Case Smit reminds me of this story from AGU that seemed so ridiculous at the time, that I laughed and forgot about it.
Getting ships to generate smaller bubbles as they sail across the oceans could counteract the impact of climate change, a study suggests.
Scientists from University of Leeds, UK, say this would create a brighter wake behind a vessel and reflect more sunlight back into space.
However, it could also increase rainfall in some areas.
Microscopic bubbles generated by shipping could lower global temperatures by 0.5 F says a study presented at the AGU Fall Meeting in San Francisco. according to scientist from the University of Leeds, UK. And possibly reduce fuel costs by being more “streamlined”.
…
As ships sail across the waves, the white froth they create in their wake stands out from the dark ocean waters.
But the team behind this study said that if the bubbles in the froth were smaller in size, the watery trail would be even brighter.
More importantly, it would also stick around for much longer: the bubbles could last for up to 24 hours, compared with an average lifetime of a few minutes for ordinary bubbles.
This would have the effect of reflecting and refracting sunlight off the surface of the ocean, said Prof Forster.
The team found that making bubbles 10 to 100 times smaller than their current size – to about 1 micron (one millionth of a metre) – had the greatest impact. And that this could be done by fitting aerosol technology to the backs of ships.
Julia Crook, also from Leeds, explained: “The technology required for other forms of solar radiation management is a long way off being ready, whereas micro-bubble generators already exist.
“The Japanese are already experimenting with micro-bubbles under ships’ hulls to make them more streamlined and more fuel-efficient.
“This could have a double benefit.”
…
The team used a computer model to calculate what would happen if 32,000 large ships – the current estimate of large vessels on the high seas – produced tinier bubbles.
“If we were to successfully put these generators on to these ships, and the ships just went about their normal business, we did find there was potential to reduce the surface temperature by about 0.5C,” Prof Forster said.
However, while this would somewhat counteract the effect of climate change, the team found it would also increase precipitation in some areas.
And there are some concerns about unforeseen consequences on ocean ecosystems, although the team thinks that the scheme probably would not affect ocean productivity – how carbon is moved around the ocean.
http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-30543252
Maybe we should figure out a way to make contrails from commercial aircraft linger longer too.
Not the contrail can of worms again.
don’t you mean chemtrails!!!
Gee, they stay around for 24 hours – unfortunately the sun doesn’t.
I would suggest that the earth won’t stay this warm for more than 1,000 years in the future. And that is the optimistic evaluation. The next Ice Age can happen any time in the near or far future. All we know is, these events are sudden, they are catastrophically much colder than any Interglacial and they last ten times longer than the Interglacials.
Yes. If humanity can spend billions to study climate, it makes sense to shift study away from hypothetical CAGW and toward the known problem. We are due for another Ice Age in the same sense that California is due for a major earthquake or Vesuvius is due for a major eruption…we don’t know the exact timing, but we know it is coming and could be catastrophic if preparations are not made
Higher education is a misnomer.
Only if it excludes higher thought.
I am doing my part to either add or take away bubbles, don’t know which. I got a soda-maker for Christmas. Love it. By the way, would those be CO2 bubbles those ships are making?
Pamela,
A soda-maker is only the first step. A proper place for malting the barley is the next requirement.
Yes, if the solution is near saturation.
It had to be said
Most apres peau!
Anthony: One part of the article says 0.5 F and another part says 0.5 C. Needs correction.
Yes, it does need correction. But if he started there, where could he stop?
Bubble dancers definitely need tinier bubbles. Can I get a research grant?
You’re right, MSimon.. Sally Rand’s bubble were huge. Translucent, granted, but huge. Great act, though.
Was intrigued by the above comment and did a little research. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4WarhX3DVxI
“The team used a computer model to calculate what would happen if 32,000 large ships – the current estimate of large vessels on the high seas – produced tinier bubbles.”
Good old computer models riding the shirt tails of the kind of half-arsed idea that crops up at 2 a.m. after 17 lagers and half a bottle of scotch. Honestly I’m embarrassed to be even from the same country as these jokers.
