Guest essay by Eric Worrall
The US Senate is considering funding for albedo modification geoengineering experiments – pumping particles or aerosols into the stratosphere, to reflect sunlight back into space, and counter the alleged impact of elevated CO2 levels on global climate.
According to ScienceMag;
To fight global warming, Senate calls for study of making Earth reflect more light
Budgetmakers in the U.S. Senate want the Department of Energy (DOE) to study the possibility of making Earth reflect more sunlight into space to fight global warming. Earth’s reflectivity is known as its albedo, and the request to study “albedo modification” comes in the details of a proposed spending bill passed by the Senate appropriations committee to fund DOE, the Army Corps of Engineers, and related agencies for fiscal year 2017, which begins 1 October. The bill does not specify how much money should be spent on the research.
Critics argue that albedo modification and other “geoengineering” schemes are risky and would discourage nations from trying to reduce their emissions of carbon dioxide, the heat-trapping gas that comes from the burning of fossil fuels and that is causing global warming by absorbing increasing amounts of energy from sunlight. Still, climate researchers say they should find out what its potential of albedo modification might be.
“The recommendation is great,” says Joyce Penner, an atmospheric scientist at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Albedo modification “is not a solution to global warming, it is only a way to avoid, perhaps, a tipping point in the climate.” David Keith, an atmospheric physicist at Harvard University, says, “Ignorance is not a good basis for making decisions, so learning more about this is extremely valuable even if we find out that it will never work.” Keith adds, however, that the few existing studies suggest albedo modification could help ameliorate some effects of global warming.
The call for further research comes in a bill that would provide $5.4 billion for DOE’s Office of Science next year. It also builds on the recommendations of a February 2015 report from the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) entitled Climate Intervention: Reflecting Sunlight to Cool Earth. That report warned explicitly that albedo modification shouldn’t be deployed now because the risks and benefits were far too uncertain. Still, the committee urged further research to find out what those risks and benefits might be.
It is difficult to imagine a more ridiculous waste of taxpayer’s money.
The US spends taxpayer’s money regulating coal plants, forcing any coal plants which survive Obama’s war on energy, to fit expensive scrubbers, to remove particulates from their emissions.
If this measure is passed, the Department of Energy will get to spend even more taxpayer’s money, burning sulphur and other compounds, to generate and emit the same types of particulates which the US government previously forced domestic US coal plants to scrub.
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If you threaten to change albedo’s the NAACP will want to talk to you.
All they need to do is create white plastic sheets with Styrofoam Floatie edges and float them in the Arctic/Antarctic Oceans during the summer. They will naturally conglomerate in the ocean, as images of floating plastic garbage islands would seem to indicate, and would also separate for the occasional passing ship of fools
Clean air act can bee replaced ?
It is now brighter sunshine (and warmer) due to less particles in the air.
They must want more acid rain in order to grow blueberries?
All you have to do is turn off the SO2 scrubbers on existing power stations and voila! you have lots of sulfate particles in the atmosphere to reflect the sunlight.
Just put sulphur back in jet fuel. Use sulphur free from one tank fot take off, so smog controlled, then swap to high sulphur at altitude where you want it. Zero cost as removing t he sulphur adds cost…
You most not be from Californie … Way back when, MTBE was a required additive for fuel and fuel providers raised their prices to be able to retool their facilities so it could be added. Only later was it discovered that MTBE in boat motor fuel contaminated fresh water used for drinking. Fuel companies then charged us more to not put it in
The lunatics are running the asylum. QED
AFAIK, Republicans have a controlling majority of the US Senate. Too many of them are obviously Believers. The Warmist juggernaut appears unstoppable.
aren’t they already …um……chemtrails?
(someone had to say it first)
Just more evidence the right hand doesn’t know what the left hand is already doing…
…Jesus weeps.
I thought it was Jesus Swept
Very often the right hand doesn’t know what the right hand is doing. Don’t give these morons too much credit.
Heck, the index finger doesn’t know what the ring finger is up to.
