Geoengineering would turn blue skies whiter

[joshcryer]

Geoengineering would turn blue skies whiter
Blue skies would fade to hazy white if geoengineers inject light-scattering aerosols into the upper atmosphere to offset global warming. Critics have already warned that this might happen, but now the effect has been quantified.

Releasing sulphate aerosols high in the atmosphere should in theory reduce global temperatures by reflecting a small percentage of the incoming sunlight away from the Earth. However, the extra particles would also scatter more of the remaining light into the atmosphere. This would reduce by 20 per cent the amount of sunlight that takes a direct route to the ground, and it would increase levels of softer, diffuse scattered light, says Ben Kravitz of the Carnegie Institution for Science in Stanford, California.

...

Kravitz calculated how scattering from particles ranging from 0.1 to 0.9 micrometers in diameter would affect the spectrum of the scattered light, and how that would affect the colour of the sky. He found the sky would appear paler for all potential diameters. Particles with diameters in the middle of the range would make for much whiter skies.

The effect would be most visible in the countryside, where air pollution is generally lower, says Kravitz. "All you'd have to do to see it is to step outside."

This is what we're going to resort to. We aren't doing enough about CO2 emissions to stop catastrophic warming, so we're going to bleach the fucking sky. At least it won't be yellow as I envisioned it would be. So there's that.

[joshcryer]

1. Geoengineering experiment cancelled amid patent row

Geoengineering experiment cancelled amid patent row
A field trial for a novel UK geoengineering experiment has been cancelled amid questions about a pre-existing patent application for some of the technology involved.

The Stratospheric Particle Injection for Climate Engineering (SPICE) project is a collaboration among several UK universities and Cambridge-based Marshall Aerospace to investigate the possibility of spraying particles into the stratosphere to mitigate global warming. Such particles could mimic the cooling produced by large volcanic eruptions, by reflecting sunlight before it reaches Earth’s surface.

But the field-trial arm of SPICE — which would have seen around 150 litres of water pumped into the atmosphere through a 1-kilometre hosepipe attached to a balloon — has now been abandoned.

“It is with some regret that today the SPICE team has announced we’ve decided to call off the outdoor ‘1km testbed’ experiment that was scheduled for later this year,” said Matthew Watson, the principal investigator of SPICE and an Earth scientist at the University of Bristol, UK, in an e-mail statement to Nature.

[joshcryer]

2. A charter for geoengineering

A charter for geoengineering
Geoengineering research has a problem. That much should be clear following last week's cancellation of a field trial for the Stratospheric Particle Injection for Climate Engineering (SPICE) project. The solutions to this problem are not so obvious, but they must be found — and fast.

The SPICE field trial was supposed to involve spraying water into the atmosphere at an altitude of 1 kilometre using a balloon and hosepipe, as part of a host of work exploring whether it is possible to mitigate global warming by introducing particles into the stratosphere to reflect some of the Sun's energy away from Earth.

But the field trial — which is only a small part of the overall SPICE project — became bogged down in protests and delays almost as soon as it was announced. Last week, as first reported by Nature, the project's lead investigator announced that it was being abandoned, citing concerns about intellectual-property rights, public engagement and the overall governance regime for such work.

Colleagues have leapt to the defence of the SPICE team, and praised its decision to continue with the theoretical strands of its work. Indeed, the researchers have acted with commendable honesty. But the SPICE issue is a perfect example of the problems that will persist until geoengineers grasp the nettle of regulation and oversight.

Geoengineering is becoming the go to solution for climate change.

Which I've been bemoaning for years:

2011: http://sync.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1127&pid=1298

2010: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=115&topic_id=267489&mesg_id=267531

2009: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=115&topic_id=218247&mesg_id=218315

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=115&topic_id=208065&mesg_id=208319

[Nihil]

14. ... and I've been there with you ...

... bemoaning the stupidity of the "geoengineering will save us" team ...