Tiny Bubbles? Who’s running this show, Don Ho?
I wonder whether these imbiciles ever stopped to consider the combined surface area of The Pacific, The Atlantic, the Indian Ocean, The Arctic Ocean, The Southern Ocean, The Mediterranean Sea, The Black Sea, and many many more seas that collectively make up the largest surface area of the world. Who pays for such wasted research conducted by these stupid people?.
You do
Not affect ocean productivity? So increasing albedo, and decreasing the amount of light penetrating into the water, would not affect photosynthesis, the base of all productivity in the oceans? I question that.
Since the bubbles come into existence only while the ship is moving and quickly dissipate, wouldn’t it make more sense just to have all the ships and anything visible (such as cargo containers) painted white? Now you would get the low albedo effect even when the ship isn’t moving. Why stop there, lets require everything everywhere to be painted white. Or do I seem to be too mono-chromatic?
And we could all walk around in tin-foil hats to reflect more sunlight.
Robert Of Ottawa,
And we could all walk around in tin-foil hats to reflect more sunlight
LOL – that was my first thought too 🙂
Ooooo…bonus. we can keep the NSA from reading our minds and mitigate CAGW at the same time… I’m going to make more tin foil hats for my family.
Good one 🙂
XD
Most apropos.
You mean you don’t already?
I certainly do.
we did find there was potential to reduce the surface temperature by about 0.5C…
well fine….that would eliminate all of global warming
If we do this one thing…..will they shut up and go away
Now that I read it a bit more— wrong end of the ship, ol’bean. Producing tiny bubbles in the ship’s wake will only make the ship burn more fuel— gotta burn fuel to make the “Lawrence Welk Machine” work y’know. (If you remember hearing “Champagne Music” new when you were a lad, join me in the “Old Timer’s Club” back on the fantail.) To have a real useful effect, I would imagine the bubble machine would have to be placed forward in the ship, so the bubbles could break the surface tension alongside the ship. Now, that could possibly make the ship burn less fuel, thereby making the ship’s carbon footprint a trifle smaller. Place the bubble maker aft, so it blows bubbles in the wake….. I fail to see how that does anything except spend money.
“could counteract the impact of climate change”
“could also increase rainfall”
“could lower global temperatures”
Wish I had been at that party when they were drinking so much “bubbly”!
I wonder if it was Dom Perignon?
Nope. It was Dom Deluise.
Dom Perignon was the name of the monk who first invented Champagne, while trying to make a sparkling red wine. In the process, he got so much CO2, that all the bottles exploded. So he gave up on reds, which make too much bubbles, and went to whites, which didn’t blow up.
There’s a slang term for people who describe really tiny things as having responses well outside of what the size could possibly warrant, and beyond the response that more normally endowed people would ever experience.
And, with that thought, I’m calling it a day.
Gee,
Can I get a government subsidy for the bubbles my “yacht” makes as I cruise around the bay to help pay the fuel bill? Lots of froth on a sunny weekend in the bay.
Is that the reason it is much cooler on the Atlantic coast versus inland?
sarc off
“The team used a computer model to calculate what would…” stopped reading right there.
Tiny bubbles
In the brine
To slow the warming
And that’s just fine.
Tiny bubbles
To cool the sea
And they will bring
More grants for me!
Nice! I did one, too. Not as smooth, but longer
“Bubble on” (sung to the tune of David Gray’s “Babylon”)
Pacific night
I am going Eastwards
All the clocks changing nine to ten
Turning over beer bottles
Porpoises running through my head
well, looking back through time
You know, it’s clear that I’ve been blind.
