I’ve always been impressed with real-time monitoring and control technologies and their ability to improve conditions on the earth. But I had never fully thought through where these technologies might be headed long-term. One possibility is: they are paving the way for sophistricated forms of geoengineering. The whole idea of geoengineering is starting to get buzz in the popular press.
Geoengineering, the application of technology to influence the conditions on a planet and previously thought to be a fringe discipline, has been rescued from kookdom by Nobel Prize winner Paul Crutzen who suggested releasing vast amounts of sulfurous debris into the atmosphere to create a haze that could cool the planet (an artifical volcano), thereby helping to alleviate the problems associated with global warming.
This concept is not that different from cloudseeding which is currently being used to increase snowpack and mitigate thunderstorms. For example, in the higher mountains of Utah, liquid propane gas is automatically released into the atmosphere when winter conditions are cloudy. This procedure is used to enhance snowpack during dry years.
Also to cool the earth, Roger Angel, an eminent astronomer and telescope designer at the University of Arizona, has proposed launching trillions of two-foot-wide, thinner-than-Kleenix disks of silicon nitride into space where they could deflect sunlight. This effort would take decades and cost trillions of dollars. The two sunshade proposals are not intended as permanent fixes, but as stop-gap measures to be used until we solve our CO2 issues.
Bill Gates even has a geoengineering proposal. He, climate scientist Ken Caldeira, and others recently applied for five patents related to slowing hurricanes. The patents describe methods not limited to “atmospheric management, weather management, hurricane suppression, hurricane prevention, hurricane intensity modulation, (and) hurricane deflection.” The proposal involves pumping cold, deep-ocean water from barges.
” . . . if enough pumps are deployed, it is reasonable to expect some diminution of hurricane power,” says hurricane expert Kerry Emanuel of MIT. He is not part of the Gate’s team. Cutting sea surface temperature by 4.5 degrees under the eye of a hurricane could actually kill a storm.
Who said you can’t do anything about the weather? We can raise (global warming) or potentially reduce (sunshading) the earth’s temperature, increase snowpack (cloudseeding), reduce the intensity of thunderstorms (cloudseeding), and maybe even prevent or mitigate hurricanes (ocean pumping).
But, of course, anytime you mess with Mother Nature, there may be unintended consequences.
The following letter appeared in NG (Dec. 2009):
As a dermatologist, I’m all for sunscreens. But launching trillions of sun-deflecting disks into space to combat global warming? I think most folks would call this unconscionable cosmic litter, the scope of which is simply beyond sanity. Changing human behavior means preaching less personal, institutional, and political greed. A competitive society equates success with acquisition and growth. Living within means, with an eye toward simple sustainability and with respect for the Earth? We need to go there: as families, as a country, and as a global community.
Lisa A Pawelski
Pittsburg, Pennsylvania
The following letter appeared in NG (Dec. 2009):
This may sound like a good idea, but what are we going to do when we need to get rid of the reflectors because of an impending ice age?
Bill Moulton
Port St. Lucie, Florida
The following letter appeared in NG (Dec. 2009):
Bad Idea. We can’s even begin to clean up the space junk already around the Earth. Of course, parking billions of reflectors somewhere like in Lagrangian point may sound slyly techy, but it could also interfere with the way we measure and learn about solar emissions, particularly storms that could kill our astronauts, damage our communications satellites and GPS, and fry our electrical grid. Intelligent use of what we already have on Earth is the wise way forward.
A. Cannara
Menlo Park, California
The following letter appeared in NG (Dec. 2009):
It a cloud of reflectors is implemented to reduce the use of fossil fuels, what will we use to heat our homes on this cooler Earth? The cloud will reduce the effectiveness of solar energy, making it even more expensive. Cooler temperatures and less light will also reduce vegetation, reducing the biomass available for biofuels, not to mention food for the world’s population. What’s the big idea.
Tim and Judy Nelson
Jamestown, Tennessee
The following letter appeared in NG (Dec. 2009):
I was surprised that your article did not even mention ocean acidification, the evil twin of climate change. While it is true that there may be schemes to temporarily mask increasing temperatures, they will do nothing to combat the problem of increasingly acidic oceans. About a third of our carbon dioxide emissions is absorbed by the oceans, making them more acidic. As ocean acidity increases, many species are threatened, expecially those that build shells and skeletons out of calcium carbonate, such as corals, oysters, and mollusks. In fact, some scientists predict that coral reeefs could be extinct by the end of the century if we do not reduce our carbon dioxide emissions. So, while geoengineering fixes like the one in your article might seem like an easy solution to this problem, the only true solution is to mitigate our caron dioxide emissions.
Ellycia Harrould-Kolieb
Washington, DC
Note that all the above letters are negative toward the “sun-deflecting disk” proposal.
