Guest essay by Eric Worrall
Harvard University is planning to conduct an experiment to test the effectiveness of sunlight blocking aerosols dumped into the stratosphere.
Harvard Scientists Begin Experiment To Block Out The Sun
Dec 5, 2018, 12:40pm
Trevor NaceA group of Harvard scientists plans to tackle climate change through geoengineering by blocking out the sun. The concept of artificially reflecting sunlight has been around for decades, yet this will be the first real attempt at controlling Earth’s temperature through solar engineering.
The project, called Stratospheric Controlled Perturbation Experiment(SCoPEx), will spend $3 million to test their models by launching a steerable balloon in the southwest US 20 kilometers into the stratosphere. Once the balloon is in place, it will release small particles of calcium carbonate. Plans are in place to begin the launch as early as the spring of 2019.
The basis around this experiment is from studying the effects of large volcanic eruptions on the planet’s temperature. In 1991, Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines erupted spectacularly, releasing 20 million tonnes of sulfur dioxide into the stratosphere. The sulfur dioxide created a blanket around Earth’s stratosphere, cooling the entire planet by 0.5 °C for around a year and a half.
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From the description of the experiment;
Stratospheric Controlled Perturbation Experiment (SCoPEx)
SCoPEx is a scientific experiment to advance understanding of stratospheric aerosols that could be relevant to solar geoengineering. It aims to reduce the uncertainty around specific science questions by making quantitative measurements of some of the aerosol microphysics and atmospheric chemistry required for estimating the risks and benefits of solar geoengineering in large atmospheric models. SCoPEx will address questions about how particles interact with one another, with the background stratospheric air, and with solar and infrared radiation. Improved understanding of these processes will help answer applied questions such as, is it possible to find aerosols that can reduce or eliminate ozone loss, without increasing other physical risks?
At the heart of SCoPEx is a propelled scientific balloon that can travel a few meters per second (walking speed) relative to the surrounding air. The propellers serve two functions. First, the propeller wake forms a well mixed volume (roughly 1 km long and 100 meters in diameter) that serves as an experimental ‘beaker’ in which we can add gasses or particles. Second, the propellers allow us to fly the gondola back and forth through the volume to measure the properties of the perturbed air.
The advantage of the SCoPEx propelled balloon is that it allows us to create a small controlled volume of stratospheric air and observe its evolution for (we hope) over 24 hours. Hence the acronym, Stratospheric Controlled Perturbation Experiment. If we used an aircraft instead of a balloon, we would not be able to use such a small perturbed volume nor would we be able to observe it for such long durations.
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What is the experiment?
We plan to use a high-altitude balloon to lift an instrument package approximately 20 km into the atmosphere. Once it is in place, a very small amount of material (100 g to 1 kg) will be released to create a perturbed air mass roughly one kilometer long and one hundred meters in diameter. We will then use the same balloon to measure resulting changes in the perturbed air mass including changes in aerosol density, atmospheric chemistry, and light scattering.
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Read more: https://projects.iq.harvard.edu/keutschgroup/scopex
Obviously this experiment will not cause any harm – the quantity of material the Harvard Scientists intend to release will not have a significant effect at ground level. What frightens me is the possibility of larger scale experiments, serious attempts to lower global temperature.
From a study published in August;
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: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-018-0417-3
A serious attempt to block sunlight using stratospheric aerosols could cause global crop failure and famine.
You would think that given the obvious problems nobody would go forward with such an effort. But the green political scientific nexus has a track record of not considering the consequences of their actions.
Back in 2008 lavish biofuel subsidies caused hunger and food riots in poor countries, as subsidised grain purchases drove up the global price of vital agricultural staples.
The ongoing fuel tax protests in France are another example of a serious failure by greens to consider the consequences of their actions. Despite belated French government efforts to retreat from their original provocation, the situation in France is now so unstable the French police union is urging members to join the protests.
Given the horrendous track record of green political irresponsibility, it is reasonable to be concerned about the harm geoengineers and their green political sponsors may cause, if one of their over enthusiastic sunlight blocking experiments goes awry.
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Seriously? Have these people never been outside on a sunny day and have clouds cover the Sun? Question answered, free of charge. Perhaps they spent to much time bingeing on The Matrix.
I like the idea. Something will be learned for a relatively cheap cost.
And just how cheap is “relatively cheap” going to be iffen just the “testing” is estimated to cost $3 million?
