... I'll believe it when I read about it in a journal.
You definitely do not understand the scale and nature of the current predicament (or may be you just make it seem like that's the case on purpose, possibly with a noble intent), in my humble opinion.
Define 'our predicament'.
Do you honestly believe some journal(s) will be allowed to write about ongoing large-scale geo-engineering effort in the Arctic (if or when such an effort begins)?...
Manhattan was only one governement, Arctic science is international. How does one hide the signal of geoengineering in raw radiometer data from MODIS? Answer - it cannot be done without leaving a trace of it being done.
What do you think the Russian Government would do if they found out the Americans were geo-engineering over what the Russian's clearly consider to be their Arctic. Given their current problems with NATO do you think they would miss the chance to kick up a fuss?
Before answering this, if you haven't already done so, I suggest you watch Russia Today - the voice of the Kremlin, that spends most of its time muck-raking against the west.
Actually I'll start a thread on this, don't reply to these points here, reply on the "Is the Arctic being geoengineered?" thread.
Chris, i am only replying here - against my previous intention not to, - because you asked me to do so. Let me write it more clearly: because YOU asked me to do so. Otherwise, this would go as a PM to you.
First, i am very glad you did not take any offense from my previous message (quoted above). There was none. Amazingly, someone else did, and left a public message about it in the previous topic. I am glad to mention that i sent a PM to the guy, explaining his error politely, and his response to my PM was, in entirety: "You're right, I over-reacted and got some things wrong to boot. I'm sorry for that." I am grateful to him for his understanding, and for courage to admit his error. His answer is definitely the way to go for any honest scientist in such a situation.
Second, to define "our predicament". In the context of this discussion and in my a bit informed opinion, our predicament is the difficulty which powers that be currently have, but most importantly will increasingly have in the observable future (2020s, 2030s) in maintaining presently existing globalized industrial society, with most of its institutions continuing their function, while in the same time preparing for the inevitable crash of it.
You see, Earth climate is definitely screwed, and is getting worse quickly. Last decade statistics about number and strength of hurricanes, about floods, about droughts and desertification, worldwide - are jsut a few indicators of it. I hope you are familiar with them. AFAICT, "additional" damage done is already counted in hundreds of billions of US dollars _annually_ (if not to exclude 3rd world countries, that is). Existance of the modern globalized industrial civilization requires stable and agriculture-friendly-enough climate. Therefore, while public "debates" cons and pros of geo-engineering, writes petitions against "irresponsible" intents about it, etc etc, - powers that be will act without much (if any) consideration about public opinion, whatever ways possible.
The definition above, in turn, may raise further questions, such as:
1) what are "powers that be"?
2) why any difficulty which "powers that be" may have - is _our_ predicament?
3) what's so difficult about it - isn't modern society going on by itself with no help needed?
4) why modern globalized industrial society will "inevitably crash"?
5) what preparations powers-that-be take, and why nobody hears about those?
Answers to them, as far as i know, are:
1) those are people who have the power to make and enforce most important and massive decisions made on the level of most developed countries, largest international corporations, most powerful military forces of the world, most powerful and big financial institutions. Their existance is certain. Their abilities are ultimate. Their intellect is very high. Their obligations and duties (both internal and external) are massive and hands-tying. Many of them are merciless and cruel. They are "elite". Most importantly, those are people who have the most ability (in compare to any other class of people in the world) to implement policies - i.e. to do something which is not just "profitable" in the sense of short-term money gain.
2) because most of us (here, at least) are critically dependent on continued existance and functioning of global industrial system. Our food, our clothes, goods and items we need and buy, - need to be available, i.e. made, somewhere somehow. And transported. Mankind also needs lots of electricity and raw matherials (for building, repairs, etc), herbs and substances (for medicine), etc. Therefore, when part of this global system has difficulties - and powers that be are a part of this system, much comparable to brain being a part of human body, - we have a predicament. If powers that be will fail to perform their "tune, control and steer" function within the global system, - then most likely the system will fail. Much like human body, which doesn't live (any long) without a brain. Ultimate result would probably be unnatural death of most of us. If that's not "our predicament", then what is.
