Guest essay by Eric Worrall
I guess we should be grateful that this time someone noticed the problems BEFORE creating another climate policy driven global food shortage.
Dimming sunlight to slow global warming may harm crop yields: study
Alister Doyle, Environment Correspondent
OSLO (Reuters) – Spraying a veil of sun-dimming chemicals high above the Earth to slow global warming could harm crop yields in an unintended side-effect of turning down the heat, U.S. scientists said on Wednesday.
Some researchers say a man-made sunshade, perhaps sulfur dioxide released high in the atmosphere, could limit rising temperatures and the after-effects like the wildfires that have ravaged California and Greece this summer.
But a U.S. scientific team found that big volcanic eruptions, such as Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines in 1991 and El Chichon in Mexico in 1982, cut yields of wheat, soy and rice after spewing sun-blocking ash that blew around the world.
…
The abstract of the study;
Estimating global agricultural effects of geoengineering using volcanic eruptions
Published: 08 August 2018
Jonathan Proctor, Solomon Hsiang, Jennifer Burney, Marshall Burke & Wolfram Schlenker
Nature (2018)
Solar radiation management is increasingly considered to be an option for managing global temperatures, yet the economic effects of ameliorating climatic changes by scattering sunlight back to space remain largely unknown. Although solar radiation management may increase crop yields by reducing heat stress, the effects of concomitant changes in available sunlight have never been empirically estimated. Here we use the volcanic eruptions that inspired modern solar radiation management proposals as natural experiments to provide the first estimates, to our knowledge, of how the stratospheric sulfate aerosols created by the eruptions of El Chichón and Mount Pinatubo altered the quantity and quality of global sunlight, and how these changes in sunlight affected global crop yields. We find that the sunlight-mediated effect of stratospheric sulfate aerosols on yields is negative for both C4 (maize) and C3 (soy, rice and wheat) crops. Applying our yield model to a solar radiation management scenario based on stratospheric sulfate aerosols, we find that projected mid-twenty-first century damages due to scattering sunlight caused by solar radiation management are roughly equal in magnitude to benefits from cooling. This suggests that solar radiation management—if deployed using stratospheric sulfate aerosols similar to those emitted by the volcanic eruptions it seeks to mimic—would, on net, attenuate little of the global agricultural damage from climate change. Our approach could be extended to study the effects of solar radiation management on other global systems, such as human health or ecosystem function.
Read more (paywalled): https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-018-0417-3
Noticing the problems before causing great harm is a bit of a first for climate activism.
Back in 2008 lavish biofuel incentives caused worldwide food shortages; prices in poor countries spike up to 75%, which led to mass hunger and civil unrest.
Solar dimming would promote El Nino conditions and increase regional drought.
Here’s a scary idea: What about applying that sulphur to the dirt instead of the sky?
Vital plant nutrient in nearly as short (limiting) supply as water-soluble nitrogen.
The extra greenery (not easy to burn) will absorb solar energy and turn the demon CO2 into glucose, starch, cellulose and lignin which will, when the living plant dies (and is replaced by a new one) absorb water within the top 2 feet of dirt – adding thermal inertia to the landscape thus limiting weather extremes and hence moderating ‘climate’
Not possible is it.
A tractor and a basic lime-spreader type machine is not shiny & new, is not Hi Tech, does not pull the birds or enhance sexual prowess and does not require ‘further research’
There goes another Modern Conundrum:
If we really are all so very intelligent & highly educated (subsequently gobsmackingly rich) why is all this extra research actually needed?
If the greens weren’t so rigid on calling coal fired power plant ash (both bottom ash and fly ash) hazardous waste, then the FGD scrubber solids would be ideal for accomplishing this very thing.
Much of what comes from the scrubber is either calcium sulfate or calcium sulfite. There are insignificant amounts of heavy metals in most waste streams. I say this because in most applications it is well below the background concentration of land it could be applied to as a soil amendment.
The CBC Mortillaro managed to twist the results of this geo-engineering oops:
https://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/geoengineering-climate-change-1.4776244
“Blocking sunlight to cool Earth may not save crops from climate change”
I think they learn that in journalism school. She must have gotten an ‘A’ in ‘HeadlineHype 302’
First. This would be easy to test. Increase the exhaust temperature of coal fired power plants and stop using the FGD’s (Flue Gas Desulfurization). That was essentially what we had before the 1970’s and ’80’s. It was during this period that FGD’s became retrofitted or part of new gen-sets.
Secondly, WHAT IF this geo-engineering is done and we get a “big one” eruption that is not just exceptional on the VEI scale, but exceptional in the content of SO2 injected into the upper atmospheric layers in addition to the purposefully injected sulfates?
The exhaust gases from power plants can’t get to the stratosphere.
Remember the #YearWithoutSummer caused by #volcanoes Mt. #Tambora and Mt. #Krakatoa.
The proposed aersol #geoengineering that will reduce #sunlight, #agriculture, #PlantProductivity, and increase #poverty and #starvation. https://wapo.st/2KFcqsp https://bit.ly/2vwoWpl
Oh, the ironing. Spraying an actual pollutant, at great cost of course, into the atmosphere in order to “combat” the effects of a fake pollutant, CO2. And this is big news to them, that this is actually a bad idea?
The stupid, it burns.
File this in the “No Shit” bin.
The use of geoengineering is a necessity which is inevitable in the near future. We should think about what we can do realistically to reduce side effects. One option is drastic reduction and organization of contraceptive costs.
What color is the sky on your planet?
What makes you think he can tell?
Geoengineering to counteract a few tenths of a degree of entirely beneficial warming?
Why?
You want to reduce the world population? Lead by example; be a volunteer. Otherwise you are just a hypocrite.
First, there should be a problem to fix.
