The negative that I came away with was that there is the possibility of some group (or country) embarking on this project surreptitiously, to avoid any legal challenges, with no concern for those that might be harmed.
Very good point. For example, nations with coasts on the Arctic ocean might find the idea of an ice free arctic appealing. Lower latitude countries like the USA might find heatwaves and drought not so appealing. Doing something on the scale of orbital solar radiation management will require international cooperation but because interests seem opposite it will not happen. However if we wait until something like a BOE interests will change. I think that it will be so bad, that what seems like madness now, will look like a veritable necessity for all mankind.
Archimid, affecting/changing is NOT controlling.
I looked up the dictionary definition and I think human induced warming fits it. But I think I understand what you mean. The word does have a connotation of an active will. Since humanity seems unable to stop warming the planet, they really don't control it in the full sense of the word.
And cooling just the Arctic in summer, even if it can succeed with these proposed mechanisms, will have lots of unintended consequences, most of them negative I would imagine.
For example:
There will be an extreme differential between hot equator and frozen pole. This could create great storms and other weather disruptions.
The polar jet stream might be accelerated or otherwise afftected, who knows what this might cause.
The Inuits, Alaskans and Siberians and maybe Northern Europeans and Canadians might lose their summer. I doubt they will be happy with that.
Global ocean circulation, and specifically AMOC, might be affected by the vastly different behavior of the Arctic in summer. This could cause lots of problems that might appear only a long time after your experiment.
etc.
I completely agree with all of what you say as a possible consequence of orbital radiation management. The thing is that all of those things you mentioned are already being affected by global warming and once we pass some tipping points like a BOE thing are only going to get much more worse.
And what is the justification - that some people couldn't hold off making more babies or taking more flights or whatever? Humans will not be able to control the climate effectively. It's best to focus on limiting birth and consumption, and if worse comes to worse carbon capture. Although most probably the best focus will be on adaptation and survival in the face of the climate disaster.
I think the justification will be that we have no choice. Time is running out/ has run out for combating global warming by limiting CO2 emissions. Very soon, if its not already happening, Earth CO2 emissions will increase to the point that human CO2 emissions are made irrelevant. I'm talking about extra emissions through decreased CO2 absorption of the oceans and burnt forests and increased emissions by permafrost melt, burnt forests and death of ecosystems. not about the total natural emissions that were in balance with nature for the last million years.
• Warm ocean waters from the Pacific flow into the arctic and melt the sea ice.
The more thick ice, the more warm water can be buffered. Cooling the arctic sduring summer preserves ice that can thicken during the winter and help prevent next year's warm waters.
• Storms enter the arctic and break up the ice, making it more prone to melt.
The more ice cover, the less open oceans. The less open oceans, the less potential energy storms have available. The less potential energy storm have available the less they can break the ice.
• Arctic ocean currents drive sea ice out of the arctic via the Fram Strait, where it flows south and melts.
orbital radiation management does not stop that, but maybe a stop gap can be engineered using icebergs. However a cooler arctic will replace ice lost through export much quicker.
• Greenhouse gasses trap heat reflected from the earth's surface, keeping the atmosphere warmer. Warmer winds from the continents and the oceans continually criss-cross the arctic....
Green house gasses are only greenhouse gasses because of solar radiation. The less sunlight available the less they can work.
> Blocking the sun over the Arctic does nothing to prevent warmth from outside the Arctic coming in -- all day, every day.
To the contrary. If the arctic is cooler, because it has less sunlight, more heat will flow to it and dissipate. Like it always has been, just with a little help.
> Changing the amount of sunlight striking the arctic would change ocean and air currents in unforeseen ways, potentially making the situation worse, not better.
It absolutely will, but they are changing already and fixing to change a heck of a lot more. the sad thing is that cooling the arctic will not make ocean and air currents back to where they are supposed to be. But given the prospect of abrupt warming I
can't imagine how cooling the arctic to something similar to it's original state will be worse.
> And a "magic space cloud" could actually trap
more heat in the arctic, by blocking earthly heat that is normally released to space.
If you do it in the atmosphere it will absolutely trap more heat. My suggestion is to do it in space, so the sunlight simply never enters the earth system.
i genuinely adore the amount of time and energy that is put into this thread, i wanted to reply as second post but the idea is so strange and non-executable that all that came to my mind would have come across as an offense.
Fire away, I don't bite...hard