The trouble with it is that regardless of its gross failings, its uncertainty and its
suicidal gambling

1) It appeals to the "Deus Ex Machina" crowd and to the non-believers who have
the same philosophical approach ("Deus ex humana"?).

2) It appeals to the uber-technophilia of the Kurzweilian crowd.

3) It *really* appeals to the "Business As Usual" crowd as not only does it allow
them to continue maximising profit without any of that boring environmental
protection/preservation rubbish but also provides another opportunity for
profit from a new field (again, without any penalty until after they've retired/died).

As a result, GeoStupidity Inc will keep coming back, keep being supported in
"new initiatives" and keep blocking out genuine action.

[drokhole]

15. +1

Since we won't change our behaviors, let's change the world to fit our behaviors! Even though we have absolutely no clue the "unintended" consequences. I mean, it's not like it's very dangerous to mess around with processes we don't fully understand, with all of the enormous amount of interacting and interconnected variables involved.

(What Are People Really Talking About When They Talk About "Geo-Engineering"? <---- good article)

[dipsydoodle]

3. From 7 years ago

Why the Sun seems to be 'dimming' : http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4171591.stm

[GliderGuider]

4. Nobody actually needs to SEE the stars. That's what we have satellites for...

[The2ndWheel]

5. I'm not sure resort is the right word

I think the collective we would want to attempt to do this in and of itself at some point. It would just be the continuation of what the collective we have been trying to do to one degree or another for however many years.

It's not "hooray, we finally get to do this!", and it's not "awww, I guess we have no other choice." It's somewhere in between. It's not something we have to do, but we may have the ability to do it, and if history is any sort of guide, that means we probably will if we can. Just because.

[OKIsItJustMe]

6. Mind you, this is just one scenario. (i.e. adding sufates to the upper atmosphere.)

Other schemes (like terra preta/biochar) would not produce the same effects.

http://www.egu.eu/home/geoengineering-could-disrupt-rainfall-patterns.html

[font face=Serif][font size=5]Press Release: Geoengineering could disrupt rainfall patterns[/font]
[font size=4]A geoengineering solution to climate change could lead to significant rainfall reduction in Europe and North America, a team of European scientists concludes. The researchers studied how models of the Earth in a warm, CO2-rich world respond to an artificial reduction in the amount of sunlight reaching the planet’s surface. The study is published today in Earth System Dynamics, an Open Access journal of the European Geosciences Union (EGU).[/font]

[font size=3]Tackling climate change by reducing the solar radiation reaching our planet using climate engineering, known also as geoengineering, could result in undesirable effects for the Earth and humankind. In particular, the work by the team of German, Norwegian, French, and UK scientists shows that disruption of global and regional rainfall patterns is likely in a geoengineered climate.

“Climate engineering cannot be seen as a substitute for a policy pathway of mitigating climate change through the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions,” they conclude in the paper.

…

Under the scenario studied, rainfall strongly decreases – by about 15 percent (some 100 millimetres of rain per year) of preindustrial precipitation values – in large areas of North America and northern Eurasia. Over central South America, all models show a decrease in rainfall that reaches more than 20 percent in parts of the Amazon region. Other tropical regions see similar changes, both negative and positive. Overall, global rainfall is reduced by about five percent on average in all four models studied.

“The impacts of these changes are yet to be addressed, but the main message is that the climate produced by geoengineering is different to any earlier climate even if the global mean temperature of an earlier climate might be reproduced,” says Schmidt.

…[/font][/font]

http://dx.doi.org/10.5194/esd-3-63-2012

[joshcryer]

18. Other schemes are not cheap. Global dimming happens for free* when you pollute.

*not counting long term externalized costs, but, neither will the geoengineers.

