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Bob Wallace

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Re: Geoengineering, another rush for money?
« Reply #300 on: April 26, 2018, 05:15:09 AM »
If you have a pipe to send the methane out to space, past the Earth's atmosphere, then we could take the methane out of the permafrost.

Since you probably don't we need to leave that methane sequestered.
That is not a permanent solution.  Heat it up and it will come out. Eventually it will be heated up.  The longer it takes the more there is.  Too much and we do Venus.  Over heat it and melt the ice.  Out gas it maybe burn it, and no ice on earth.  End the age of ice.  that will stabilize the environment long term.

I'd really like to know if you're serious or whether you're attempting to troll.


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Re: Geoengineering, another rush for money?
« Reply #301 on: April 26, 2018, 05:39:56 AM »
...

Humanity already know what plan to follow and how to mitigate, we're just not doing it.
We (the top 10%) are still aiming for the stars and another rush for money and geoengineering.

...
Do we?

If you look at sort term (our life time and the lifetime of our great grandkids) comfort and convenience for us then we need to stop and reverse global warming.

If you look long term then you get a different answer.  The long term health of the biosphere depends on getting the methane out of the arctic permafrost as the permafrost sequesters it and enough could build up overtime to drive the planet to a state like Venus.

So it is in the long term, the health of the planet involves intentional AGW now.  Or some other way of dealing with the sequestered methane and how to convert it to solid carbon.

There is no long term for us, we should focus on what we should do today. Every day we pursue green growth is a day lost that will have to be fixed with geoengineering solutions, which still does not exist.

Earth is not Venus, we do share the same sun but it's further away and we spin faster, a lot faster. So every disaster we can muster will eventually be "normalized" by Earth. We won't be here to see it though.

Global material resource use may more than double to 2050, with high-income countries currently consuming 10 times more per person than low-income countries. We can't focus on emission abatement alone. There are no silver bullets.
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Iceismylife

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Re: Geoengineering, another rush for money?
« Reply #302 on: April 26, 2018, 08:13:41 PM »
If you have a pipe to send the methane out to space, past the Earth's atmosphere, then we could take the methane out of the permafrost.

Since you probably don't we need to leave that methane sequestered.
That is not a permanent solution.  Heat it up and it will come out. Eventually it will be heated up.  The longer it takes the more there is.  Too much and we do Venus.  Over heat it and melt the ice.  Out gas it maybe burn it, and no ice on earth.  End the age of ice.  that will stabilize the environment long term.

I'd really like to know if you're serious or whether you're attempting to troll.
I'm serious.  Do we put ourselves ahead of the biosphere?  Or do we put the biosphere ahead of ourselves?

The numbers as of now that I've seen bantered around look like this.  The is something like 5,000gt  Methane in the arctic permafrost.  that works out to 3,750gt carbon.  But methane is 100 times as good as CO2 at global warming.  We've added 300gt of carbon as CO2 to the atmosphere so we are looking at 1,000 times as much global warming if we out gas the methane as we've done so far.

If you raise the temperature of the sea water at the equator to 100C then the sea water will tend to go into the atmosphere.  heat it up enough and you drive out the CO2 from the rock And we have something like Venus.

Bob Wallace

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Re: Geoengineering, another rush for money?
« Reply #303 on: April 26, 2018, 09:55:39 PM »
OK, I'll assume you are serious.

There's a tremendous amount of methane that could come out of the world's permafrost if it was allowed to melt and decompose.

Quote
Methane in the earth's atmosphere is a strong greenhouse gas with a global warming potential (GWP) 104 times greater than CO2 in a 20-year time frame; methane is not as persistent a gas as CO2 and tails off to about GWP of 28 for a 100-year time frame.[4][11]

This means that a methane emission will have 28 times the impact on temperature of a carbon dioxide emission of the same mass over the following 100 years. Methane has a large effect but for a relatively brief period, having an estimated lifetime of 8.9±0.6 years in the atmosphere,[12] whereas carbon dioxide has a small effect for a long period, having an estimated lifetime of over 100 years.

Wiki.

We could burn the methane, turning CH4 into CO2 and H2.  Then we end up with CO2 that will screw up the climate for 100 years.

The best solution is to not melt the permafrost and leave all that dead vegetation safely frozen.

Bruce Steele

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Re: Geoengineering, another rush for money?
« Reply #304 on: April 27, 2018, 03:11:25 AM »
Bob Wallace, Up thread your recollection ( IIRC )is that CO2 increases will remain in the atmosphere for a hundred years. I went back through an old SKeptical Science piece and pulled out this discussion.
"It is true that an individual molecule of CO2 has a short residence time in the atmosphere. However, in most cases when a molecule of CO2 leaves the atmosphere it is simply swapping places with one in the ocean. Thus, the warming potential of CO2 has very little to do with the residence time of CO2.

What really governs the warming potential is how long the extra CO2 remains in the atmosphere. CO2 is essentially chemically inert in the atmosphere and is only removed by biological uptake and by dissolving into the ocean. Biological uptake (with the exception of fossil fuel formation) is carbon neutral: Every tree that grows will eventually die and decompose, thereby releasing CO2. (Yes, there are maybe some gains to be made from reforestation but they are probably minor compared to fossil fuel releases).

