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.
I just hope Mike (Moriarty) Mann is getting pleasure from this.
I have an idea.
Let’s install millions and millions of solar panels around the world, then create a manmade cloud to block the sun. Absolutely brilliant.
+1
+2
This scheme should be banned immediately. Just because a part of the globe is warm doesn’t mean that all of the globe is warm. To block sunlight indiscriminately will certainly result in cooling of temperate or normally cool regions, almost certainly resulting in deaths from cold, and destruction of property from excessive cold.
Because the reduction in temperatures the scientists cause will not be controllable.
Thanks for this post. After reading it and its sources, I prepared two responses to the Harvard team, which are given below. I’ve also asked for contact information for their advisory team. Geoengineering of the atmosphere is fine for scifi movies but potentially dangerous in the real world. My concerns below may seem minor, but they, too, are certainly real.
COMMENTS 1.
I am deeply concerned about the effect of your project on my atmospheric observations for more than 30 years and the sunlight measurements by the UVB Network operated by Colorado State University (I have managed one of their sites since 2004). Because there are many natural volcanic events that you can exploit rather than injecting aerosols artificially, the unannounced timing and nature of your experiment raises serious questions. For example, consider the historic Kilauea eruption, which injected 50,000 tons of SO2 into the atmosphere for several months? Where were you? (I was there measuring the effect of SO2 on my UV and ozone measurements.)
Next year I will begin work on a comprehensive paper on 30 years of observations at my Texas site (29.6N 97.9W) of Saharan dust, Asian dust, Mexican and Central American biomass smoke. Since 4 Feb 1990, I have made near daily measurements of the ozone layer, UVB, total column water vapor and aerosol optical depth at multiple wavelengths. I made extensive measurements of the atmospheric impact from the June 1991 Pinatubo eruption. The last thing I want to report is interference in my observations by an artificial aerosol injection by a group with much bigger ambitions that will ruin global monitoring of the atmosphere.
You obviously feel that your initial project will not cause any problems. Yet, you have already encountered an unexpected consequence from an observer with a long track record. The least you can do is provide detailed information about the location of any aerosol injections, so I can inform the UVB Network and other observers about your proposed interference to our measurements. I suggest you move your project to Antarctica, from where many balloon flights are launched and where there are very few ground-based solar observation stations. Please stay far, far away from my Texas site, Hawaii’s Mauna Loa Observatory, where I have calibrated my instruments for each of the past 25 years, and all the UVB Network sites. And please don’t tamper with our incredible atmosphere by expanding your project globally in order to win more research grants. The negative consequences could be far more unexpected than even you can imagine.
COMMENTS 2.
Please do not interfere with my stratospheric aerosol measurements. In addition to my prior objections to your project, For 5 years I have measured the elevation of aerosol layers from 1 km to 150 km using the twilight method. My method reliably detects tropospheric aerosol layers, the permanent stratospheric aerosol layer and meteor smoke from the upper stratosphere into the thermosphere. My measurements are made when the sky is cloud-free from my site (29.6N 97.9W) to 300-500 km toward the sunset point. It is absolutely essential that I be notified at least 8 hours in advance of any planned aerosol injections during the twilight glow along the path cited above, the direction of which changes each night with earth’s tilt.
Please Lord save us from brain-dead Harvard “scientists” – they’ll end up killing us all!
Gee, why is it that when you have a system that works well, some “geniuses” (and I use that word loosely) have to fiddle with it and ruin it for everyone else?
These Harvard people are nuts. If they want to play God, they are on the wrong planet for it.
I sincerely hope that their experiment fails and fails badly.
LOL, food for the chemtrail conspiracists.
Ah, you beat me to it Hans!
Cheers
Lance
Perhaps there is a neomalthusian agenda to trigger the next ice age. Perhaps man in some way is delaying the the transition to the next glacial period and the PTB would like to reverse this
The impact of a glacial period of rapid onset on crops and population on a civilization preparing for the opposite (global warming) would be horrendous. The elites would be well prepared with their stock piles of food and luxury items , real estate in warmer climates, and private military to protect from the hungry masses, and at the end of the day there are a lot less of us around making a number of neomalthusians happy as the New New World Order begins with a clean slate.
A Russian nuclear response is appropriate.
Defcon 1, BABY!
It is highly “foolish” experiment. The solar radiation reduction impact all meteorological parameters including rainfall and thus on crop production and diseases. It is like a doctor giving prescription without diagnosing the disease. If you got plenty of money you can do any thing.
Dr. S. Jeevananda Reddy
The strong animosity the consensus of climate-blog-skeptics (unfortunately) evince towards geoengineering experiments and suggestions has one curious implication. They are not in the pocket or under the influence of nefarious business-as-usual forces, which presumably would love to divert efforts from mitigation to adaptation—e.g., geoengineering.
Attention: Heartland, GWPF, etc: Add this point to our quiver of counterpunch ammo.
So these “scientists” are considering spraying something in to the atmosphere to stop global warming? I think they should look up the plot of a film called “Snowpiercer “.
Sadly, the proposed project is further confirmation of why Harvard is not/should not be known for excellence as an engineering science center, let alone be consider as one of the top institutions studying climatology.
So, a single weather ballon is going to loft a large enough mass of calcium carbonate to cause measurable solar dimming over an intercepted area of 0.1 km^2 (the propeller wake that is 1 km long by 100 meters diameter, according to the article)??? Yeah, right!