[OKIsItJustMe]

19. Even this scheme actually involves some expense

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stratospheric_sulfate_aerosols_(geoengineering)#Delivery_methods

[font face=Serif][font size=3]…[/font]

[font size=4]Delivery methods[/font]
[font size=3]Various techniques have been proposed for delivering the aerosol precursor gases (H[font size="1"]₂[/font]S and SO[font size="1"]₂[/font]). The required altitude to enter the stratosphere is the height of the tropopause, which varies from 11 km (6.8 miles/36,000 feet) at the poles to 17 km (11 miles/58,000 feet) at the equator.

• Aircraft such as the F15-C variant of the F-15 Eagle have the necessary flight ceiling, but limited payload. Military tanker aircraft such as the KC-135 Stratotanker and KC-10 Extender also have the necessary ceiling and have greater payload.
• Modified Artillery might have the necessary capability, but requires a polluting and expensive gunpowder charge to loft the payload.
• High-altitude balloons can be used to lift precursor gases, in tanks, bladders or in the balloons' envelope. Balloons can also be used to lift pipes and hoses, but no moored balloon has ever been deployed to the necessary altitude.

…[/font][/font]

http://www.freakonomics.com/2011/09/02/finally-a-garden-hose-to-the-sky/

[font face=Serif][font size=5]Finally: A Garden Hose to the Sky[/font]
Freakonomics
09/02/2011 | 2:37 pm

[font size=3]Well, it’s actually happening. An idea reported extensively in SuperFreakonomics has come to fruition, and some mad scientists are getting their way (and a little government funding) to build a garden hose to the sky — and potentially save the world by cooling it down.

A team of British researchers called SPICE (Stratospheric Particle Injection for Climate Engineering) is trying to pump particles of water into the atmosphere as a test run before moving onto sulfates and aerosols that would reflect sunlight away from earth, mimicking the aftereffect of a massive volcanic eruption. SPICE is building the garden hose at an undisclosed location, with £1.6 million in U.K. government funding and the backing of the Royal Society.

Check out Steven Levitt's interview with Jon Stewart from 2009, where he discusses the idea (beginning at about the 2:20 mark). And below, from SuperFreakonomics Illustrated, is a look at Intellectual Ventures’ plan to pump liquified sulfur dioxide into the stratosphere.



[/font][/font]

[joshcryer]

23. I didn't say it was free, I said it was cheaper than the alternatives.

Hell you even show that some alternatives won't work as "expected."

[OKIsItJustMe]

24. "Global dimming happens for free* when you pollute."

"I didn't say it was free..."

[joshcryer]

25. Did you not see the asterisk?

[OKIsItJustMe]

28. Sure did!

In the text, you had:

*not counting long term externalized costs, but, neither will the geoengineers.

That says nothing about upfront costs. However, if you would like to pretend it did, go right ahead.

[IDemo]

7. Jevon's Paradox would be a useful parable here.

If this or any other geoengineering effort displayed measurable success it would be taken as a green flag by industry and nations to continue or even increase their current CO2 outputs.

[OKIsItJustMe]

9. I am tired of “Jevons’ Paradox”

It is invoked as some sort of magical dictum, to suggest that any attempt to improve our lot will eventually produce an overwhelmingly negative result.

This, I feel, is defeatist, and more simply, wrong.

http://realclimateeconomics.org/wp/archives/647

[font face=Serif][font size=5]Rebounds Gone Wild[/font]
by James Barrett • January 10, 2011 @ 11:30 am
This post by Real Climate Economics blogger James Barrett originally appeared on the Great Energy Challenge blog, in partnership with National Geographic and Planet Forward.

[font size=3]…

The focus of the article is something called the Jevons paradox (named after economist William Jevons), or the more common and more broadly defined “rebound effect.” In essence the rebound effect is the fact that as energy efficiency goes up, using energy consuming products becomes less expensive, which in turn leads us to consume more energy.

Jevons’ claim was that this rebound effect would be so large that increasing energy efficiency would not decrease energy use. The rebound effect would eat up all (or more than all) of the energy savings.