That’s only because there is some damn bird in the way
Tiburon, yes they are. Surprised you got that through the filter. We do our best to follow them from their location of origin, usually anywhere from Richmond to Moss Vale, as they drift out over the Sydney basin, gradually spreading out to form what we call “white sky.” How could H2O do that in a relative humidity of less than 15% on a bright sunny day with no other type of cloud? We decided to ask the BOM but our questions became too difficult …er.. inconvenient.
Only purely empirical evidence will be acceptable on this site, such as (hopefully) that from spectroscopic analysis of such trails as they are being laid down. Unfortunately we’re running a little short on funding until the Big Oil cheque comes in.
They’ve been doing over me (Northern Central California), and/or to my West, for at least a decade. Blatantly obvious, massive at times, not the slightest doubt in my mind.
JohnKnight April 21, 2016 at 10:02 pm
Thanks John,
A couple of weeks ago there were trails appearing in widely separated parallel pairs, seemingly originating just west of Katoomba. They extended as far as I could see to the north and south without seeking a higher elevation. When a pair was directly over my house I estimated a separation of about 15 to 20 degrees. At that time the next pair would be visible through the trees to the west and the previous two pairs to the east. I wondered if these clouds might have formed naturally, so I looked for any evidence of rolling turbulence which could hold them in such tight formation. That happens sometimes when a north-easterly brings long rolling clouds in over the Queensland coast. But I could see no indication of turbulence whatsoever. They just hung there in a non-turbulent layer of air that drifted slowly east toward Sydney.
About 50km to the east of my position and 2000ft closer to MSL, observer #2 was at the same time watching the earlier trails in the series as they passed over his house. They were somewhat dispersed but still held the same pattern of parallel pairs. By the time we discovered them they already covered at least 80km east to west, and we dare not guess the N-S spread. Can they be natural? I think the pairing discounts that possibility. So could they be con-trails?
They don’t line up with any commercial traffic that I’m aware of, but they did originate in the vicinity of Richmond Air Base. Even so, do con-trails behave like that? I watch any plane that leaves a trail, to see how long it takes to dissipate. Many trails from commercial jets don’t last 13 seconds. A few can take several minutes. How do dozens to hundreds of trails last (in their entirety, dispersed but not even partially dissipated/sublimated) for more than half a day, leaving a “white sky” in which additional con-trails freely dissipate or fail to form?
Slacko April 21
Aircraft are following a ground track while flying in a cross wind that is less than a 10th their speed. The contrail (water from the engine eflux freezing into ice crystals) left behind will drift – in the same way as clouds do, with the wind. 10 minutes later (a standard air traffic control separation) another aircraft follows the same air route and leaves a similar contrail. This may continue all day. The observer on the ground will see a series of evenly spaced contrails.with the space between them dependent on the wind speed.
Contrails only appear when the air at the aircraft level is sufficiently humid that the extra water added by the engine eflux does not evaporate despite its heat but condenses and freezes. If the humidity is just barely enough for contrails then the contrail forms then the ice crystals sublimate back to water vapor. This leads to what is called non-persistent contrails that form then fade. At the other end of the spectrum the water in the air at the contrail level may be supercooled but not condensing as there are no cloud condensation nucleii. A contrail forming in air with a lot of supercooled water vapor can be the trigger for the water to start condensing out. This is what is seen when the single contrail seems to grow into a thin layer of cirrus.
No such thing as chem trails.
The humidity at the surface has nothing to do with humidity at altitude.
Secondly you have to understand the differences between the behavior of water droplets and ice crystals.
Sheesh, the unmitigated ignorance of some people.
It’s ice, it’s 6 or more miles up. RH at the surface has nothing to do with contrails and what governs their formation and persistence.
Each and every person who declares a negative with certainty in this realm, is either an imbecile or liar, as far as I’m concerned . .
John, so you are really taking the position that unless someone can prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that the govt is doing things to the atmosphere via jet exhaust, you will continue to believe that they are?