Dissolution of CO2 into the oceans is fast but the problem is that the top of the ocean is “getting full” and the bottleneck is thus the transfer of carbon from surface waters to the deep ocean. This transfer largely occurs by the slow ocean basin circulation and turn over (*3). This turnover takes 500-1000ish years. Therefore a time scale for CO2 warming potential out as far as 500 years is entirely reasonable (See IPCC 4th Assessment Report Section 2.10)."
 
So long as we don't totally screw up the biological components of the ocean carbon sink 500 years of heating is to be expected not 100. The longer we wait to reduce our CO2 emissions the longer this heating time lag will extend. Biological processes are extremely important and we really don't know how badly we are compromising them.
 Land use emissions and concrete production also play their part. We are extending those stressors do to modern farming practices as well as forest reductions and nasty wildfires.   


Archimid

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Re: Geoengineering, another rush for money?
« Reply #305 on: April 27, 2018, 03:43:55 AM »
The more I read the more I become convinced that CO2 was the reason civilization flourished during the Holocene. We have been geoengineering the planet for thousands of years.

It seems likely that farming, deforestation and wood burning from humans was enough to keep the perfect temperature for humans going for 10,000 years. Long enough to abandon our animal nature in favor of writing and tool making. Then we found fossil fuels at the  perfect time.

The planet was cooling and CO2 was droping. We might have hit a thermodynamic equilibrium but the popularization of fossil fuels raised CO2 levels which combined with an upswing of the solar cycle raised the temperatures enough for humans to remain growing exponentially. Then we over did. We are still overdoing it.

We are putting too much CO2 in the atmosphere and that is warming the planet faster than it has since the PETM, probably faster. We are overheating the planet. Let's suppose we somehow get it under control in time.

Then we will need fossil fuels to keep the planet warm for the next million years.  Maybe if we learn to manage the CO2 cycle we can keep the planet's CO2 levels at 300ppm forever.  That would be a start trek kind of future for mankind. All we have to do is keep the planet from overheating now.
I am an energy reservoir seemingly intent on lowering entropy for self preservation.

sidd

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Re: Geoengineering, another rush for money?
« Reply #306 on: April 27, 2018, 05:13:53 AM »
"geoengineering the planet for thousands of years."

Ruddiman says the same. Check him out, i have posted about him before.
There's a good book called 1491 about the American continents, too.

sidd

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Re: Geoengineering, another rush for money?
« Reply #307 on: April 27, 2018, 06:17:44 AM »
If you raise the temperature of the sea water at the equator to 100C then the sea water will tend to go into the atmosphere.  heat it up enough and you drive out the CO2 from the rock And we have something like Venus.
Not possible according to James Hansen, five years ago:
http://rsta.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/371/2001/20120294
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Re: Geoengineering, another rush for money?
« Reply #308 on: April 27, 2018, 06:25:23 AM »
Then we will need fossil fuels to keep the planet warm for the next million years.  Maybe if we learn to manage the CO2 cycle we can keep the planet's CO2 levels at 300ppm forever.  That would be a start trek kind of future for mankind. All we have to do is keep the planet from overheating now.
Let's go.
http://www.resourcepanel.org/reports/assessing-global-resource-use
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Archimid

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Re: Geoengineering, another rush for money?
« Reply #309 on: May 02, 2018, 12:44:51 AM »

Should we create a solar shade to cool the earth? | Danny Hillis

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Archimid

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Re: Geoengineering, another rush for money?
« Reply #310 on: May 27, 2018, 03:52:00 AM »
High-quality carbon nanotubes made from carbon dioxide in the air break the manufacturing cost barrier

http://www.kurzweilai.net/high-quality-carbon-nanotubes-made-from-carbon-dioxide-in-the-air-break-the-manufacturing-cost-barrier

Quote
Vanderbilt University researchers have discovered a technique to cost-effectively convert carbon dioxide from the air into a type of carbon nanotubes that they say is “more valuable than any other material ever made.”

This sets off my "sounds to good to be true" alert but I'll drop it here just in case.
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Bob Wallace

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Re: Geoengineering, another rush for money?
« Reply #311 on: May 27, 2018, 04:33:35 AM »
Bringing down the cost of carbon nanotubes is a good thing.  But I wonder if we'd ever make enough to make a meaningful dent in the total amount of carbon in the above-surface carbon cycle?

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Re: Geoengineering, another rush for money?
« Reply #312 on: May 27, 2018, 02:25:55 PM »
The demand for Carbon Nanotubes must be enormous for this method to make a difference.Maybe a significant price drop allows for technology to advance and incorporate nanotubes in a significant portion of everything that's produced. Still, I don't see how it will ever reach more than a fraction of a percent CO2 reduction.

