see politics in what I said. Could you explain your view on this?
Should I have said–“California is not having drought. The earth is not warming but cooling. Steven Chu is wrong to say things are worse than they can possibly be. What he said is not supported by observation.”–instead of abbreviating the thought?
This was the intent behind what I said in the comment. I hope that is not political. Is it?
Malcolm (03:56:49) :
Arctic team: ‘London, we have a problem’
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7991801.stm
“But when the expedition, the Catlin Arctic Survey, set off in late February, it encountered an unexpected wind chill as low as minus 70 degrees Celsius, and the technology failed.”
Here we have a science editor who does not know that inanimate objects are not affected by wind chill. Or is it that -70 sounds much more scary than -40. Me thinks the latter. That’s the BBC for you.
Interesting paper from NASA – http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/warming_aerosols.html
Sulphates and black carbon are the main factors why the Arctic has been warming more than the rest of the world
Take a look at the pic from space of the Mt Redoubt eruption and see how SMALL it appears from space. Yet it is far larger than any one thing that we as humans could produce. How in the world could he expect to manufacture, much less get into space something that would make enough of a difference?
Not to mention the wisdom of it….
http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2009/04/alaskas_mount_redoubt.html
Charles the moderator: Thanks for not deleting our flagged posts, but what if a scientist is in a job which is political, does any commentary about his scientific ideas mean a political opinion?
It’s not CO2 it’s aerosols :
http://blogs.chron.com/sciguy/archives/2009/04/half_recent_arc.html
and
http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/warming_aerosols.html
This issue about areosols take us to the issue of volcanic eruptions, and from these to solar minimums, and to Anthony´s Ap index study. It seems that we are arriving at some meaningful correlations which could be summarized or reunited in a single post. There are a lot of papers out there but a kind of digest is needed for the sake of WUWT readers and for the clearing up of some minds that fell prey of the newly “concocted” climate change belief.
China, India and Russia do not believe in global warming.
They will not be impressed if anyone blocks off their sunshine.
Think about that.
Hint to Holdren:
As you are thinking of introducing “particulates into the atmosphere” to reflect sunlight back out into the cosmic void, this neat NASA paper posted by Oldjim at 6:27:36 shows sulfur dioxide doing a wonderful job- so why wait- just turn off all those sulfur scrubbers at those coal and oil-fired power plants and you get the cooling you are looking for !!!!
“Sulfates, which come primarily from the burning of coal and oil, scatter incoming solar radiation and have a net cooling effect on climate. Over the past three decades, the United States and European countries have passed a series of laws that have reduced sulfate emissions by 50 percent. While improving air quality and aiding public health, the result has been less atmospheric cooling from sulfates.”
The world is ending!!!. Have you seen Godfrey Reggio´s “Koyaanisqatsi”
One question posed I can answer. The Interstate Highway System was constructed with 80% of the costs paid for by our federal government, and 20% paid for by the various states. Once constructed, the cost of maintenance is paid for and the maintenance performed by the various states.
This great public works project was not advertised as a civilian transportation system, but as a national defense system, to provide transportation of military needs during wartime. Civilians could use it during periods between wars.
Without question, the Interstate Highway System was a huge boon to our civilian economy.
What bothers me most about all the AGW carrying on is that no one is paying any attention to margins of error. In fact, it is obvious that temperatures taken before at least 1953 (my first year of college, when it was explained to me in chemistry class why mercury thermometers are not to be taken at face value where measured temperatures are concerned) are taken at face value, which they certainly shouldn’t be. The actual margins of error in these temperatures are quite large relative to the “differences” as measured.
Woe to those who neglect to take margins of error into consideration.
As for the construction of artificial trees (and I am not sure what that is even about), it would seem that seriously increasing our lumber industry would do better. Trees could be cut down, and turned into lumber which could then be used for “permanent” construction of many things, houses and the like, which would “lock up” the carbon already stored, and new trees grown to fix even more carbon. Bringing back our logging industry would make much more sense than would some sort of building of artificial trees, and would substantially assist our economy a great deal at the same time.
Well Oldjim, let me guess; that is from a computer model; and is not actual experimental measurement.
Am i correct ?