And they dare to compare the reported 100 g to 1 kg of calcium carbonate mass lofted to the 20 million tonnes of sulfur dioxide put into the atmosphere by the Mt. Pinatubo eruption, which only cooled the globe by 0.5 C according to scientific reports (granted that CaCo3 particulates would differ in effectiveness in causing solar dimming compared to SO2 vapor/aerosol).
Then again, maybe the Harvard researches have made a breakthrough in technology that can measure difference in atmosphere temperature to .001 C resolution . . . bearing in mind the measuring difference in light scattering does not easily correlate (even via “models”) to realized differences in dynamic atmospheric temperature.
Good grief!
Make that CaCO3 particulates.
Boeing 747 “jumbo jet” has 140 tonnes cargo capacity. To mimic 20 million tonnes SO2 emitted by Mt. Pinatubo, they need:
20,000,000/140 = 142,857 flights/yr
That’s a jumbo jet taking off every 3.68 minutes. Charge the cost to Al Gore
I can think of several reasons to disapprove of this.
1 – Cost. Renting a ship to “anchor” a balloon which will release CaCO3 into the atmosphere. The liability insurance premiums alone should be exorbitant.
2 – Weather. Wind patterns change on a whim. The monsoonal flow from the Indian Ocean into northwestern India and Pakistan never used to go into the Arabian peninsula. Now it happens every year, resulting in flooding that never used to happen.
3 – Unless this “experiment’ is carried on continuously for several years in a row and constantly monitored, the results will only reflect what happens in the short time period of the experiment. This has no bearing on how a system as erratic as Earth’s atmosphere will act over a period of 10 to 20 years. The proposal gives no reference to the effects on areas within a specified distance from the site.
Those are just a few reasons to not fund it. The most important one is this:
4 – When you fiddle with a relatively stable system and ignore the feedback factor while you’re at it, the results can and probably will be disastrous for those on the sidelines who are impacted by the experiment.
I see that I left out one thing that IS important and it’s the long-term effects of the substance these geniuses are planning to use: CaCO3 (calcium carbonate).
Calcium carbonate, CaCO3, is insoluble in water. Like the volcanic ash that they think they’re mimicking, it will clog airplane engines and foul them enough to cause accidents. They want to put this balloon experiment into what is general commercial and military aviation air space, and whatever they release will stay in the atmosphere unless it’s rained or snowed downward. Then it goes into the ocean and contaminates fishing and fish habitats, never mind contaminating any agricultural land it drops to. And since it’s a “thin cloud”, it won’t be visible on radar or LIDAR, either.
Yes, this is a truly WONDERUL IDEA!!! GENIUS!!!
From the minds of Mensa, who brought us corn ethanol and other environmental disasters, now planning a truly epic ruination of our earth!
Those of us who live in the SW already breathe enough dust. Please don’t add any more.
What about this woman? She doesn’t like the cold.
https://ca.rogers.yahoo.com/style/people-think-joke-woman-rare-autoimmune-disorder-allergic-winter-175712937.html
Greens:Sunlight bad, CO2 bad, photosynthesis bad, life very bad.
I already did this experiment. I should publish my results before they launch the balloon, to show that it can be done much cheaper. I planted a maple tree, south of my house and it cast a shade across the southern exposure of the house, and resulted in reduced temperatures. As the tree grew bigger, the shade was larger, and the cooling was also increased.
If I knew they were throwing $millions at the problem, I would have documented it a little better. When I was still riding a tricycle, I discovered that it felt cooler in the shade. I assumed everyone understood that. But casting shade on your neighbors without permission is not cool.
Making it colder is a no brainier. Keeping it warm, when things get cold will be a challenge. Better that they work on that one.
Seems part of the agenda is to hasten the return of the current iceage,
Experiment? No…sounds more like massive environmental pollution. Subject them to heavy EPA-mandated fines if they go through with this!
Take per out of perturbation and substitute mas, and the value of this experiment is revealed.
What is all the angst about crop heat stress from a couple degrees extra warmth during a growing season? The year of the great Yellowstone fires, 1988, was exceptionally warm in the northern plains. i am pretty sure the summer was far more than two degrees Celsius above the 1958-1988 average, and probably as much above 1980-2010. The result? Bumper yields of sugar beets and pinto beans. Big yields of corn also, although corn yields in the northern plains are never impressive by Iowa standards.
The experiment has already been run although in reverse order. It was called “The Clean Air Act” passed by congress in the late 70’s. The first order of business was to put sulfur dioxide scrubbers on the stacks of coal-fired power plants. The scrubbers effectively reduced both the haze and cloud nucleation the SO2 produced and warming rates increased in the early 80’s. This effect can be easily verified, just pick 3 or 4 close-by power plants and shut the scrubbers off next summer.
No way to know what would have happened without the clean air act changes.
I think that such geoengineering experiments are a colossal waste of money, especially when they’re making a catastrophe over what is essentially a non-issue. And even many alarmists of man-made “climate change” are opposed to geoengineering experiments. Those scientists in question should switch instead to real issues like how to fend off asteroids that could be real threats literally to our planet, or how to reverse biodiversity decline or the global garbage/plastic pollution problem, and they should spend their research money in any of those directions.