However if pulling CO2 from the atmosphere to make stuff becomes a trend then all this little reductions may sum into something significant. Any such thing is decades away.
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Bruce Steele

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Re: Geoengineering, another rush for money?
« Reply #313 on: August 08, 2018, 07:59:22 PM »
If this method of using OTEC , ocean thermal energy, can be run at scale it would be an enormous step forward. OTEC is used to convert thermal energy into hydrogen which can be used as a produced fuel and the byproduct is a common form of alkalinity that can counteract ocean acidification.

 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S136403211830532X?via%3Dihub

NeilT

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Re: Geoengineering, another rush for money?
« Reply #314 on: August 09, 2018, 01:41:46 AM »
If this method of using OTEC , ocean thermal energy, can be run at scale it would be an enormous step forward. OTEC is used to convert thermal energy into hydrogen which can be used as a produced fuel and the byproduct is a common form of alkalinity that can counteract ocean acidification.

 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S136403211830532X?via%3Dihub

From the article

Quote
roughly 13 GW of surface ocean heat would be directly removed to deep water

Isn't it a fact that the vast majority of sea level rise, so far, is due to ocean expansion from heat storage in the deep ocean.

It sounds, to me, like we dump heat, even faster, into the deep ocean, but get a net by-product of free H2 electricity and 2.6GW of cooling.

But we've still dumped 13GW of heat into the deep ocean.  I assume per installation.

It is a known fact that the heat in the deep ocean does cycle back to the surface (was that 30 years?).

Is this something we want to experiment with when, decades down the line, it could come back to haunt us?
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Bruce Steele

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Re: Geoengineering, another rush for money?
« Reply #315 on: August 09, 2018, 02:59:11 AM »
NeilT, Heat is distributed in surface waters much differently than in intermediate, deep or bottom waters. Bottom waters can take up to a thousand years to bring cold , saline, and CO2 ( DIC ) rich waters back to the surface from initial formation processes.
 I don't know much about OTEC but if they extend only into intermediate waters you are correct and circulation time is about 35-50 years from formation to upwelling at least in the North Pacific.

I was attracted to this new proposal because it can produce alkalinity as a byproduct and at least locally this could be used to increase the saturation state of surface waters and improve conditions for species sensitive to acidification. Yes it would distribute heat into deeper waters that will eventually return to the surface but there may be locations where that return time is longer than intermediate waters of the North Pacific.  It is a redistribution of heat rather than the creation of heat that results from combustion and added atmospheric CO2 so IMO it is renewable and less damaging than current fossil fuel energy production.

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Re: Geoengineering, another rush for money?
« Reply #316 on: August 14, 2018, 04:32:27 PM »
The study cited in the linked article finds that extensive use of BECCS technology would lead to an increase in carbon in the atmosphere rather than the decrease assumed by many IPCC projections:

Title: "Guest post: Why BECCS might not produce ‘negative’ emissions after all"

https://www.carbonbrief.org/guest-post-why-beccs-might-not-produce-negative-emissions-after-all

Extract: "In our new study, published in Nature Communications, my colleagues and I find that expansion of bioenergy in order to meet the 1.5C limit could cause net losses in carbon from the land surface. Instead, we find that protecting and expanding forests could be more effective options for meeting the Paris Agreement."
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Re: Geoengineering, another rush for money?
« Reply #317 on: August 15, 2018, 03:48:32 AM »
There are no simple/easy answers in geoengineering:

Title: "Geoengineering: Blocking sunlight to cool Earth won't reduce crop damage from global warming"

https://phys.org/news/2018-08-geoengineering-blocking-sunlight-cool-earth.html

Extract: "Injecting particles into the atmosphere to cool the planet and counter the warming effects of climate change would do nothing to offset the crop damage from rising global temperatures, according to a new analysis by University of California, Berkeley, researchers."

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Re: Geoengineering, another rush for money?
« Reply #318 on: August 29, 2018, 12:13:25 AM »
The linked article indicates that while challenging to achieve, the implementation of BECCS is a key technology for delivering the Paris Agreement.  That said the article that I linked to in Reply #316 says that is likely that BECCS may not result in any negative emissions.  This makes it sound like it is likely that the Paris Agreement goals will not be met (if anyone was wondering):

Title: "Guest post: Six key policy challenges to achieving ‘negative emissions’ with BECCS"

https://www.carbonbrief.org/guest-post-six-key-policy-challenges-to-achieving-negative-emissions-with-beccs

Extract: "Biomass energy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS) features as a key technology for delivering the Paris Agreement on climate change. It is included in many pathways developed using integrated assessment models (IAMs)."
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Pmt111500

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Re: Geoengineering, another rush for money?
« Reply #319 on: August 31, 2018, 04:58:55 AM »
Maybe we'll end up installing wind powered mixers of ocean water on the Arctic Ocean continental shelves. Bring the waters up in the winter and use the wind turbines for energy during summer.

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Re: Geoengineering, another rush for money?
« Reply #320 on: September 20, 2018, 03:22:11 PM »
Building a wall under Thwaites to stop it from melting. Maybe cheaper than damming e.g. the Gibraltar strait. 

