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
“”” David Porter (06:22:17) :
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. “””
Do we actually know that ? I would think that any inanimate object that is losing energy to a stationary atmosphere, would most certainly cool faster, with a wind blowing.
So certainly some inanimate objects experience wind chill. Anything wet I would think certainly would.
OT: We are wintering in Hawaii and this winter has been filled with days and days of clouds and haze and much reduced temperatures in stark contrast to many previous years. Looks like the negative PDO and hibernating sun are screwing things up.
Instead of polluting the earth’s atmosphere why not place a “Space-Based Solar Shield To Offset Greenhouse Effect” at the L1 Lagranian point? BTW, SOHO is located at L1.
http://www.osti.gov/accomplishments/documents/fullText/ACC0229.pdf
On the other hand, “Some of these insolation-modulating scattering systems may be re-configured to effectively increase insolation by an amount – perhaps 3% – sufficient to prevent another Ice Age.”
–Mike Ramsey
“”” “We show that the climate over the 21st century can and likely will produce periods of a decade or two where the globally averaged surface air temperature shows no trend or even slight cooling in the presence of longer-term warming.” “””
What gobbledegook; the plane may fly backwards in the presence of forward flight.
The Yankees won some innings in the presence of losing the game.
If it is cooling the temperatures go down, you may get more ice formed; none of that is compatible with a warming scenario.
All of this climatespeak is a result of defining climate as the “Long term average of weather.”
Cl;imate is NOT the average of weather; it is the INTEGRAL of weather; and what will happen tomorrow will start from where we are at today; and not from some long term average baseline.
David Ball (21:56:00) :
MarkT, agreed. In Canada, we have only 2 seasons. Winter and Construction. :^)
Funniest thing I read all day. It’s still early, and this site repeatedly has such gems, but it’s going to be tough to top.
I was under the impression that the ACoE were the ones who maintained the Interstate routes, as they are of strategic importance. I am I incorrect in this assumption? Always eager to update cerebral files.
Yes, that is, you were incorrect in that assumption. LarryOldTimer got it right. I think the states still get matching funds for infrastructure development, which is primarily road/bridge construction and maintenance, however. It was that money the federal government used to extort an increase in the drinking age to 21 from each of the states.
The ACoE may have been involved in some fashion since they seem to always be involved with large public works projects like these, but I’m guessing if they were, it was only peripherally.
We actually have a Summer here in CO, too. I’m not sure if the construction is considered a season, or a baseline, quite frankly. Thankfully I do not live in DC, which is perpetually under construction.
Mark
We do know for certain that high level sulfuric aresols from volcanos can significantly change the short term weather patterns; but, those changes usually hold true for a few years,and only affect particular regions of the globe. What ever long term trends the global climate is undergoing will continue after the aresols fall to earth (usually through precip). So, in order to “slow” or perhaps “alter” a hypothetical instance of AGW, our experts would need to significantly “cool” the global climate (perhaps by as much as 1-2 deg C). This wold entail a drastic change in hemispheric weather patterns not seen even during the LIA. This would not only change temperature distribution, but precipitation distribution as well. Remember, many areas during the coldest decades of the LIA suffered horrendous droughts (see the Virginia and TIdewater areas, as well as the UK in 1666, as well as China and East Asia). Large pools of Continental Polar Air stuck in the High Latitudes cause massive subsidence bubbles which bring on long periods of droughts. Many parts of Asia suffered under these droughts throughout the late Middle Ages.
Of course, no one in charge is even mentioning the unexpected recent spell of cool “weather”. To them, this is still a period of unprecedented climate brought on by GHGs. I’m not sure how many more years of little to no warming it will take for these people to admit that they haven’t a clue to what the climate is doing.
Mike Ramsey (08:26:35) :
Instead of polluting the earth’s atmosphere why not place a “Space-Based Solar Shield To Offset Greenhouse Effect” at the L1 Lagranian point?