I’ve been a fool
to allow cheap gas
to all the people
having all that fun
while I was at school
Want albedo?
come and get it
crying out loud
we were foolish fellers
using straight propellers
Insolation proud
Let go your cash
Let go your mind
give us even more money
feel good now
drop off the cargo, I am running West
all the clocks changing ten to nine
moving on the ocean in slow motion
vodka rushing through my bloodstream
Only wish that you were here
You know I’m seeing it so clear
I’ve been afraid
to show you how I want control
Admit to some of the carbon mistakes you’ve made
Bubble-on, Bubble-on
Ah one an a two
Could be something to this; my father thought Lawrence Welk’s show was really cool…
“It wass wunnaful-a-wunnaful.”
How much longer before that is merely a trivia question that no one really knows?
I have just looked at a few photos I have taken dead astern of an NCL Jewel-class liner while mid-Atlantic and in various sea states. First there is a distinct difference between a wake and the stream of trailing bubbles. The wake fans out from a ship at various angles depending on hull speed vs boat speed and bow shape. The trail of bubbles remains about the same width as the hull. Dispersion rate of the bubbles varies dramatically with sea-state, and once things get a bit rough the bubbles are quickly plowed under by wind and wave.. It would also appear that the delta in system albedo would be insignificant while under cloudy/rainy conditions.
So is anything gained by the existing bubbles? Should cruise lines get carbon credits for an increase in albedo? Could finer bubbles do more? I think I shall apply for a multi-year study consisting of photos taken from the stern of various popular ocean-liner classes in order to get to the bottom of this!
Excellent idea. I’m willing to sacrifice some of my vacation time to take pictures from the sterns of Caribbean cruise ships. Actually, there is 100th year Lusitania Remembered cruise on Cunard’s new Queen Victoria coming up in May. It’s vitally important we document the reduced albedo from this new ship.
Have these flockers EVER been to sea ?
They seem not to have any perspective of the scale involved ….
This Tower of Bubble described here is obviously a drunken “Let’s see how gullible the campaigners are” stunt, but having spent a few years at sea, I say it’s ridiculous on its face. A quick glance at the Beaufort scale shows that whitecaps (wind and sea-generated bubbles) begin at about 10-12 kts of wind, which quickly dwarf anything a ship can put out.
As at least one commenter here has suggested, this is a bunch of do-gooders spending other people’s money. These people already show contempt for seafarers: I can’t tell you how many times I went out of the snug pilothouse into the cold, rain or heat to take a temperature reading and log it so that it could be ignored by climate modelers with an agenda and a deficit of ethics.
Let’s keep the pressure on stopping oil, sewage and garbage pollution by seagoing vessels and pay nothing but derision to the bubblers.
Yes ! Thats what really matters !
“But the team behind this study said that if the bubbles in the froth were smaller in size, the watery trail would be even brighter.”
That would also have the effect of making them more visible from above.
And look, the wakes would be visible for longer:
“More importantly, it would also stick around for much longer: the bubbles could last for up to 24 hours, compared with an average lifetime of a few minutes for ordinary bubbles.”
read: Shipping lane control and taxation.
Zeke
Unhappily, I think you are right.
A longer-term aim, of course, but with satellites and drones it’ll be easy to see who has gone where, identify them visually, and tax them.
The IMO has imposed low-sulphur fuels in ‘Emission Control Areas’; it’s costing us some two or three million dollars per ship: our charterers will also have to pay another two hundred dollars [ISH] a tonne for low-sulphur bunkers (where they can get it). Our ships will burn a couple of hundred tonnes a day. Guess what this does to the cost of the energy [LNG] we carry, and to the retail index.
We will also have to fit, somehow, ballast water treatment systems – able to treat, on our ships, some 50,000 tons of ballast water, to make sure it doesn’t carry any invasive species or toxins, etc {Big tankers, bulkers etc. may carry 120,000 tonnes of ballast on a ‘ballast voyage’] And we have to reduce our fuel use, despite having to pump all this water in and out – often through filters [on some systems] that raise back-pressure, and so fuel consumption..
The oceans are vast – even the UNCTAD figure [my post above] of 105,000 ships [of all sizes] is less than one ship for every thousand-plus square miles.
Kent, in the SE of England, is about 1,440 square miles: ten Kents, fourteen ships [of all sizes].
I don’t know.