And to think, you are calling others imbeciles.
Readers, please consider carefully;
How could commenters here know with certainty that things for which there are (numerous) patents, and which are not illegal, have not been going on at all, I ask?
For all I know, when i leave the house for work, my two cats put on reading glasses and read War And Peace.
But I doubt it.
About as much as I doubt chem trails are anything more than a figment of some overactive imaginations.
Well, apparently it won’t be long before you will know for certain it’s happening . . I mean the spraying, of course ; )
Thanks Ian W for that explanation.
Some people’s minds are so open that their brains have fallen out.
If I have this straight, according to John, everything that hasn’t been disproven conclusively, must be regarded as being true.
yeah and if their not chem theyre STILL pretty damn good at obscuring your skies.
your govt WAS using and on record for geoengineering way back since Vietnam days
just coming out of the closet partway I reckon.
Have their little minds ever considered that they might just tip us into an Ice Age? Whatever respect I might have perhaps had for US politicians and the Senate in particular has just vanished. When will this madness end?
You give them more credit (“little minds”) than I would.
I wonder if they’ve considered the liability of their actions–how many $Trillions will this impact the world’s GDP if what they propose works, especially considering how devastating it could be.
No worries, they will not actually do anything except spend five billion dollars researching, keeping the grants going and reinforcing with MONEY closed minds.
Just what I was thinking Alastair.
Pin-headed fools.
And what timing…just when we are likely about to undergo a period of natural cooling which may be quite dramatic.
So, given natural variation, how the hell will they know if what is done on purpose had any effect, and if so, how much?
Too bad my lifespan would not allow me to laugh at all these nitwits when Earth plunges into the next ice age…
Are you planning to live only 5 years?
The fact that I have grandchildren whom I love very much is why I will not be laughing. Oh, and their parents, too. What stupid,
arrogant idiots we have become.
Aaak!!
They’ve been doing it for decades. This is just the formal public acknowledgement.
It’s the government … which means, there’s no limit to the amount of stupidity of which they are capable … and they still get paid on a regular basis, which is all they truly care about.
So I was a kid in the 80s, and we read stories in our grammar books set in a future where the earth was colder because of all the aerosols. There was also one where the whole sky was so hazy kids didn’t even know what sunglasses were any more. There was also an episode of Superfriends where aliens had done the same to their planet and we’re trying to migrate to earth because it was warmer.
This story would be a lot funnier if it were as fictional as those I read and saw as a child.
and changing the albedo over the USA will have no effect (good or bad) on any other country. Trust us, we’re from the Government.
Just when you thought it couldn’t get any worse. When have we ever played with nature without unintended consequences?
Geoengineering: billions will die.
If you read the statements of such as Maurice Strong you will find that this is the intent.
The statements of the anti-humanist population reduction crowd who designed the UN program aren’t PC here. One of the critical myths of the AGW-scam is that bigotry, emotional bias and censorship are attributes only of AGW-alarmists. Acknowledging that this is a political issue disguised as science is evidence of dissidence as serious as acknowledging that the sun controls earth’s climate.
So, I wonder if Canada and Russia might sue the U.S if they tried this. Geez, I would WANT more warming where they are . . . 🙂
My thoughts, too. After Pinatubo, we know what happens.
Plus a bunch.
I thought Canada now bought into the scam?
Here’s something OT, but refreshing (to me, anyway). An educational program about weather, climate and earth’s atmosphere, which, from the glossary, doesn’t seem to have a single mention of the demon gas! Or AGW or CAGW or climate change. Perhaps there’s hope for us, yet.
http://sisko.colorado.edu/FESD/MeetPresentFiles/2013.GEC.3.21.pdf
A few more Kracatoa or Pinatubo eruptions should do the trick.