To be clear, the rebound effect is real. The theory behind it is sound: Lower the cost of anything and people will use more of it, including the cost of running energy consuming equipment. But as with many economic ideas that are sound theory (like the idea that you can raise government revenues by cutting tax rates), the trick is in knowing how far to take them in reality. (Cutting tax rates from 100% to 50% would certainly raise revenues. Cutting them from 50% to 0% would just as surely lower them.)

The problem with knowing how far to take things like this is that unlike real scientists who can run experiments in a controlled laboratory environment, economists usually have to rely on what we can observe in the real world. Unfortunately, the real world is complicated and trying to disentangle everything that’s going on is very difficult.

…[/font][/font]

http://realclimateeconomics.org/wp/archives/654

[font face=Serif][font size=5]Rebounds and Jevons: Nobody Goes There Anymore. It’s Too Crowded[/font]

by James Barrett • January 18, 2011 @ 8:27 am
This is the second post in a series on the rebound effect and energy efficiency by Real Climate Economics blogger James Barrett. It originally appeared in the Great Energy Challenge blog, in partnership with National Geographic and Planet Forward

[font size=3]My last post on David Owen’s piece in the New Yorker and on the Jevons effect stirred up some interesting questions and discussion that I want to follow up on here. My last one purposely avoided some of the more technical parts of the issue to keep it readable and under my word limit. I think I’m about to undo that.

But first we should pay thanks to the great 20th Century philosopher, Yogi Berra, from whom I shamelessly stole the title of this post. Though he discovered it nearly 100 years after Stanley Jevons, I believe his exploration of the Jevons effect is more complete and accurate than Jevons’ own, as well as being vastly shorter. The notion that we could get so efficient at using energy that we’d end up using more is about as valid as the idea that a restaurant could get so crowded that it was empty.

[font size=4]Dictating Terms[/font]

Though I hate having arguments about how we should argue, there are a few things we need to get straight:

First, as originally observed and defined by Jevons, the Jevons effect is a decidedly micro issue. He observed that increased energy efficiency in coal fired steam engines resulted in increased use of coal to fire steam engines as they were used in more applications and more intensively in existing ones.

…[/font][/font]

[IDemo]

10. Then we're disagreed on the issue

I remain unconvinced that this or any other geotrick to reduce warming will do anything but create excuses from the usual players for further CO2 outputs.

[OKIsItJustMe]

11. In the first place, this is a misapplication of “Jervons Paradox”

This has nothing to do with energy efficiency.

In the second place, Jervons was making an observation regarding a true increase in efficiency, which he concluded forced an increase of energy usage greater than the original savings (as if energy usage would not have increased, had it not been for the savings due to efficiency.)

I am pretty much dead set against the idea of injecting sulfates into the upper atmosphere, however Jervons has got nothing to do with it.


I am pretty much convinced that we will have to employ some sort of geoengineering in the relatively near future (say within the next 50 years or so) simply because if we stopped emitting all greenhouse gasses tomorrow, that would not be sufficient to prevent some pretty dramatic climate changes.

We will (of course) not stop emitting all greenhouse gasses tomorrow. First, we need to cut the rate at which we are accelerating our emissions. Then, we need to slow our emissions. Then, we need to virtually eliminate our emissions. Then, I believe we will need to start actively drawing down atmospheric levels. (Remember, in the recent geological past, it has taken the ecosystem roughly 100,000 years to lower atmospheric levels of CO[font size="1"]₂[/font] 100 ppm, and we need to lower it like… 150 ppm or so.)

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1127&pid=3581

[IDemo]

12. You must have missed the word "parable" in my post

I realize there isn't a direct link to energy efficiency here; it's the underlying principle I was referencing - that an observed improvement in a system will more likely than not, given opportunistic human nature, result in activities which tend to lessen or undo the benefits.

The methane release has me pretty much in the defeatist column these days, yes. I'm not sure how it is we're going to engineer our way around that one.

