THE Royal Society is backing research into simulated volcanic eruptions, spraying millions of tons of dust into the air, in an attempt to stave off climate change.
The society will this week call for a global programme of studies into geo-engineering — the manipulation of the Earth’s climate to counteract global warming — as the world struggles to cut greenhouse gas emissions.
It will suggest in a report that pouring sulphur-based particles into the upper atmosphere could be one of the few options available to humanity to keep the world cool.
The intervention by the Royal Society comes amid tension ahead of the United Nations-sponsored climate talks in Copenhagen in December to agree global cuts in carbon dioxide emissions. Preliminary discussions have gone so badly that many scientists believe geo-engineering will be needed as a “plan B”.
Ken Caldeira, an earth scientist at Stanford University, California, and a member of a Royal Society working group on geo-engineering, said dust sprayed into the stratosphere in volcanic eruptions was known to cool the Earth by reflecting light back into space.
“If I had a dollar for geo-engineering research I would put 90 cents of it into stratospheric aerosols and 10 cents into everything else,” said Caldeira.
The interest in so-called aerosols is linked to the eruption of Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines in 1991, the second largest volcanic eruption of the 20th century. The explosion blasted up to 20m tons of tiny sulphur particles into the air, cooling the planet by about 0.5C before they fell back to earth.
The Royal Society is Britain’s premier science institution and its decision to take geo-engineering seriously is a measure of the desperation felt by scientists about climate change.
read the rest of the story here
The Royal Society is well known as two things:
1. An old boys and girls club.
2. A political organisation.
So from this, you deduce:
i. The Royal Society reckons that science funding for geoengineering is timely.
ii. They need to link it to something politically trendy.
iii. No doubt our ‘leading’ universities will set up ‘Centres of Excellence’ in geoengineering to hoover up the funds provided.
That’s neither a crime nor a reason to believe in the assertions.
It’s practical science politics.
Ladies & Gentlemen,
This may wel be absolutely barking. However, it does relate to the recent post by Richard Courtney about geoengineering solutions to global warming. Please be patient, it may be that skeptics within the RS are having some influence, WRT giving the politicos a ladder out of the hole. Although there is the more than a remote possibility that they are not, & they are in fact deadly serious! I cannot commnet on the IME & their Co2 removal scheme, sounds like a subsidy claim to me!
BTW, Met Office claims UK summer warmer than average. The ONLY thing was the rainfall (or, one of the wettest summer on record, in English). This is as a direct result if Climate Change apparently! I do not claim that the weather was good for some, but not for most, it was just the rapid descent from long-range forecasting to almost looking out of the window stuff that upset folks.
This is such complete and utter ridiculous nonsense I can hardly believe I am even commenting on it. All I can say is that it paints a very poor picture of the state of science in the world today.
What could possibly go wrong?
See the movie “Crack in the World”
Directed by Andrew Marton, with Dana Andrews, Janette Scott, Kieron Moore. It is really ridiculous SiFi but I still like watching it.
There is a far better and less polluting way to cool the planet. We fly a spaceship to Haley’s comet and mine a giant ice cube. The retrieved ice cube is then dropped in the ocean, solving problem once and for all.
Just think how cool it would be if we had followed the 1970s crackpots who wanted to spread carbon black on the ice caps of both poles to stop the next ice age?
Hey wait, wasn’t it the same crackpots then and now?
Isn’t this (putting more sulphur into the air) already happening? What kind of coal are the Chinese burning in their many power plants?
Brandon Dobson (20:50:05) :
One need only look at mankind’s attempts to “correct’ nature with the introduction of non-native species to see that this is a dangerous idea.
Asian ladybugs invading Germany.
And the French vinters are worried about global warming?
http://www.toytowngermany.com/lofi/index.php/t111876.html
hys Jaggar (04:21:34) :
The Royal Society is well known as two things:
1. An old boys and girls club.
2. A political organisation.
Although I never thought of Brian Launder as one of the ‘old boys’.
So from this, you deduce:
i. The Royal Society reckons that science funding for geoengineering is timely.
ii. They need to link it to something politically trendy.
iii. No doubt our ‘leading’ universities will set up ‘Centres of Excellence’ in geoengineering to hoover up the funds provided.
That’s neither a crime nor a reason to believe in the assertions.
It’s practical science politics.
Presumably politics is the reason that this has come up now since Brian gave an invited lecture on this material about 18 months ago, especially given the misrepresentation regarding the volcanos.
Who owns the The Royal Society?
http://ccgi.newbery1.plus.com/blog/?p=216
el gordo (19:15:18) :
Just how does one pour ’sulphur-based particles into the upper atmosphere’?