Mt Aso would also function well in this regard and it appears to be waking up
The EPA wants to penalize you for creating particulates, the DOE want to spray particulates everywhere. The goal is to get tax payer funding with save the earth schemes. Someone should get funding to create dry ice to cool the earth, to balance the CO2 sequestration.
the lies they have been telling us for so long now have lost their minds and want to start the new ice age
The warming crowd is worrying about cooling happening anyway. They know that the “pause” was real – look what they did to get rid of it – they karlized it. The plummeting ENSO temperatures looks like they will have to add a lot more to warm the temperatures up. We will be back into 20 years with no warming if they let La Nina develop. I thought Ted Cruz headed up the Senate Sci and Tech committee? Oh, this is probably a Dem committee for something else. They want to ram through a train of items before the government changes and high on the agenda is to get something going so they can take credit for the cooling that they are worrying about.
The lies they have been telling us for so long now their plan is to start the next ice age!
Actually, they keep telling us that the ideal conditions for us is exactly what was going on back during the Little Ice Age. We are supposedly wanting to have ice cover the oceans offshore of Delaware when Washington crossed during the Revolution.
Washington crossed the Delaware River, from Pennsylvania to Trenton, New Jersey, and attacked the Hessians unawares.
It was Christmastime, and the river was choked with ice, which rarely happens anymore and never so early.
Kudzu
What could go wrong?
Especially if as forecast we get a little natural GLOBAL COOLING in the next 30 years.
Lunatics!!!!!!!!!!!!
PS.
“the heat-trapping gas that comes from the burning of fossil fuels and that is causing global warming”
the looney tunes have double back. a full circle so to speak, notice the term global warming?
Weather control… What could possibly go wrong?! GK
@ur momisugly G. Karst, The US ( as the USSR back in the days) gov has tried it for years going back decades. I have tried to find info regarding the efforts to use “cloud seeding” that caused flooding in the 50’s and 60’s there is no info on the net any longer.
oh theres some around re the years n govt usa.
I will see if I can locate the page n add a link for you.
its rather interesting seeing WHO in your prior govt knew/knows.
ok the one I was really hunting for was from around 2006 or slightly earlier and has the DOD notes and names
reckon its stashed on a old semi dudded pc from memory a female writer Robyn? someone
its not there…or I missed it?
but this one has the bit re mods in asia etc
http://www.globalresearch.ca/environmental-warfare-climate-modification-schemes/16411
“Ignorance is not a good basis for making decisions”
Careful mate! Your bosses don’t agree with that kind of radical thinking.
They haven’t cared about that yet, why start now?
We are 19 trillion in debt and now this. Is this real or is my matrix program completely messed up? Idiocracy is here.
well, technically, including unfunded liabilities like Medicare, Old Age Security, etc, speaking of the USA only – it’s more like 100 Trillion in debt.
…and total world debt (both private and governmental) is said to be $710 Trillion. That’s 10 times the annual world GDP of ~$70 Trillion. Talk about unsustainable.
Correct. just look at http://www.usdebtclock.org
Sander’s is promising to increase US spending by 50% and Hillary is not too far behind.
They are promising $10billion a year in new taxes.
First off the new taxes will only bring in half what is promised and even if it did, it would only cover a few percent all the new spending.
The question is no longer if will the US collapse, but how soon.
The particles produced by burning sulfur are droplets of sulfuric acid, mixed with water that they absorb from the atmosphere. These are not the solid particles of concern from coal fired lower plants.
Sulfuric acid forms from sulfur trioxide and water vapor. Sulfuric trioxide forms from sulfur dioxide reacting with some nitrogen oxides or ozone, but some is directly produced by burning sulfur.
The EPA considers sulphur dioxide and trioxide to be a pollutant which should be scrubbed from flu gasses.
https://www3.epa.gov/ttn/catc/dir1/ffdg.pdf
May have to put scrubbers on volcanos as well!
Have you ever known what happens when SO3 reacts with H2O? Do them chemistry. That’s H2SO4, sulfuric acid.
The particulate is a different story, but considering the expense I go through annually to prove I have no sulfur emissions, a plan to release them en-mass is just plain insulting.