[OKIsItJustMe]

13. Jervons was wrong

http://realclimateeconomics.org/wp/archives/654

[font face=Serif][font size=3]… the central point of Jevons’ theory was that advances in energy efficiency forced increases in energy consumption. Not merely that consumption increased despite efficiency, but that efficiency caused the increase.

So, if you believe that energy consumption would have been higher without advances in energy efficiency then, by definition, you do not also believe in the Jevons effect.

…[/font][/font]

Yes, I agree that the notion of pumping sulfates into the upper atmosphere:

1. Is misguided
2. Will be used to rationalize not doing something to address GHG levels.

But that has nothing whatsoever to do with Jervons.


This whole notion that an effort to do something good will inevitably, “result in activities which tend to lessen or undo the benefits” is just as wrong as Jervons was.

For example, could you tell me what the negative consequences were of:

• The Clean Air Act (did air pollution increase?)
• The Clean Water Act (have more rivers been catching fire?)
• The Safe Drinking Water Act

If you can’t tell me how these had the opposite result of what they were intended to accomplish, then your whole premise is faulty, and we can just forget about about Mr. Jervons and his “paradox.”

[caraher]

8. Never mind aesthetics

I wonder how this would affect organisms that rely on the present optical properties of the atmosphere. If I recall correctly, bees (and perhaps some other insects and birds) make use of the polarization of the sky to navigate through the day. My first guess would be that adding scatter at longer wavelengths wouldn't affect what happens to the usual blue light scattered, but I'd hate to fine out by accident that scattering these other wavelengths throws a wrench into ecosystems...

Geoengineering "solutions" are the very definition of monkeying with a poorly-understood, critical system.

[drokhole]

16. What Are People Really Talking About When They Talk About "Geo-Engineering"?

Great article by Dale Carrico.

This article is not intended as a contribution to the debate on "geo-engineering." I insist on that because it seems to me the more important point to make about "geo-engineering" is that it is, strictly speaking, non-debatable. More specifically, I think the principal work of "geo-engineering" discourse is to displace debate, not to have it, in the first place.

Not to put too fine a point on it, I fear that the topic of "geo-engineering," such as it is, ends up being a way of not debating serious environmental problems and any serious technical, practical, educational, organizational, legislative efforts at solving them, by preoccupying and distracting us with non-debatable fancies. And the fact that many of those who are caught up in "geo-engineering" discourse are themselves quite serious people, and even quite serious about environmental problems, makes the ultimate unseriousness of "geo-engineering" seem to me all the more serious.

(snip)

But what I mean to emphasize is that it is never really "geo-engineering" that is being debated in any of these cases. It is not clear to me that any number of definitive critiques against specific proposals onto which the "geo-engineering" label has attached can ever diminish the enthusiasm with which proponents of "geo-engineering" declare it an important consideration, a necessary strategy, a last ditch effort, a crucial "Plan B." Neither is it clear to me why the particular details leading us to reject one "geo-engineering" proposal would necessarily have any connection at all to the details that would lead us to reject another. This is actually another way of saying that neither is it clear to me just what it is that causes some climate-change mitigation proposals to be corralled together under the "geo-engineering" label and not others in the first place. All this is to say, that although when people talk about "geo-engineering" they tend to talk as if they are saying something about technologies or strategies or plans, there really are no technologies, no strategies, no plans, no underlying commonalities at hand.

(snip)