"Stopping the flood: could we use targeted geoengineering to mitigate sea level rise?"
Michael J. Wolovick1 and John C. Moore
"Abstract. The Marine Ice Sheet Instability (MISI) is a dynamic feedback that can cause an ice sheet to enter a runaway collapse. Thwaites Glacier, West Antarctica, is projected to be the largest individual source of future sea level rise and may have already entered MISI. Here, we use a suite of coupled quasi-2-D ice–ocean simulations to explore whether targeted geoengineering using either a continuous artificial sill or isolated artificial pinning points could counter a collapse. Successful interventions occur when the floating ice shelf regrounds on the structure, increasing buttressing and reducing ice flux across the grounding line. Regrounding is more likely with a continuous sill that is able to block warm water transport to the grounding line. The smallest design we consider is comparable in scale to existing civil engineering projects but only has a 30% success rate, while larger designs are more effective. There are multiple possible routes forward to improve upon the designs that we considered, and with decades or more to research designs it is plausible that the scientific community could come up with a plan that is both effective and achievable. While reducing emissions remains the short-term priority for minimizing the effects of climate change, in the long run humanity may need to develop contingency plans to deal with an ice sheet collapse."

“We are imagining very simple structures, simply piles of gravel or sand on the ocean floor”

https://www.the-cryosphere.net/12/2955/2018/

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/sep/20/build-walls-on-seafloor-to-stop-glaciers-melting-scientists-say

Hefaistos

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Re: Geoengineering, another rush for money?
« Reply #321 on: September 21, 2018, 08:13:24 AM »
Michael J. Wolovick and John C. Moore is proof positive that madness persists in this world. That the Guardian and others publish "news" about these kinds of lunacies is madness too. That it then shows up here without warning or a sensible comment is ........... well

Sure, this is a second best or third best solution to a more forceful climate policy reducing GHG emmissions. However, I think most of us realize that such policies will be implemented too late to stop SLR.
Thus, mankind will go for the second best solutions, trying to stop the wealth-destruction caused by SLR.

It's a rather harmless thing to do, piling stones and sand on the sea bottom under the edge of selected glaciers (compared to some other variants of geoengineering).

And, as I commented, might be a cheaper alternative to building e.g. protective dams around the centers of wealth. E.g., take the Meditteranean Sea, with an enormous amount of cities, infrastructure, people & accumulated wealth along it's shores. It would be logical to dam the Gibraltar strait to protect all those assets from SLR. Plus a lot of similar damming projects in coastal areas around the world. Projects that  are likely to be proposed, fought for, and implemented, however at incredible costs. Madness for sure, but the bigger madness is to not enforce powerful climate policies already now, worldwide.

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Re: Geoengineering, another rush for money?
« Reply #322 on: September 21, 2018, 09:44:45 AM »
Very anthropogenic, that study was up here in mid March.
Jakobshavn would need a berm 5 km across and 100 metres high, which would be an enormous, but still feasible undertaking. But PIG is big daddy and his mother Thwaites, are in frickin' Antarctica...
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Re: Geoengineering, another rush for money?
« Reply #323 on: September 22, 2018, 06:05:13 PM »
Good luck world, you're going to need it:

Wolovick, M. J. and Moore, J. C.: Stopping the flood: could we use targeted geoengineering to mitigate sea level rise?, The Cryosphere, 12, 2955-2967, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-12-2955-2018, 2018.

https://www.the-cryosphere.net/12/2955/2018/

Abstract. The Marine Ice Sheet Instability (MISI) is a dynamic feedback that can cause an ice sheet to enter a runaway collapse. Thwaites Glacier, West Antarctica, is projected to be the largest individual source of future sea level rise and may have already entered MISI. Here, we use a suite of coupled quasi-2-D ice–ocean simulations to explore whether targeted geoengineering using either a continuous artificial sill or isolated artificial pinning points could counter a collapse. Successful interventions occur when the floating ice shelf regrounds on the structure, increasing buttressing and reducing ice flux across the grounding line. Regrounding is more likely with a continuous sill that is able to block warm water transport to the grounding line. The smallest design we consider is comparable in scale to existing civil engineering projects but only has a 30% success rate, while larger designs are more effective. There are multiple possible routes forward to improve upon the designs that we considered, and with decades or more to research designs it is plausible that the scientific community could come up with a plan that is both effective and achievable. While reducing emissions remains the short-term priority for minimizing the effects of climate change, in the long run humanity may need to develop contingency plans to deal with an ice sheet collapse.
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oren

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Re: Geoengineering, another rush for money?
« Reply #324 on: September 22, 2018, 08:37:09 PM »
Michael J. Wolovick and John C. Moore is proof positive that madness persists in this world. That the Guardian and others publish "news" about these kinds of lunacies is madness too. That it then shows up here without warning or a sensible comment is ........... well

Totally agree, cross-posting my comment from the "What's new in Antarctica" thread:

It is really so stupid. I am sure these scientists are well-meaning, and experts in their field, but what is more cost-effective: build hundreds or thousands of kilometers of underwater seawalls in the most inhospitable environment on Earth as a stopgap solution to a part of the problem, or deploy enough solar panels and wind turbines to stop climate change? I am sure the latter gives more bang for the buck, should some government or a global entity decide to actually do something.