Maybe they could use those Climate Modeling Programs to do their “testing”? 😊 😊
Top college presidents, football and basketball coaches and athletic directors “earn” more annually than the cost of this experimental program. Everything is relative with some things being more out of whack than others.
Heck, the University of Colorado had to pay their football coach over $10 million to fire him, then another $14 million or so to higher a new coach (for 4 years).
What has football got to do with the climate? And I thought it was Co2 that caused warming? Has Harvard given up pontificating about Co2 and decided to have a go at shutting down the sun instead?
Projected warming based upon computer modelling has not happened. So now Harvard wants to spend $3 million to stop something that isn’t happening from happening. I am confused. I thought you got to Harvard because you were more intelligent than the average Joe. Wrong again.
Salaries of presidents, coaches, and ADs are not out of whack relative to the revenue and donations that they bring in. That’s why they get paid what they do. If they are failing, it is worth more to buy them out and spend big $$$ on a new person that to keep a loser.
David, I was clarifying my definition of “cheap.” Colleges and universities have income, expenses and budgets. I was just pointing out that the cost of the experimental program is relatively inexpensive in that, albeit out of whack, environment.
R Shearer, …… it makes no never mind anyway because Harvard probably has $2 BILLION+ in endowments just being held here n‘ there collecting intere$t …… and has surely already been approved for the Federal Grant of $3 million of taxpayer dollars to conduct said experiment.
The idea is fine – and any experiment is fine with me. The main advantage here is that if it works spectacularly, we need not waste trillions of dollars on the assumption that CO2 DOES increase global temperature : we can just sit here and wait and see whether in fact temperatures DO increase. So far this has not happened – but we can fix it when (if) it does.
Ditto
AGREE
Fix the temperature problem and damage the food supply. Great idea but go attempt it on some other planet.
Every university as a rule has on it’s pay roll a house fool, but it appears the roll call at many of the institutions has been expanding far beyond what could be considered healthy for a productive scientific discourse.
These scientists should be committed to an insane asylum.
Why would you want to condemn a perfectly good insane asylum to a ruinous end?
Alan, they are crazy like foxes. A forensic mental facility is probably more appropriate.
I think they need to give these people some less dangerous toys to play with.
James Bull
Weapons are dangerous yet we have and wield them. There are enough atomic bombs on the planet to change the entire face of the planet and yet you worry about a climate science test 🙂
I assume no Harvard educated person realizes that something called clouds already exist and that the coloud cover increase when it becomes warmer; natures climate feedback controls system.
I love how these schemes always require lots of fossil fuels to work, mute testimony about how dependent we are on them.
There seems to be the belief that warm is bad, which is mostly bassackwards. The LIA was an era of famine and plague, but avid Malthusians might like that.
If only warmth were the whole story.
You didn’t go to Harvard, so this is probably going to go over your head, but I’ll say it for the Brights:
Sunlight helps plants grow.
And, as a greenie, I’m against that.
There is also a little matter of CO2 that plants love to have in abundance. Venus has lot of both sun and CO2 but no plants; we happen to have a special planet and tinkering with it we do at our peril.
Exactly. CO2 and sunlight: the “evil twins” (their evil triplet, water vapor, having been disowned) of climate. As a greenie, I’m intensely chlorophobic and anyone who doesn’t share my fear of a a verdant planet triggers in me deep feelings of unsafeness around them.
?
Alan Tomalty
Don’t ask. It’s Brads attempt at humour, or irony, or sarcasm, or something……. If he said something that wasn’t laced with his interpretation of any of the foregoing it would be useful, but he can’t help himself.
Exactly, HotScot. It just becomes tiresome, very quickly.
Jeff
Careful mate. There’s likely to be a backlash on Brads own blog condemning us both personally for not getting his distorted humour. We are of course intellectual amœbas.
Sadly, I like what the guy says, his narcissism just gets in the way.
Brad Keyes
Blimey. You launched a compliment in my direction at last.
When the Sun tries to give you something—like energy—it’s very important that you politely refuse, saying:
“No thanks, you keep it. I’m a conservationist.”
I wouldn’t expect anyone who isn’t Harvard material to understand this, however.
Brad Keyes December 8, 2018 at 10:19 am
Bradley, goodness how you could say this, do you not remember all the occasions you spent strolling the walk ways and paths within the “Yard”with Teddy “K”
https://www.yelp.com/biz/harvard-yard-cambridge
michael
These Harvard geniuses should stick this “experiment” where the sun doesn’t shine.
or at least launch over Boston and leave the SW alone
In winter.