I mentioned a moment ago that it is not always clear why some sorts of environmentalist proposals tend to be described as "geo-engineering" while others are not. When people talk about "geo-engineering" proposals they tend to start talking about vast mega-engineering projects, about dreamy archipelagos of mirrors in high earth orbit, about tanker fleets converging for megaton sea dumps of iron filings, about fleets of airships spraying pseudo-volcanic aerosols into cloud banks, about undersea cathedrals of vertical piping to cool ocean surfaces. Sometimes, but only rarely, massive tree-planting efforts and cool-roof painting projects are also described as "geo-engineering." It is interesting to note that reforestation or roof-painting is hardly anybody's go-to imagery for "geo-engineering," and yet these are the only kind of plausibly describable "geo-engineering" proposals that have ever been undertaken in the real world. It is also interesting to note that what is emphatically NOT regarded as "geo-engineering" proposals are efforts to regulate fuel efficiency standards for automobiles or to incentivize the purchase of energy efficient appliances or to enforce more renewable materials in construction practices or to regulate power plants or to make public investments in mass transit or bike lanes or to mandate the introduction of smokestack soot filters or to create loan incentives for homeowners who introduce geothermal pumps, attic fans, front porches, or solar panels in new or renovated homes. Even if the aggregate impacts of especially national efforts at legislation, regulation, education, investment, incentive play out on a scale comparable to that presumably involved in "geo-engineering" proposals, these more familiar kinds of environmentalist proposals are not only not regarded as "geo-engineering" but advocacy of "geo-engineering" is often accompanied by a strong disdain for precisely these kinds of environmentalist proposals. Indeed, the inevitability of their failure is often the very foundation on which advocacy of "geo-engineering" is premised. Although some "geo-engineering" enthusiasts insist that they are proposing a supplementation and not a replacement for conventional environmentalist regulation, education, and investment it is interesting to note that while one is talking about the one, one is not talking about the other. And it is a strange thing to supplement something real with something that is not real, especially when the problems, the dangers, and the damage remain very real.

(more at above link)

On a related note (especially to the last excerpted paragraph), here's a case of trying to cooperate with nature rather than confront it:

To Kick Climate Change, Replace Corn With Pastured Beef
http://www.democraticunderground.com/112713328

[joshcryer]

17. Aerosols are the cheapest way to do it, and thus is how it is going to be done.

Painting roofs, roads, and the like, is perfectly fine. But it's extraordinarily expensive.

[OKIsItJustMe]

20. These approaches are also not effective

http://news.stanford.edu/news/2011/october/urban-heat-islands-101911.html

[font face=Serif]Stanford Report, October 19, 2011
[font size=5]Urban 'heat island' effect is only a small contributor to global warming, and white roofs don't help to solve the problem, say Stanford researchers[/font]
[font size=4]Heat emanating from cities – called the "urban heat island" effect – is not a significant contributor to global warming, Stanford researchers have found. They also concluded that if all the roofs in urban areas were painted white, it would increase, not decrease, global warming.[/font]

[font size=3]…

One "geoengineering" proposal for reducing the impact of urban heat islands is to paint roofs worldwide a reflective white. Jacobson's computer modeling concluded that white roofs did indeed cool urban surfaces. However, they caused a net global warming, largely because they reduced cloudiness slightly by increasing the stability of the air, thereby reducing the vertical transport of moisture and energy to clouds. In Jacobson's modeling, the reduction in cloudiness allowed more sunlight to reach the surface.

The increased sunlight reflected back into the atmosphere by white roofs in turn increased absorption of light by dark pollutants such as black carbon, which further increased heating of the atmosphere.

Jacobson's study did not examine one potential benefit of white roofs – a reduced demand for electricity to run air conditioning in hot weather. But a recent study done at the National Center for Atmospheric Research showed that the decrease in air conditioning use, which occurs mostly in the summer, might be more than offset by increases in heating during winter months.

"There does not seem to be a benefit from investing in white roofs," said Jacobson. "The most important thing is to reduce emissions of the pollutants that contribute to global warming."

…[/font][/font]

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=115&topic_id=314310&mesg_id=314310

[drm604]

21. Reducing incoming sunlight does not help with ocean acidification,

which is another result of increased carbon dioxide.

There is no easy fix other than reducing the amount of carbon entering the atmosphere.