Insert your favorable current economically feasible solution, rather than this pie in the sky.
And I should add, I shudder to think of the unintended and unexpected consequences. But then again, like all geo-engineering solutions, IMHO no one will actually undertake them. The coming collapse will not increase global unity, rather decrease it, and no single government will be able to afford the cost/resources for any serious project. Luckily.

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Re: Geoengineering, another rush for money?
« Reply #325 on: October 12, 2018, 05:26:28 AM »
Wally Broeker thinks we will have to geoengineer:

"Broecker said. "So I am convinced that, at some time, we will have to get into geoengineering.”

...

“If you took a vote, there would be a lot of opposition to trying this, because people don’t want mankind to start fooling around with climate,” Broecker said. “They are right. But maybe we are going to have to.”

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/last-ditch-global-warming-fix-man-made-volcanic-eruption-n918826

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Re: Geoengineering, another rush for money?
« Reply #326 on: October 29, 2018, 09:17:42 PM »
Bad news for those who are hoping to use 'solar engineering' as a backup plan if all other measures fail to limit climate change sufficiently:

Title: "Solar geoengineering may not cool the oceans, study says"

https://www.carbonbrief.org/solar-geoengineering-may-not-cool-the-oceans-study-says

Extract: "Spraying aerosols high in the stratosphere could dampen global warming over land, but may not prevent the oceans from heating up, new research says."
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Re: Geoengineering, another rush for money?
« Reply #327 on: October 29, 2018, 10:08:08 PM »
It seems some here haven't read/digested the article before freaking out.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/sep/20/build-walls-on-seafloor-to-stop-glaciers-melting-scientists-say

The wörd "wall" might have been misleading.
Jakobshavn is not in the scenario.

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Re: Geoengineering, another rush for money?
« Reply #328 on: October 31, 2018, 12:23:26 PM »
Martin, the example with Jakobshavn was mentioned in this article in mid March (as mentioned above) in this thread:

Thanks Archimid.

Jeez, Jakobshavn would need a berm 5 km across and 100 metres high and would be an enormous, but still feasible undertaking. But PIG is big daddy and his mother in frickin' Antarctica...
What about mitigation, let's say right now? That is easier, much more effective and we know how to do it.

Adding a high-res image from this one: https://www.csc.fi/-/tutkijat-ehdottavat-napajaatikoiden-sulamisen-hidastamista-geotekniikan-avulla
Check the URL (it's in English) here's the previously posted image from that URL:

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Re: Geoengineering, another rush for money?
« Reply #329 on: October 31, 2018, 12:29:14 PM »
Models suggest injection of sulfate aerosols into the stratosphere could have unintended consequences
https://phys.org/news/2018-10-sulfate-aerosols-stratosphere-unintended-consequences.html

Quote
The researchers report that overall, the models showed the desired cooling impact. But they also showed something less helpful—reduced global rainfall. The models showed that the changes in rainfall would not be uniform, either; some areas would get less than others. And as some of those areas, such as the North Atlantic, received less rainfall, the ocean would experience an increase in salinity, which would make the water denser. That denser water would then have an impact on the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, burying more heat in the deep ocean. The net result would be a warmer ocean, more polar melting and faster rising sea levels.

The researchers conclude their report by pointing out that the true impact on the planet of such an endeavor could not be shown by computer modeling—at least not with complete confidence.
Omnia mirari, etiam tritissima.
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Science is a jealous mistress and takes little account of a man's feelings.

DrTskoul

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Re: Geoengineering, another rush for money?
« Reply #330 on: October 31, 2018, 01:16:00 PM »
Well they won the DUH!!! award. We do not know exactly what will happen. Sulfates are not a boundary condition for thousands of climate model runs to capture. Or a stable well mixed forcing like CO2 or water vapor.  It’s more like trying for an accurate weather prediction decades in the future.

Sleepy

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Re: Geoengineering, another rush for money?
« Reply #331 on: October 31, 2018, 01:26:14 PM »
For sure DrTskoul, but then we also have those who are arguing for it, like Lister here:
https://forum.arctic-sea-ice.net/index.php/topic,1021.msg178589.html#msg178589
A quote from the pdf:
Quote
Our conclusion is that the risk of very serious environmental and societal impacts, including the potential for a near-term, nonlinear and irreversible step change in the planet’s climate is so great that an aggressive climate restoration program needs to be initiated to return the global average temperature to no more than 0.5ºC above its preindustrial level. This program must be comprehensive, pursuing a multi-pronged approach that includes greatly strengthening efforts based on efficiency and mitigation, building up of efforts to restore carbon levels in the soils and land cover, and researching and then likely needing to initiate climate intervention efforts in the near-term to not only ensure the global average temperature does not exceed 1.5ºC at any time (so no overshoot), but also will put the climate on a pathway to a global average temperature characteristic of the mid- to late 20th century when conditions were generally within the range of natural variability under which society and prevailing ecosystems were not facing severe threats (a global average temperate estimated to be no more than 0.5ºC above its preindustrial level).
Omnia mirari, etiam tritissima.
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Science is a jealous mistress and takes little account of a man's feelings.