3) nope, modern global industrial civilization does not go "by itself", with no help needed. It was the case up to ~1990s, i guess. But, not anymore. Oil prices are not actually "free" in many parts of the world, anymore. Agriculture is massively donated from state budgets - if it wouldn't be, then it would become non-profitable activity, and with capitalistic system, it means it'd fail to exist. Nitrogen cycle of Earth is in big trouble, and things grow - possibly in most of areas which have vegetation presently, - only because humans keep making and using mindblowingly huge amounts of fertilizers every year. Climate-related disasters produce increasingly massive destruction, which _demand_ massive help - lots of which comes definitely not via "free market" methods; few of most known, quite recent and large-scale examples are hurricanes in New Orleans (2005), in New York area (2013, was it?), massive floods in Russia's far east regions (2013), in Europe (last ten years in a row - bottom of the
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_floods_in_Europe list also has number of fatalities per each event), unprecedented droughts in Russia (2010), US (2010 to now -
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012%E2%80%9314_North_American_drought), etc. Similar in power disasters strike China, India, Pakistan and lots of other "less talked about" countries, as well. There are already countries which failed to the combined pressure of some of mentioned and other (more than a dozen) destabilizing factors - those are the five countries with "very high alert" status in this year's "fragile states index" (see
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_Fragile_States_Index#Very_High_Alert ), and possibly few more among ones with "high alert" status, as well. It takes work to prevent same thing to happen with more developed countries, and as environmental degradation of the biosphere of Earth continues and intensifies, such work becomes more and more massive - and thus, it becomes more and more difficult to do it.
4) It's not sustainable. Combination of laws of physics (burning hydrocarbons is easy and huge energy, given Earth's oxygen-rich athmosphere, and the fact that both carbon and hydrogen are lighter atoms than oxygen, plus the fact that carbon binds TWO oxygen atoms when burning - results in very attractive weight/power ratio for hydrocarbon fuels), capitalistic system (cheeap things win, period) and inertia of mankind's infrastructure (we've built fossil-fuel-based systems for more than a century, and each damn thing has an OWNER who's not happy to have his property to become useless, isn't he) - results in impossiblity of any quick change. Give it at least another half a century, while applying constant and massive pressure through policies for it to change - and may be it'd become significantly more sustainable than now. But we do not have 50 more years of business-as-usual. We don't even have 10. In fact, we're already past the point of no-return; most recent papers on the subject are conclusive. Guy McPherson has a good list of some of them on his nature bats last (no, i don't agree with him about human extinction being inevitable, but this in no way makes his collection of links less impressive; among some which are definitely not so convincing, he has many which are).
5) Geez, of course very few people hear about them. If any. It'd be a panic, should full detail be revealed to the public. What's good in that - for public itself? Sadly, can't "save everyone". But some not-so-loud things are still known even by us commoners. Vaults to store seeds, like the big one in Norway. Massive underground cities which can house dozens of thousands of people in complete autonomy for half a year or longer, like the one under mount Yamantau in southern Ural mountains. This one has tunnels up to 19 meters in diameter, i've seen 1st-hand written testimonies from people who been there; there, underground, are 5-floor buildings inside those tunnels, literally, with appartments, massive air circulation systems, asphalt roads, etc. The facility is designed to house 40.000...60.000 people in full autonomy for half a year. It's secret facility with at least two circles of armed guards around it, and any tourists who try to get any close are escorted out by military folks. Russian officials were saying different things about it - sometimes it's said to be an uranium mine, sometimes - classified military facility, sometimes - a federal food storage reserve, sometimes its existance is simply denied. Facts are, creation of it started in late USSR years, and continued during 1990s (which were highly problematic in Russia). There even were protests from western officials about it - when Russia had no money for anything, including no money to pay its debts at once to western creditors, this project was still funded and going on. There even were fears in the West that Russia is going to restart the cold war, and Yamantau is part of the preparation. Thing is, Yamantau is Russia's "when SHTF" thing on a federal level - similar large installations exist in other countries as well. I've seen photos of one of those. Especially striking was the one where they grow rice right there, underground, using fully artificial illumination. For reasons which i hope are not nesessary to explain, i am not willing to disclose sources of the above information. I guess quite a few other signs of such preparations are possible to find even in public domain, and if the reader of this message will decide to find out what's what, he'll most likely find many, if his intellect and skill in using internet search queries are both well above average.