Professor Wernstrom* proposed such an idea once. A micro-meteorite hit the shield, it tilted, focused on the earth, and fried half the planet afterward. I’m not sure we really want to go down this path. It could be deadly.
Mark
*Futurama episode “Planet of the Hot. That I know this off the top of my head scares me.
“”” Claude Harvey (19:17:24) :
All this disparagement of Advisor Holdren’s intelligence is uncalled for and misses the mark. I once had a fellow working for me who had a PhD in nuclear physics and an I.Q. probably beyond measure. I discovered the bleary-eyed scientist spent his nights walking our high voltage power lines while equipped with special electronic gear of his own design intended to detect flying saucers. Apparently, the man had convinced himself that our transmission line losses were the result of flying saucers feeding off those lines at night when no one was watching.
I think of that fellow often these days. I.Q. and the innate ability to spot the difference between truth and fiction are two entirely different things. “””
Well I doubt there is much connection between intelligence and ability to scor well on an IQ test. The more often you take them, the higher you score; It is like doing Sudoku puzzles; do enough of them and you learn the secrets.
All I can remember of the IQ tests I took as a student, is that the people who wrote the questions were too dumb to see that many of the problems did not even have unique answers.
Example: Perfom unknown transform f(xyz) on object (A) converts it to Object (U). Perform same transform f(xyz) on Object (B) converts it to object (V) or object (W) or object (X) or object (Y) or Object (Z). Circle correct answer ?
No assurance that transform f(xyz) is uniqe. Example of that: Object (A) is a square, with a small open circle in upper left corner, and same size black dot in lower right corner. Transform f(xyz) reverses the position of the circle and dot. Object (B) is same as Object (A) but has added small open square in upper right corner, and same size black square in lower left corner. So what does transform f(xyz) change object (B) to.
Well if f(xyz) is a 180 degree rotation of the object in the plane, all four corners change positions. But f(ijk) is a 180 flip about thediagonal joining the two little squares. It correctly flips the circles as well, but leaves the squares alone
Ron de Haan: Llaima volcano photography showing the capped vent:
http://www.latercera.com/contenido/680_117785_9.shtml
Since this plan would affect world-wide climate (can’t keep the particles over the USA), I would suggest a vote by all affected parties, i.e. the entire population of the earth. Unless consent is granted by a majority free and democratic vote of the earth’s 6(?) billion residents, this plan should not move forward.
Windchill is simply a measure of the rate of cooling not the final temperature. It is based on studies made some 50 years ago, of how fast samples of water froze in still air in the Antarctic.
Windchill only applies to inanimate objects in the sense that they will cool to the ambient temperature (in this case -40) at a rate of heat loss comparable to still air at -70. But the part the general public does not appreciate is that the final equilibrium temperature will not go lower than -70. In the case or wet objects wind will cool the object below the ambient temperature. If it is (and remains) sufficiently wet, like wet cotton, its temperature will approach the dew point temperature which can be lower than ambient. In low humidities summer time conditions this effect is used in swamp coolers to lower outside air temps as the water evaporates. In practical terms these swamp coolers seldom achieve cooling greater than about 20 deg F (11 deg C). At subfreezing temperatures the cooling effect due to a wet surface only lasts until the water film freezes.
They should have known that the constantly flexing leads to the SPRITE needed to be cold rated. Any experienced outdoors person knows that power cords get so stiff at even moderate cold temps that they break. At about -35 deg F even steel becomes brittle and can break like glass. Elastomers that are flexible at very low temperatures are not common and this sort of failure is a major issue with all equipment in arctic conditions. They should have done cold soak and flex cycle tests on their equipment, or used an rf link (which would have its own problems of oscillator stability at cold temps).
I don’t have any problem with their equipment breaking, that is a given in those temps and not at all unusual. Bringing spares for those cables would have been prudent. But they should have made that info public. It would have added credibility to their efforts not detracted from it.
Larry
correction —
But the part the general public does not appreciate is that the final equilibrium temperature will not go lower than -70.
should read:
But the part the general public does not appreciate is that the final equilibrium temperature will not go lower than -40.