mitch

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Re: Geoengineering, another rush for money?
« Reply #332 on: October 31, 2018, 06:38:35 PM »
There will be environmental damage from switching to renewables--it just will be less than continuing to use fossil fuels. The amount of power needed is too large not to have costs. Efficiency should be a major part of the switch

Geoengineering is one of the costs to keep using fossil fuels.  Unfortunately, we do not have a good handle on the climate or environmental impacts of the different geoengineering options. Again, because the problem is large, the impacts will be large as well. The costs will continue to go up the longer we delay.

sidd

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Re: Geoengineering, another rush for money?
« Reply #333 on: December 23, 2018, 12:46:19 AM »
For dark purposes of my own, I am looking at the effect of solar radiation management on monsoons. This is a list of papers i have read (skimmed, really, but i did stare at the pictures and take some notes ... but i can see i will be revisiting)

doi:10.1029/2007GL030524
As usual, Trenberth(2007) has thought about this. Pintatubo caused a drop
in  land precip and runoff, incresed (Palmer) drought severity in India

doi:10.1029/2008JD010050
Robock(2008) also saw effects on monsoon, but i believe his results were
not subsequently seen in other studies. Nevertheless, useful

G. Bala has written several papers, here is an overview from 2009 (no doi
? how odd), he is an author on many listed below

Bala, G. "Problems with Geoengineering Schemes to Combat Climate Change."
Current Science 96, no. 1 (2009): 41-48.

http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.569.2355&rep=rep1&type=pdf
Bollasina(2009) aerosols on monsoon, no doi

doi:10.1126/science.1204994
Bollasina(2011) same lines

Wang has a bunch papers about aerosol on monsoon effects, the latest is at doi: 10.1175/JCLI-D-18-0386.1

doi:10.1002/jgrd.50868
Tillmes et al. (2013) looks at hydrological impacts of SRM in GeoMIP

doi:10.5194/acp-14-7769-2014
Modak and Bala (2014) on SRM regional effects

doi:10.1007/s00382-014-2240-3
Kalidindi (2015) on SRM modelling

DOI 10.1007/s00382-017-3810-y
Nalam(2018) effect of arctic injections of aerosol on ISM

sidd

Nemesis

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Re: Geoengineering, another rush for money?
« Reply #334 on: December 25, 2018, 02:35:36 PM »
Geo- resp climate engineering has a long history, we can trace it back to Svante Arrhenius at least:

" We often hear lamentations that the coal stored up in the earth is wasted by the present generation without any thought of the future, and we are terrified by the awful destruction of life and property which has followed the volcanic eruptions of our days. We may find a kind of consolation in the consideration that here, as in every other case, there is good mixed with the evil. By the influence of the increasing percentage of carbonic acid in the atmosphere, we may hope to enjoy ages with more equable and better climates, especially as regards the colder regions of the earth, ages when the earth will bring forth much more abundant crops than at present, for the benefit of rapidly propagating mankind."

Svante Arrhenius, Worlds In The Making, 1908

I'd rather call it megalomaniac "Destruction of Worlds in the Making". Anyway, who am I? Just a complete nobody with no power whatsoever, lucky me. So, dear technocrats of the world:

Move on, move on :)

Nemesis

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Re: Geoengineering, another rush for money?
« Reply #335 on: December 25, 2018, 02:54:40 PM »
Militaristic dreams of godlike powers have a long history:

" This short film advocates drones, cloud seeding, weathercontrol, climate modification, storm steering and wireless electromagnetic manipulation of the atmosphere all the way back in 1959"



" Weather as a force multiplier: Owning the Weather in 2025"

http://prekladyodlesa.sk/wp-content/uploads/owning_the_weather_in_2025.pdf

Move on, just move on and good luck, you'll need it :)

Nemesis

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Re: Geoengineering, another rush for money?
« Reply #336 on: December 26, 2018, 04:10:33 AM »
A wonderful, almost(?) religious speech from J. F.  Kennedy (1961) about grabbing it all- the land, oceans, atmosphere, weather, space and beyond (just add Kurzweil's singularity resp immortality and you got some religious gospel par excellence):



Quote: " Progress is technology" (and science). Now, where are they 57 years later in terms of "progress"? Like Icarus a lot closer to the sun, getting roasted bit by bit. Science and technology can do a lot, but they can not replace common sense and ethics without becoming a terrific hubris. Science and technology combined with the military-industrial complex have become some sorcerer's apprentice, killing it's very megalomaniac host in the end.
« Last Edit: December 26, 2018, 02:18:34 PM by Nemesis »

Archimid

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Re: Geoengineering, another rush for money?
« Reply #337 on: March 04, 2019, 10:58:19 PM »
Wallace Smith Broecker, the 'grandfather' of climate science, leaves a final warning for Earth

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/grandfather-climate-science-leaves-final-warning-earth-n978426

Quote
If we are going to prevent the planet from warming up another couple of degrees, we are going to have to go to geoengineering,” he said. The price of continued inaction, he added somewhat ominously, could be “many more surprises in the greenhouse” known as Earth.
I am an energy reservoir seemingly intent on lowering entropy for self preservation.