And to answer the rest of your message.
No, i don't think one hides the data from MODIS. Rather, i think one alters data from MODIS even before such data reaches any of "not involved" personnel. Given the recent scandal with Angela Merkel personal mobile phone, which was (as they say, without her knowing) hacked by US federal services, - and US is "friendly" to Germany, even, - i see no technical problem whatsoever in a possible secret services involvement in altering MODIS and other relevant data very close to the point of direct instrumental measurement, in order to hide whatever they want to hide in the Arctic. If done well, it won't even produce any many inconsistencies detectable, if any at all. Also, i do not exclude the possibility of active and highly tunable real-time from Earth "intermidiary" device, installed on board of satellites, which is able to alter results of measurements taken in a highly tunable manner right up there, within the satellite itself, - because, don't forget, satellites with MODIS were launched by NASA, and NASA is US federal agency, which just _has_ to do things "like it or not", if ordered "from above", - such as if ordered by high-ranking enough CIA official, for example.
And no, i don' think russian government would make any fuss. Perhaps you are not so familiar with history of Russia. You see, when USSR fell apart, Russia became USSR's "son", in the sense that all debts, problems and obligations USSR had - became Russia's. Among other things, there was bankruptcy of the state's economy, big food problems, poverty, hyper-inflation. Basically, USSR fell on its knees and fell apart, and Russia's position was "on its knees" in the early 1990s. In such conditions, the victor of the cold war - the West, led by USA, - established quite many conditions and terms, under which it was agreed to allow Russia to exist as a single entity forward. Just one example: the country's current constitution was made in 1993 and is still in power, and one of "terms of capitulation" was that russian oil, gas and other mineral riches be available for foreign owners; as a result, even now, russian constitution mentions the country's land's mineral reserves being available for ALL sorts of owners, including privately owned companies. Only the country's shores are declared to belong to the people of the country. So you see, Russia is not really independent all this time since USSR fell apart; we, now, are just a colony of the West. Sad, but true. That's why you see all major western companies doing business in Russia nowadays. Ford? Sure. VW? Of course. Toyota? You bet. Etc etc. In the USSR, foreign goods were rare and often prized posession; in modern Russia, foreign things are everywhere you look. With all that in existanse - nope, government won't make a fuss at all. It is just a convinient political game to picture modern Russia as an "opponent", as a truly sovereign country which got its own fully independent political will. Which it is not. Putin is a strong politician, and yes, he made lots of difference over the years, decreasing the country's dependencies. His recent ban on food imports from the West is perhaps his largest achievement during ~15 years he's in top political leadership here - but many other things still remain. Last but not least, i am sure that nobody (of those who know) want the panic - not in the West, not here in Russia. Let's imagine that indeed, one morning, mr. Putin was visited by some high-position Federal Service of Security official, who presented him very detailed evidence of geo-engineering in the Arctic, done by US companies/services. I'll tell you what Putin would do 1st: he'd call Barak, and ask him: "hey, wtf are you doing in our Arctic, sir?" - and Barak would then tell: "Volodya, we are saving everyone's butt there - including your own. By the way, if you have any bright climatologist heads in your Academy of Sciences, - send them to US embassy in Moscow; we have work for them, and it's in your own interests, too. Oh, and don't be so silly as to make this issue public, or else". And i can imagine Putin, being smartass he is, replying: "I see. Ok, i'll see what i can do. Good night, Barak". But will he make a fuss, given the fact he was completing the Yamantau installation during 2000s (visiting nearby ski resort relatively frequently)? Geez, of course not.
Best of luck to you, Chris.
P.S. Manhatan was one government, but so is world nowadays - at least in some of political senses. Do you remember "Axis of evil", declared by Bush? 5 or 6 countries, most of them small, only Iran being a big country - that thing. Well, my guess is, those countries were in fact very last ones in the world which were not critically dependent (at least in some essential regards) from the West (the latter being US, UK, Canada, NZ, AU with parts of EU involved). I have reasons to suspect Iran was subdued since then. Basically, today, if US state department wants something, it gets it - no matter what hemisphere/region it is. No? =)