Skepticism against climate change is partly understandable as green solutions can greatly affect the economy and the labor market. However, the aversion to geoengineering is completely incomprehensible since these solutions do not negatively affect these areas.
Perhaps you need to dig deeper.
Geoengineering, when applied to the Earth, is a terrible idea. The likelihood of unintended consequences befalling any such mad schemes is terrifying. Why are these clowns so averse to warmth? If warmth were not desirable then no one would travel to various points south in the winter. The resorts around the world would close their doors and reopen above the Arctic Circle if the vast majority of people did not want to be warmer. Central heating would never have been invented either!
What unintended consequences could arise from this experiment?? If the ice age cometh we just discontinue doing it – and, abracadabra, effects disappear within a year or so.
As well as the aforementioned biofuels debacle, I offer you – https://www.thedodo.com/invasive-species-wreaking-havo-941016023.html as proof of Personkind’s hubris in thinking we can control such large systems when we have only a smattering of knowledge as to how it works.
It’s the unknown unknowns that will bite them (and us, without our permission) in the a$$
Geoengineering, when applied to the Earth, is called geoengineering. 🙂
Geo engineering is madness on the grandest scale possible. Anybody that even thinks about it should be committed to an insane asylum.
Alan Tomalty
Sadly it’s frequently the ‘intellectual’ reaction to everything. “I can solve any problem with stuff'”
I can’t tell you how many times in my life I have had the ‘intellectuals’ (frequently engineers) attempt to solve problems with lots of complicated, expensive ‘stuff’ and little old me is standing in the background saying “all you need is an effing screwdriver mate”, and been proven right, much to my detriment as these arseholes were often my boss.
I had a call from a Managing Director of mine 18 months after I left a business, many years ago following a run in with my highly qualified immediate boss who always used a sledgehammer to crack a nut. He cost the company a fortune in new IT kit (mega inter disciplinary, inter departmental, sales, marketing, and Customer Relationship Management database implementation for one of the worlds largest pharmaceutical companies) I was running on an excel spreadsheet. It failed miserably. He employed one of the worlds most successful advertising companies in the world to design and implement it……. ~ahem~
The MD offered me my job back as the whole lot bombed and cost the business millions; for the want of a tuppence ha’penny spreadsheet; by then it was too late as I had moved on.
This is another example of technology for the sake of technology.
Thomas Sowell’s ‘Vision of the Anointed’ model explains and predicts the trajectory of these harebrained schemes (and why they never do get the mental health care they need)—well worth reading.
“Geoengineering, when applied to the Earth, is a terrible idea.”
“Geo engineering is madness on the grandest scale possible.”
You’re expressing “The Precautionary Principle”, which I don’t necessarily agree with. When done properly, Geoengineering has produced spectacular benefits. Russ George’s ocean fertilization experiment is a prime example. After noting the correlation between volcanic eruptions in the Aleutian islands and bumper salmon catches a few years later, George re-created the effect and produced a 400% increase in all salmon species two years later:
http://www.planetexperts.com/two-years-russ-george-illegally-dumped-iron-pacific-salmon-catches-400/
Of course he was excoriated by the same people who think this experiment is a great idea.
Ditto ditto. I’ve made this point before here against knee-jerk worst-case unnuanced rejectionism.
Yeah I came on his web site going on about dumping iron into the ocean. I live around there and I commented that if he did and I met him I’d punch him in the mouth……AND then he did it….on behave of native bands. Real stewards of the earth pfft…
I know that it did minor damage to the environment, but the hubris of illegal geoengineering and being harangued daily about shit going into the oceans by native bands and government….and he had it on his web site saying what he was going to do it!!!
Bizarro world.
The excoriation needs to be read in full to be believed!
Another mask slips:
“Silvia Ribeiro, of the international anti-technology watchdog ETC Group, says that projects like George’s distract from the need to reduce carbon emissions. “It is now more urgent than ever that governments unequivocally ban such open-air geoengineering experiments,” he said. “They are a dangerous distraction providing governments and industry with an excuse to avoid reducing fossil-fuel emissions.”
And here I thought cutting fossil-fuel use was a means to fight climate change.
Turns out the fight against climate change is just a means to cut fossil fuel use.
Who will be held liable for causing multiple winter deaths in order to save one summer death?