Sigmetnow

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Re: Geoengineering, another rush for money?
« Reply #338 on: March 09, 2019, 09:08:08 PM »
"15 USC §§330a, 330d, 15 CFR §§908.10 & 908.21 make it a federal crime to willfully try to change the weather without submitting the correct forms."
https://twitter.com/CrimeADay/status/1103467398387113986

Form:
INITIAL REPORT ON WEATHER MODIFICATION ACTIVITIES
https://www.cio.noaa.gov/itmanagement/pdfs/0025frm.pdf

People who say it cannot be done should not interrupt those who are doing it.

Susan Anderson

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Re: Geoengineering, another rush for money?
« Reply #339 on: March 18, 2019, 04:06:52 PM »
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/mar/18/us-and-saudi-arabia-blocking-regulation-of-geoengineering-sources-say?
US and Saudi Arabia blocking regulation of geoengineering, sources say: Delegates at UN environment assembly say the oil producers are protecting their industries

Stratospheric controlled perturbation experiment (SCoPEx): a small-scale experiment to improve understanding of the risks of solar geoengineering https://projects.iq.harvard.edu/keutschgroup/scopex

I note that some third parties have pointed out that this is an evaluation, so piling on is not quite right. It has been pointed out that experimenting can help us to better understanding. We all know there are likely bad consequences, and we also all know - if we are honest - that the way we humans are, we're too lazy to count the long-term in the pursuit of apparent improvements in the short term. Scientific evaluation is not a full-on commitment to doing, but rather an effort to measure and find out.

morganism

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Re: Geoengineering, another rush for money?
« Reply #340 on: April 08, 2019, 11:14:06 PM »
Adding iron to oceans could increase carbon storage

https://cosmosmagazine.com/climate/adding-iron-to-oceans-could-increase-carbon-storage

"Using aircraft to distribute a fine iron powder over deficient ocean regions would approximate natural iron inputs, and timing flights with seasonal phytoplankton "blooms" would stimulate growth and boost populations."

https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fmars.2019.00022/full

"Preliminary experiments done in the authors laboratory have compared growth of a marine diatom under iron-limiting conditions using environmental biogenic iron oxides produced predominately by the freshwater iron-oxidizer Leptothrix ochracea (Figure 1) with abiotic or chemically synthesized ferrihydrite. The addition of biogenic oxides resulted in growth yields of ~60% compared to cultures grown in iron replete conditions, while growth yields with abiotic ferrihydrite were only about 15% of replete conditions, indicating biogenic iron oxides are readily available to at least one diatom species."

"paleo-estimates of CO2 reduction as a result of dust-borne iron fertilization are on the order of 50–80 ppm, from an atmosphere with at least 120 ppm less CO2 than is presently in the atmosphere (Martínez-García et al., 2014; Tagliabue et al., 2017). Another sign of the potential effectiveness of iron addition comes from the anomalous leveling off of CO2 build-up in the atmosphere in 1992 following the eruption of Mt Pinatubo in 1991. It is estimated that this major volcanic eruption may have released 4 × 1010 grams of iron into the atmosphere, a portion of which was then deposited over the Southern Ocean (Watson, 1997). One scenario suggests this led to an oceanic iron fertilization event that resulted in phytoplankton blooms that fueled additional sequestration of carbon by the biological pump and net removal of CO2 from the atmosphere "

pretty good overview paper..
« Last Edit: April 08, 2019, 11:25:56 PM by morganism »

Tor Bejnar

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Re: Geoengineering, another rush for money?
« Reply #341 on: May 16, 2019, 07:15:33 PM »
In the warming Arctic, a promising solution to climate change
Grist
Quote
… [Leslie Fields] began experimenting with tiny, hollow microbeads made mostly of silica, a type of sand made of quartz rock. (Unlike the plastic nanobeads found in cosmetics, which have become a scourge on the world’s waterways, the silica microbeads are safe for animals, aquatic life, and ecosystems.)

When spread across ice, these beads become a reflective shield against the sun, enhancing the ice’s natural albedo. They’re buoyant, so they float on melt ponds and slushier patches of sea ice. Spread these beads across strategic areas of Arctic ice, Field thought, and more of it might survive through the summers, keeping reflectivity high and short-circuiting that vicious ice-albedo feedback loop.

Field and her team have tested the microbeads across more than three football fields’ worth of lake ice at the Barrow Arctic Research Center/Environmental Observatory since 2016. Buoys designed and placed by the Ice911 team since 2010 send data wirelessly from various test sites back to the organization’s labs in Sunnyvale and Redwood City, California, so that researchers can measure ice growth, reflectivity, weather, and water currents. They use satellite imagery and aerial photos taken by Maverick, their line-of-sight drone, to compare the reflectivity of treated ice to untreated ice.