Another troll. He cannot really mean what he writes?
Julian Simon proved that human beings are the ultimate form of capital. There is no net downside in a capitalistic society due to population.
JoEvery time I hear climate & engineering & geo I think of the old adage-
Doctors mistakes kill one at time,
Engineers mistakes can kill thousands at a time,
Geoengineers really frighten the shitzer out of me! and I would not trust them EVER, their ego and Oedipus complex are right off the Richter Scale!!in the discussion…
Idiot. We are not intelligent enough to play with our planet on that scale.
Have these pinchees’ been snooping in my manuscripts without telling me?
Let’s look at the real stuff for a minute.
The planet has been around for about 4.5 billion years, and essentially habitable by various classes/genus/species, etc. of life forms including plants and animals – a very wide spectrum of biota – for about 3.5 billion.
We puny humans have been here for about 14 million years, starting as various hominids and ending up as who we are today, which started about 1++ million years ago, unless you want to include Lucy as a very, very distant ancestor. Still not sure (because of the partial skeletal remains) if Lucy was fully erect or a latent knuckle dragger – no offense meant to Lucy and her relatives, or any of my knuckle-dragging friends in uniform.
So while we were busy breeding out Homo Neanderthalis (competing with those guys for breeding rights must have been interesting) we Homo Sapiens types started traveling a lot, spreading genes all over the place, and we, as a species, have had a great place to evolve into who we are today.
And that includes the nitwits and control freaks who want to mess with what Mother Nature gave us: a prime planet that supports us and keeps us going.
Well, there used to be ads on TV for margarine versus butter with someone playing Mother Nature and when Ma Nature found out that the fake butter was created by human meddling, thunder boomed, lightning flashed and the message was “DON’T TRY TO FOOL MOTHER NATURE!!!”
I’ll repeat that with a little update: DON’T MESS WITH WHAT MOTHER NATURE GAVE YOU!!
The problem with these so-called “experts” and control freak nitwits is that they never think about the short or long term consequences of their meddling. They never have and never will.
Whether they want to admit it or not, we are heading into a cooler period, have been since the 18-month-long 2006-2008 solar minimum, when the Sun did not swap its magnetic poles right away after it restarted. We have had – how many now? – several solar minimum periods since then, the global weather system is in more flux than usual, and as a friend of mine pointed out, Hudson’s Bay still had ice in mid-July and the snow levels in South America were already quite deep in June. Kangaroos are freezing to death in Australia. I didn’t check the snowpack in New Zealand, but I can.
Now, what part of these naturally-occurring events do those meddling so-called experts not understand???
We don’t NEED to “fix” anything. This planet can take quite good care of itself.
Mess with a system that works quite well and has done so for 3.5 billion years, and you WILL pay for it.
DO NOT MESS WITH WHAT MOTHER NATURE GAVE YOU!!! She’s getting cranky!
The inconsistency. Their models assume the sun has no effect on temperatures, yet they control temperatures by blocking the sun. I want to beat them repeatedly about the head until they wake up to this abysmal shit that is their models.
And what about rickets -think of the poor grandchildren deprived of sunlight and vitamin D.
I was just reading somewhere today that wearing the burka was a prime cause of vitamin D deficiency in some ME countries, so a world wide filter as described would have a similar effect.
Every time I hear climate & engineering & geo I think of the old adage-
Doctors mistakes kill one at time,
Engineers mistakes can kill thousands at a time,
Geoengineers really frighten the shitzer out of me! and I would not trust them EVER, their ego and Oedipus complex are right off the Richter Scale!!
There was an old lady who swallowed a fly;
I don’t know why she swallowed a fly – perhaps she’ll die!
There was an old lady who swallowed a spider;
That wriggled and jiggled and tickled inside her!
She swallowed the spider to catch the fly;
I don’t know why she swallowed a fly – Perhaps she’ll die!
There was an old lady who swallowed a bird;
How absurd to swallow a bird!
She swallowed the bird to catch the spider;
That wriggled and jiggled and tickled inside her!
She swallowed the spider to catch the fly;
I don’t know why she swallowed a fly – Perhaps she’ll die!
There was an old lady who swallowed a cat;
Imagine that! She swallowed a cat!
She swallowed the cat to catch the bird,
She swallowed the bird to catch the spider;
That wriggled and jiggled and tickled inside her!
She swallowed the spider to catch the fly;
I don’t know why she swallowed a fly – Perhaps she’ll die!
….
Previously posted on wattsup:
The Nino34 Area Sea Surface Temperature (the blue line in the following plot), adjusted by the Sato Global Mean Optical Depth Index (for major volcanoes – the yellow line), correlates quite well with the Global UAH LT temperature four months later (the red line).
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=1527601687317388&set=a.1012901982120697.1073741826.100002027142240&type=3&theater
[end of excerpt]
It is clear from the divergence of the red line (Global UAH LT temperature) below the blue line that (Nino34 SST) that El Chichon and Pinatubo caused about 0.5-0.6C of global cooling that took about 5 years to fully dissipate in each case.
SO MY QUESTION IS:
Was it primarily the curtailment of sunlight that caused the reduced crop yields (as alleged), or was it primarily the lower global temperatures?
Although both factors have an effect on crops, which factor was more important in causing reduced crop yields in this case ?
Duh!
That’s scary – idiots trying to manipulate the climate when they haven’t a clue as to what causes the weather in the first place.
This stuff didn’t work out very well when they used it to fight Sky Net.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/05/26/the-role-of-sulfur-dioxide-aerosols-in-climate-change/
I sure Hope I never live to see the day these self proclaimed geniuses actually get to try to manipulate nature! Bad enough growing corn for gas, imagine the disaster when they realize they didn’t think it through.