I agree. It’s useful to carry out small experiments like this, and increase scope over time. In 20 years we will know much more if we start now. But i also support experiments to fertilize the ocean, and to genetically modify boreal trees to grow taller and with more mass. This would allow CO2 storage in large forests which grow over former tundra.
Where are “large forests” growing over “former tundra”?
Exactly. What we are seeing are glaciers in areas where there were forests:
https://www.livescience.com/39819-ancient-forest-thaws.html
https://www.icelandreview.com/news/3000-year-old-trees-excavated-under-glacier/
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/glaciers-retreat-they-give-mummies-and-artifacts-they-swallowed-180955399/
And given time the glaciers will re-cover what has been uncovered. The circle of life keeps turning.
Northern Siberia and Canada. The taiga is moving north really slow as the permafrost in the fringe areas starts to thin. This new forest can be a really good carbon sink in 20-30 years, if we develop massive trees which can take advantage of the higher CO2 content in the air.
So there are no “large forests” growing over “former tundra”, just the natural process that has been going on for millennia along the edges of the Arctic Circle. Got it!
But i also support experiments to fertilize the ocean,….can we please put this to rest
You can’t add one nutrient…or micro nutrient…without increasing the need for other nutrients at the same time…
Iron works with phosphorus..without it, it don’t work…and where they are “fertilizing” the ocean is phosphorus limiting
I’m confident we can learn to fertilize the oceans much the same way we learned to fertilize the land. It will take careful experimentation, and of course failures along the way are to be expected. But in the end, both humanity and the oceans will benefit greatly.
https://www.qld.gov.au/environment/coasts-waterways/reef/preserve-the-wonder/fertiliser-runoff
Perhaps the Harvard weenies should be forced to take out a very large insurance policy before attempting their experiment
Pondowners such as myself have fertilized for years with impressive gains in biomass, often 200 or 300 percent. Sometimes phosphorus, sometimes nitrogen, often both.
The idea is to research the issue by running experiments. Evidently we need to develop the right fertilizing mix, and like all real science, it is possible it will fail. The key is to avoid becoming paralyzed by dogmatic attacks on research possibilities, which seem driven by ideology. That sets us back several centuries.
It’s really hard to believe that anyone could even think geoengineering is needed.
There is no catastrophe, apart from the imbecilic alarmism.
What could possibly go wrong? I think they should let Bill Nye try an experiment in a large clear plastic bubble to see how it goes first.
The risk from 1 kg of chalk dust is not very significant.
I thought “mad scientists” were just in the movies.
No harm? Tell that to all the sharks (lawyers) out there who look for the smallest excuse to extort money from those they think have too much. You watch. If Harvard does do the experiment they will wind up spending more money on lawyers than they did on the experiment.
And in this case the shysters would be correct. Overt messing with everybody’s climate to fix an imaginary problem.
Exactamundo!
Bring, fools!
Perhaps they have considered the consequences of their actions and you have misconstrued their intent.
Sir David Attenborough, the famed British naturalist and television presenter, has some harsh words for humanity. “We are a plague on the Earth,”; Multiple ‘greens’ have gone further and call ‘humanity a cancer on the Earth’ – these are the people who are happy to envision the demise of the human race as ‘saving the planet’.
Don’t forget “Prince Chuckles” that wants be reincarnated as a Human destroying virus !
[That was actually Prince Phillip, Duke of Edinburg. . . mod]
Mod
That’ll be Edinburgh. Other than that, correct.
Charles wanted to be Camilla’s tampon.
Rube Goldberg on steroids.
Let’s see.. who is footing the bill for this “science”?
We are of course…we just spent a ton of money cleaning that crap up…
..now we’re going to pay to put it back
Meanwhile, back at the Royal Astronomical Society, they are predicting a Maunder minimum, a 60% reduction in solar activity in the 2030s .
Can’t post a link but reported in Science Daily
Science Daily from July 2015
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/07/150709092955.htm
…they “will spend $3 million to test their models…”
I thought they believed in models – so why the need to test them?
The oceans already provide this automatic negative feedback to solar warming at the surface by evaporation that cools the oceans by around 90W/m^2, and the clouds that the water vapour forms which currently add another 50W/m^2 of negative feeback, both variable with temperatue. It works very well. Why do we need to mess with that?
Oh good!
Some nice deep pockets to sue next time an unseasonable freeze or frost damages anything!
Cannot wait to see these miseducated jackasses drown in their own hubris.