Larry
There seems to be general agreement that this is a stupid idea. The comment about using large nuclear weapons to disburse the particulates is even worse (I know you weren’t really serious) as the resulting EMP (see a previous thread) would probably do far more damage than anything else.
So, I’m back to my original thought that this is a belated April Fools’ joke.
Unless it isn’t, in which case we are the fools.
Make a nice orbiting mylar umbrella for the Arctic ice, a “foil hat” for the planet. Orbit it high enough that it doesn’t need to be very large to block the summer sun.
Can you imagine how much “particulate” it would take to cause even the slightest decrease in solar radiation? This should keep NASA in business for years!
This story just doesn’t pass the smell test.
It looks more like “Wagging the Cloud” They want to do some feeble effort to stem AGW, then declare victory, while in fact Nature did all the heavy lifting.
If we just send up 1000 tons of nanometer sized carbon black particles into 400 mile high polar orbits we can make our own sunscreen. Really. The Earth’s atmosphere would cool down and reduce drag on the particles so they stay in orbit much longer. Problem is that the Earth will probably go into an ice age. Great, just great. We can freeze in the dark. I guess now that the delusionalist are in power we can expect more “Bright” ideas like that.
Nobody can tell us the consequences of this hair-brained scheme, but most likely sulfur dioxide particles probably work the same whether they are man-made instead of natural.
Maybe we should just pollute more, instead?
As the first heavy crop loses due to cold weather events are reported:
http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Heavy+crop+losses+reported+in+Southeast-a01611303583
Alan Garuba nails the real problem:
http://factsnotfantasy.blogspot.com/2009/04/our-gangster-government_08.html
Holdren wants to “engineer” our climate to prevent runaway global warming… for a Nobel Prize winner he’s not too smart. If his idea gains traction it could plunge us into another Maunder Minimum… stupid.
JP (08:44:21) :
“I’m not sure how many more years of little to no warming it will take for these people to admit that they haven’t a clue to what the climate is doing”.
So, you know what to do.
Kick them out of office.
this is scary to read! Do they really think they have any notion of long term effects of populating the atmosphere with particulates? What sort of science advisor is this guy? Has he not simply looked at the more recent global temperature readings to see that the temperatures are on the decrease. Furthermore, what would give the US the authority to do anything to the atmosphere that could potentially impact other countries. This is pure lunacy at its best.
Ron de Haan:
Droughts are already present in the Argentinian “pampas”
In Spanish: http://linux0.unsl.edu.ar/~geo/p-geoambiental/libro-salinas/1-informe.htm
A known argentinian geologist Miguel Gonzales, in his studies in the “Salinas del bebedero”, a salt lake in Argentina, http://www.springerlink.com/content/m11m129238u61484/
“all these weather changes coincide with solar minimums like the Maunder minimum, which produced drought in the argentinian “pampa” (plains), and which it is happening again now. So, in general, we have different weather systems: one west of the andes and the other east of the andes.
Mark T (08:47:44) :
Mike Ramsey (08:26:35) :
Instead of polluting the earth’s atmosphere why not place a “Space-Based Solar Shield To Offset Greenhouse Effect” at the L1 Lagranian point?
Professor Wernstrom* proposed such an idea once. A micro-meteorite hit the shield, it tilted, focused on the earth, and fried half the planet afterward. I’m not sure we really want to go down this path. It could be deadly. Mark *Futurama episode “Planet of the Hot. That I know this off the top of my head scares me.
Messing with mother nature can be a b—, err, a problem.
I am not in favor of alleviating global warming because I have concluded that it’s all part of the natural variation in the earth’s climate. I just wanted to point out two things.
If a response was called for then polluting the earth’s atmosphere is not the best choice
If an ice age was coming anytime soon, we could actually do something about it.
My sons watch Futurama. I am more of a Burn Notice fan. 🙂
–Mike Ramsey
Can anyone list the track record of Mr. Holdren’s past “geoengineering” projects?