If this bubble-licious hypothesis may reduce fuel consumption [and saw-toothed propeller trailing edges is a new one on me – let’s see] shipping will go for it – if cost effective . . . .
Half a degree of cooling? I reserve judgement, but am happy to be identified as sceptical on that!
And – let’s be honest, warming of a degree or two will be nice – better crops, longer growing seasons, fewer un-necessary deaths from the cold in the Northern Hemisphere, at least [sorry Larry Geary, December 28, 2014 at 8:23 am ], and perhaps even nicer weather here in the UK (perhaps, right?).
Global cooling – even a couple of degrees – will come with those benefits reversed. Lots of bad news. especially if the watermelons are still getting productive land turned over to bio-ethanol – rather than human food; lots will die, I guess, if food staple prices are hiked in the ‘Third World’, but with fewer foods in local surplus, less food will be available for trade [and carriage overwhelmingly by sea] for the poor of the world.
But isn’t that what the watermelons want?
I am not a lawyer – but can anyone indicate at what point a failed – or failing – attempt at the biggest fraud in history tips over into actual genocide?
Auto, pretty depressed by the watermelons’ future. Surely we can do better?
FWIW I was Cargo Engineer on two classes of 125,00 cubic meter LNG tankers, with El Paso in the Algeria to east coast and with ETC in the Indonesia to Japan trades. The El Paso tankers were set up to burn 100% natural gas at sea. The ETC ships could only burn the boil off to control tank pressure. Still, it made up about 50% of our at-sea fuel requirements. So, you COULD run an LNG tanker on the cargo but it would reduce the revenue. I also sailed with a Chief Mate who was on a coal bulk carrier in the Newport News to Boston (??) trade. They also fueled the ship from the cargo ( but we don’t want to go there! !)
Regards,
Steambat Jack
This is not as ridiculous or trivial as it seems at first glance. Like Willis, I have spent 1/3 of my life living aboard boats and ships at sea.
Not only would the micro-bubbles reflect back energy from the sun, preventing it from being absorbed into the top few millimeters of the oceans — but the “secondary” benefit described in the original article is probably really the primary benefit. Dispersing micro-bubbles under the hull of a ship at the bow (front) gives this: “The Japanese are already experimenting with micro-bubbles under ships’ hulls to make them more streamlined and more fuel-efficient. …. This could have a double benefit.” Like the “bulbous bow” it could provide a pretty big fuel savings, which means less CO2 emission as well.
Unlike Willis he didn’t gain any logical thought processes for his long time at sea. He must be a believer who never sees anything wrong with any stupid research providing it supports the global warming scam or is supported by a computer programme.
George, Kip,
Bubbles under the hull has been around for a bit – I remember this from a (UK) ‘Tomorrow’s World’ TV programme, an edition in about 1970 – very roughly.
That, however, suggests to me that there is little or no net benefit – commercial shipping will have used it if it was cost-effective, even only when designed in at the planning stage, I am sure.
I see the squeeze on budgets every day – since the 1973 oil price squeeze at least . . .
Ships have large whetted areas, remember – our bigger LNG carriers have a whetted area of some 18000 metres square – & most of that is under more than one bar pressure even to get the gas to the outside of the hull [a soccer pitch (per FIFA) has an area of 5000 to {I think} 12000 metres square].
Plainly there will be a cost involved. With oil at $60/barrel, the need for economies is not quite so pressing – but ‘Every Little Helps’, as the Big Shop says.
Auto
“This is not as ridiculous or trivial as it seems at first glance…”
No, it’s far, far stupider. If you’ve observed the sea for long, you’ve noticed that its effective albedo is not constant. Albedo varies with wind velocity and direction, air and water temperature, surface tension, plankton content, pollutant concentrations, air humidity, solar zenith angle, and time of day. There is no way to capture this system in a climate model based solely on physical principles. The local variations from hour to hour dwarf the effect of trailing a line of bubbles into insignificance.
The script for an AGW scientist’s biopic should be written by Woody Allen.