Where’s a plus button when you need one. Your description the jackasses needs some pluses.
“damages (Ed–to crop yields) due to scattering sunlight caused by solar radiation management are roughly equal in magnitude to benefits from cooling”
I’m still not really too clear on these supposed benefits.
Rather than burning our croplands, we’re going to darken them? And the fish and the tigers will sing our praises…
SMH
-Kevin
Hmmm….
I have to work this one through.
The proposal is to disperse Calcium Carbonate in the atmosphere. Well, CaCO3 is a white, highly reflective material and can be obtained as a very finely divided powder. A “cloud” of such material would simply scatter any light in all directions. This is very nearly identical to the action of the multitude of tiny water droplets in a real cloud.
So, what they are proposing is the creation and study of an artificial cloud, which mimics a real cloud. I suppose that this makes sense due to the well known difficulties of finding and studying real clouds.
I am sure I could help them. I know that Harvard researchers are very busy and perhaps do not get out as often as they might like. I have been very fortunate to have traveled quite a lot around the Caribbean. I can help these researchers by showing them the times and places in the Caribbean where clouds are frequent and abundant. An added bonus would be the splendid coral sand (More CaCO3!) beaches, fine dining and typical tropical island activities.
Possible Project goals:
1) Study a synthetic cloud: (Stupid and doomed to failure.)
2) Spend as much money as possible: (I can help with that.)
Would I be right in thinking that if the experiment makes the climate cooler there will be fewer clouds, partially negating the effect of the experiment.
I think this would be an interesting experiment that might show that the claimed aerosol cooling effect of smokestacks for the last half century is overstated, thus causing the positive CO2 feedback to have to be recalculated at a more correct value. Or not.
Sorry, I meant “CO2 forcing”
Yes, nothing wrong with experimenting—one never knows what one may find. What’s the matter with people here who don’t want to look through the telescope?
I keep seeing this “whats wrong with experimenting” meme, the only answer is they can stand in a sunny field and wait for clouds to cover said Sun and SHAZAM, experiment completed free of charge. Oh, yea, it is all about the Benjamins not the science. Got to keep stealing that tax money.
Just in time for the AGU clown show this time in Washington D.C.!
Ha ha
This is what happens when Henry Paulson gives the ‘new’ Harvard School of Applied Science and Engineering $500 million to get it named the Paulson School of AppliedScience and Engineering. The bucks pay for the nutso professors who get the experiment money from taxpayers via NSF grants.
Same School that brough us the rhubarb flow battery noted in essay California Dreaming in ebook Blowing Smoke.
Same school that brought us NMR/MRI’s
Time for the EPA to step in and charge them with polluting the environment. ;))
Might it push the planet over a tipping point?
What tipping point?
The Earth has been hotter and colder, survived meteorites, volcanoes and countless natural disasters.
This experiment could well show how man’s effort to reduce air pollution did actually lead to much of the global warming since 1980. If true, then global warming is indeed caused in no small part by human activity, albeit via SO2 reduction rather than CO2 production.
This is environmental vandalism.
From Jan 4, 2018 to Dec 7, 2018, the GHCN-v3 1880 – 11/2017 + SST: ERSST v5 1880-11/2017 to GHCN-v3 1880 -10/2018 + SST: ERDDT v5 1880-10/2018 … the years between 2013 to 2017… so far, I’m not finished, the temperature data has been altered to reflect an increase of of 0.31 C by increasing monthly temps per 41 of the 60 months. They did adjust a couple of months down, but the overall effect was to raise the temp.
If you didn’t download the data you wouldn’t know they are altering the data…
Oh, you think they are just altering those years? No. I quickly looked at the changes between 1880 to 1900, there were 83 changes…. haven’t done the math on that … yet…
0.31 C in world temps by adjusting the record for just 60 months is significant. That’s a lot of heat on a planet wide basis, the previous 5 years was 0.31 hotter than we thought. … worse,
if I do research on those numbers and they change them so frequently….. the constant refrain is and to my discredit is ” WHERE DID YOU GET THOSE NUMBERS” .. I got them from the NOAA website… is that a wiki site where the data and information can’t be trusted?
NOAA has long ago lost all our trust. Tony Heller has proved that in many of his videos.
Like the one that proves Michelle Obama is a man?
I must have missed that one.
Link please…
What’s the worst thing that could happen? Lol! Do they not understand the Law of Unintended Consequences?