First you must get sulphur from an already exploded volcano or get it from metal sulphides and burn them…but all that was already forbidden by ecological laws. So, what do they want? … Kyoto or a new London agreement promoting pollution.
This looks like a desperate attempt to stave off the collapse of the AGW theory by acting before natual cooling destroys the last 30 years of global warming tomfoolery. Taking credit for the cooling in store for us anyway will at least see them comfortably in their graves before the truth is out.
I have the answer!: Tell them to place their “new age/brave new world/woodstock/droggy volcano” in Copenhaguen, but do it BEFORE the conference on climate change takes place, so attendants will have the oportunity to watch its ignition.
They better hurry with the volcanos before its too late! Freeze up is underway above 80N. Alert (82.5N) in Nunavut weather:
http://www.wunderground.com/global/stations/71082.html
and the DMI chart from Denmark shows the north of 80 averaging -3C (side bar of WUWT)
http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/meant80n.uk.php
Intelligent people seem to exhibit more than their share of stupidity. At least those who are ignorant have an excuse.
A take on the Royal Society’s plan from
http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2023&Itemid=59
(The UK Daily Mash is in a similar vein to The Onion, but usually with added swearing)
Of course, instead of creating a man-made volcano to put a sulphur aerosol into the stratosphere, and counteract AGW, you could just put the sulphur in jet fuel, and have it dispersed into the stratosphere for no extra cost. Indeed, it would just be putting back the sulphur we started taking out of the jet fuel about 30 years ago…..hang on a minute, wasn’t that when all the AGW alarming started?
Wizard Tim (11:17:27) :
…..hang on a minute, wasn’t that when all the AGW alarming started?
Do you know the story?. Please tell us because, as far as we know, it started long before being just green and more eastwardly, not to mention where there was a four legged symbol flag and strange trains…
Unbeievable, you could not make it up.
“The Royal Society is Britain’s premier science institution and its decision to take geo-engineering seriously is a measure of the desperation felt by scientists about climate change.”
The desperation they are feeling stems from the fact that the wheels are coming off the CAGW/CC bandwagon. Geo-engineering is their last-gasp attempt at keeping the thing trundling along. Funding and careers are at stake after all.
A better account than the Sunday Times one reported above can be found here: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/6122322/Geo-engineering-should-be-developed-as-insurance-against-dangerous-climate-change.html
Or better yet read the original here:
http://royalsociety.org/news.asp?id=8734
Professor John Shepherd, who chaired the Royal Society’s geoengineering study(2), said, “It is an unpalatable truth that unless we can succeed in greatly reducing CO2 emissions we are headed for a very uncomfortable and challenging climate future, and geoengineering will be the only option left to limit further temperature increases. Our research found that some geoengineering techniques could have serious unintended and detrimental effects on many people and ecosystems – yet we are still failing to take the only action that will prevent us from having to rely on them. Geoengineering and its consequences are the price we may have to pay for failure to act on climate change.”
Not surprisingly there is no mention of ‘man-made volcanoes’:
“Mimicking the effects of volcanic eruptions by injecting sulphate aerosols into the lower stratosphere;”
Mike & Phillip:
If memory serves,Bill Dorland, a graduated from U. of Texas, now at Maryland U., was a co-author of a paper proving cold fusion cannot work. I am not sure if their work has been verified or not. I believe he can be reached for questioning.
David:
The assertion that DDT caused thin eggs in birds was falsified about the time the EPA head banded it in the U.S. It has had no effect on wildlife. Its residual property and inexpensive price made it very popular. Its possible, I suppose, for insects to build an immunity, but it eradicated malaria and yellow feaver vectors from the southern U. S., which, coupled with air conditioning, as caused an industrial revolution in that area since WWII. Its certainly not a poison for people. The death of so many could have been averted.
The caldera at Yellowstone is over 40 miles wide-it was devastating, and it is rising. If, or perhaps when, it blows it will eleminate all life over at least half ot the U.S.
I want to remind folk here about Bob Ward, who, I suspect, blarneyed his way into the Royal Society as its PR man. Lindzen describes a situation pervading the whole of western Science, where activists with little scientific abilities have been getting into positions of power. I don’t have all the details about Bob right at my fingertips, but I seem to remember he moved on to pastures where he could rake in lotsa shekels from AGW fears. Here is the stinky email correspondence Ward ran with Martin Durkin over Durkin’s film The Great Global Warming Swindle.
OceanTwo (09:16:22) :
“Intelligent people seem to exhibit more than their share of stupidity. At least those who are ignorant have an excuse.”
And when intelligent people are stupid, they can be really, really, really, very, very, very stupid…
Huh. Would we get a yellow sky, or a green one?
This is great stuff. I need to send a copy to my brother, who is trying not to use an A/C unit this year in order to reduce his carbon footprint.