[OKIsItJustMe]

22. Correct!

On the other hand, it has been pointed out that our most immediate threat is heat. Ocean acidification is real, and its effects are already noticeable, but…


http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2012-04/acoe-cs040212.php

[font face=Serif]Public release date: 2-Apr-2012

Contact: Malcolm McCulloch
[e-mail]
61-086-488-1921
ARC Centre of Excellence in Coral Reef Studies

[font size=5]Corals 'could survive a more acidic ocean'[/font]

[font size=3]Corals may be better placed to cope with the gradual acidification of the world's oceans than previously thought – giving rise to hopes that coral reefs might escape climatic devastation.

In new research published in the journal Nature Climate Change, an international scientific team has identified a powerful internal mechanism that could enable some corals and their symbiotic algae to counter the adverse impact of a more acidic ocean.

As humans release ever-larger amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, besides warming the planet, the gas is also turning the world's oceans more acidic – at rates thought to far exceed those seen during past major extinctions of life. This has prompted strong scientific interest in finding out which species are most vulnerable, and which can handle the changed conditions.

In groundbreaking research, a team of scientists from Australia's ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies, at the University of Western Australia and France's Laboratoire des Sciences du Climat et de l'Environnement, has shown that some marine organisms that form calcium carbonate skeletons have an in-built mechanism to cope with ocean acidification – which others appear to lack.

…[/font][/font]

http://www.ia.ucsb.edu/pa/display.aspx?pkey=2618

[font face=Serif]PRESS RELEASE
[font size=5]Major Study of Ocean Acidification Helps Scientists Evaluate Effects of Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide on Marine Life[/font]

January 23, 2012

[font size=3]…

"The emerging pH data from sensors allows us to design lab experiments that have a present-day environmental context," said Hofmann. "The experiments will allow us to see how organisms are adapted now, and how they might respond to climate change in the future."

Hofmann researched the Antarctic, where she has worked extensively, as well as an area of coral reefs around the South Pacific island of Moorea, where UCSB has a Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER) project. She also studied the coastal waters of Santa Barbara, in conjunction with UCSB's Santa Barbara Coastal LTER. The research team provided 30 days of pH data from other ocean areas around the world.

The researchers found that, in some places such as Antarctica and the Line Islands of the South Pacific, the range of pH variance is much more limited than in areas of the California coast that are subject to large vertical movements of water, known as upwellings. In some of the study areas, the researchers found that the decrease in seawater pH being caused by greenhouse gas emissions is still within the bounds of natural pH fluctuation. Other areas already experience daily acidity levels that scientists had expected would only be reached at the end of this century.

"This study is important for identifying the complexity of the ocean acidification problem around the globe," said co-author Jennifer Smith, a marine biologist with Scripps. "Our data show such huge variability in seawater pH, both within and across marine ecosystems, making global predictions of the impacts of ocean acidification a big challenge."

…[/font][/font]

[joshcryer]

26. Nothing to see here...

...move along.

[OKIsItJustMe]

27. It's not that there’s nothing to see here

The situation is that we have a bunch of stuff happening at once. It appears that the acidification of the ocean may not be our most immediate problem.

So, as much as I dislike the idea of injecting sulfates into the upper atmosphere, partly because it does not address the root problem (i.e. GHG’s.) It may be worth looking at as a way to buy ourselves a little time.

[joshcryer]

29. Scientists warn geoengineering may disrupt rainfall

Scientists warn geoengineering may disrupt rainfall
Large-scale engineering projects aimed at fighting global warming could radically reduce rainfall in Europe and North America, a team of scientists from four European countries have warned.

Geoengineering projects are controversial, even though they are largely theoretical at this point. They range from mimicking the effects of large volcanic eruptions by releasing sulphur dioxide into the atmosphere, to deploying giant mirrors in space to deflect the sun's rays.

Proponents say they could be a rapid response to rising global temperatures but environmentalists argue they are a distraction from the need to reduce man-made carbon emissions.

Critics also point to a lack of solid research into unintended consequences and the absence of any international governance structure for such projects, whose effects could transcend national borders.