Their findings so far: Ice treated with silica microbeads grows thicker and more reflective with each application. Ice911 modeling suggests that spreading the beads in only a few strategic areas, like the Beaufort Gyre or the Fram Strait, could reverse melting across the Arctic.
I'm the opposite of excited (it's crazy, as best I can tell - and I don't believe it is eco-friendly), although it is interesting.  But worst: "Fram Strait"???? ::)
Arctic ice is healthy for children and other living things because "we cannot negotiate with the melting point of ice"

Tom_Mazanec

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« Last Edit: June 03, 2019, 01:05:28 PM by Tom_Mazanec »

sidd

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Re: Geoengineering, another rush for money?
« Reply #343 on: July 05, 2019, 08:29:14 AM »
Here's some geoengineering: Trees are the answer ?

205 GT carbon potential sequestration.

“we estimate that 0.9 billion hectares are found outside cropland and urban regions ”

“More than 50% of the tree restoration potential can be found in only six countries (in million hectares: Russia, +151; United States, +103; Canada, +78.4; Australia, +58; Brazil, +49.7; and China, +40.2)”

“there is likely to be space for at least an additional 0.9 billion ha of canopy cover. If these restored woodlands and forests were allowed to mature to a similar state of existing ecosystems in protected areas, they could store 205 GtC. Of course, the carbon capture associated with global restoration could not be instantaneous because it would take several decades for forests to reach maturity. Nevertheless, under the assumption that most of this additional carbon was sourced from the atmosphere, reaching this maximum restoration potential would reduce a considerable proportion of the global anthropogenic carbon burden (~300 GtC) to date (1). ”

doi: 10.1126/science.aax0848

coverage at

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/jul/04/planting-billions-trees-best-tackle-climate-crisis-scientists-canopy-emissions

Posted at realclimate also.

sidd


RikW

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Re: Geoengineering, another rush for money?
« Reply #344 on: July 05, 2019, 10:58:41 AM »
yeah, it's also on the dutch news: https://nos.nl/artikel/2292132-plant-1-000-000-000-000-bomen-om-klimaatverandering-aan-te-pakken.html

just like we said a couple of months ago in one of these topics, if everyone on earth plants 1 tree every day for 2 years (okay, that's more like 4B trees)

SteveMDFP

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Re: Geoengineering, another rush for money?
« Reply #345 on: July 05, 2019, 02:21:13 PM »
yeah, it's also on the dutch news: https://nos.nl/artikel/2292132-plant-1-000-000-000-000-bomen-om-klimaatverandering-aan-te-pakken.html

just like we said a couple of months ago in one of these topics, if everyone on earth plants 1 tree every day for 2 years (okay, that's more like 4B trees)

Trees grow from seeds.  Humanity plants many billions of seeds every year already.

ArcticMelt2

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Re: Geoengineering, another rush for money?
« Reply #346 on: July 05, 2019, 03:24:44 PM »
In my opinion these are false hopes.

https://courses.seas.harvard.edu/climate/eli/Courses/global-change-debates/Sources/07-Forest-fires/more/Song-etal-2016.pdf

Satellite images show that between 1982 and 2016, forest area increased by 0.24 billion hectares.

During this time, the concentration of carbon dioxide increased to 70 parts per million.

By the middle of the 21st century, the population of the planet will grow to 10 billion. They will all want to eat well. Replacing fossil fuels with biofuels will require even more arable land.

Depletion of phosphorus deposits will increase the cost of mineral fertilizers and reduce yields. Climate change may further increase the chances of a crop collapse.
« Last Edit: July 05, 2019, 07:46:04 PM by ArcticMelt2 »

ArcticMelt2

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Re: Geoengineering, another rush for money?
« Reply #347 on: July 05, 2019, 03:42:39 PM »
Now, to provide food for 3-4 billion people (the rest are starving), we need to extract 250 million tons of phosphorusters every year:



For comparison, the global harvest is about 2 billion tons of grain per year.

When we pass the peak of production of these phosphorites, we will have to destroy most of the forests on the contrary.

A good example of the imminent depletion of phosphate rock is the state of Nauru, where the standard of living over the last 20-30 years has dropped 2-3 times.

An example of total deforestation and soil erosion is Easter Island, where the population has decreased by an order of magnitude over several hundred years.

ArcticMelt2

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Re: Geoengineering, another rush for money?
« Reply #348 on: July 05, 2019, 03:59:20 PM »
For example, in this work  predicted is the peak of phosphorus mining around 2035.

https://www.phosphorusplatform.eu/images/download/HCSS_17_12_12_Phosphate.pdf

Probably by 2100 most of the forests on the planet will be destroyed.

ArcticMelt2

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Re: Geoengineering, another rush for money?
« Reply #349 on: July 05, 2019, 04:31:37 PM »
In many countries, phosphates are already depleted. The most famous example is the state of Nauru. For example, in the US, their production fell by 2 times:



When this happens all over the planet, there will be no forests left.