The following appeared in NG (Aug 2010):
Trees take CO2 out of the atmosphere. “Physicist Klaus Lackner thinks he has a better idea (than covering the Earth with trees): Suck CO2 out of the air with “artificial trees” that operate a thousand times faster than real ones.
They don’t exist yet, and when they do, they probably won’t look like trees. But in Lackner’s lab at Columbia University he and colleague Allen Wright are experimenting with bits of whitish-beige plastic that you might call artificial leaves. The plastic is a resin of th kind used to pull calcium out of water in a water softener. When Lackner and Wright impregnate that resin with sodium carbonate, it pulls carbon dioxide out of the air. The extra carbon converts the sodium carbonate to bicarbonate, or baking soda.”
According to the Royal Society, geoengineering is defined as: “the deliberate large-scale intervention in the Earth’s climate system, in order to moderate global warming.” I think I would prefer a broader definition that would include activities like cloudseeding to enhance snowpack, mitigating hurricanes, reducing the severity of thunderstorms, etc., which may not be directly related to global warming.
From Jeff Goodell”s book “Cooling the Planet” (page 3): “What was new in Crutzen’s paper–new to me, anyway– was the view that some of this accelerated warming was driven not only by high levels of CO2 but also by the progress we have made in the fight against smog and other traditional pollutants. The tiny particles that cause some kinds of air pollution act like mirrors in the sky, reflecting sunlight away from the earth, which cools the planet. As we eliminate pollution, the particles vanish, letting us all breathe easier–but also letting more sunlight in, which heats up the earth ever faster. As Crutzen pointed out, trying to save kids from asthma, we were inadventently making the climate crisis worse.”
An article from AARP the Magazine (November 2010, p. 65) reads:
“Here’s the unsettling thing about climate change: No one knows exactly how the earth will respond to accumulating greenhouse gases. Still, many scientists and policy experts believe we’ll have to tinker with the planet by “fertilizing” the ocean with iron to encourage the growth of carbon-capturing phytoplankton, building “artificial trees” to absorb carbon dioxide, or shooting seawater into the air to produce sunlight-reflecting clouds. Many fear unintended consequences from such geoengineering, but journalist Eli Kintisch, author of “Hack the Planet,” points out that the National Academy of Sciences and the American Geophysical Union both favor studying the idea. “While getting to a renewable energy future is critically important,” he says, “putting up solar panels or driving electric cars won’t stop the arctic from melting if it’s melting tomorrow.”
Economist Matthew Kahn of the University of California at Los Angeles worries about geoengineering for another reason: If people think there’s a technological fix for climate change, they might not support carbon-cutting policies. “Climate-change adaptation,” Kahn says, “comes down to whether we are Mr. Spock or Homer Simpson”–proactive logicians or lazy procrastinators.”
The following short article by Thomas Hayden appeared in Time magazine (Oct 2010):
“Most hail hits in the midlatitudes, on plains downwind of major mountain chains. But intense hail conditions can exist wherever warm, moist air is pushed to great heights, even near the Equator. The high-altitude tea-growing region of Kericho, Kenya, is more than 7,000 feet above sea level and may have more days with hail than any other place in the world (hail seeded by dust from farming).
In 2009, 306 destructive hailstorms in 16 states caused more than $500M in damage to crops and property in the US. With warmer, wetter summers predicted for the Great Plains, experts fear that the number is sure to rise.”
According to the Daily Mail (3 Jan 2011) accessed 4 Jan 2011:
“Fifty rainstorms were created last year in Abu Dhabi’s eastern Al Ain region using technology designed to control the weather. . . .
The Metro System scientists used ionisers to produce negatively charged particles called electrons.
They have a natural tendency to attach to tiny specks of dust which are ever-presnet in the atmosphere in the desert-regions.
These are then carried up from the emitters by convection–upward currents of air generated by the heat release from sunlight as it hits the ground.
Once the dust particles reach the right height for cloud formation, the charges will attract water molecules floating in the air which then start to condense around them.
If there is sufficient moisture in the air, it induces billions of droplets to form which finally mean cloud and rain. . . .
They have been using giant ionisers, shaped like stripped down lampshades on steel poles, to generate fields of negatively charged particles.
These promote cloud formation and researchers hope they could then produce rain.
Last June Metro Systems built five ionising sites each with 20 emitters which can send trillions of cloud forming ions into the atmosphere.
Over four summer months the emitters were switched on when the required atmospheric level of humidity reached 30 percent.
The project was monitored by the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology, one of the world’s major centres for atmospheric physics.
Professor Hartmut Grassi, a former institute director, said: There are many application. One is getter water into a dry area.
“Maybe this is a most important point for mankind.”