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We Could Brighten Clouds to Cool the Earth

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Re: We Could Brighten Clouds to Cool the Earth

#151

Post by ncmncm »

zdragnar wrote: post #88
ncmncm wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All of the "climate engineering interventions" people keep trotting out that don't actually remove carbon from the air end up making things radically, disastrously worse. We know how to remove carbon from the atmosphere, in bulk, with super-plentiful olivine. Cutting off emissions and deploying olivine works. Almost anything else ends up doing no net good, at best, and funnels us deeper into the hole. Soluble iron co…

I thought the nickel impurities in olivine made bulk deployment an absurdly bad idea from a toxicity point of view.

Nickel is a concern, but seems not to make the the whole idea untenable.

In particular, the alternative of spreading powdered olivine on cropland will require monitoring. Different sources of olivine have different amounts of nickel and chromium, and the sources with acceptable levels can be favored for that use. Use on beaches and shallows seems to tolerate more. There is no reason to do one but not the other, and dozens of other measures besides.

Re: We Could Brighten Clouds to Cool the Earth

#152

Post by eloff »

labster wrote: post #41
eloff wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Source? I think we would avert disaster if we got net zero today. We wouldn't avoid change and things would continue to warm as you say. But it wouldn't be the end of civilization, just very inconvenient. In the other hand if we don't stop making the problem worse we will eventually activate feedback loops that can't be stopped and that do end civilization, kill the majority of humans and other species, and make huge…

Source is I am a meteorologist who has studied climatology. The residence time of GHGs ensure that we will have elevated levels for at least a century, even if we do all the nice things like plant trees. The terrestrial biosphere is too small, and not a long-term solution. Here in California, carbon-credit forests are going up in smoke. We have already committed to levels that I consider catastrophic. Particularly in…

I agree with what you're saying. I think we just differ on what constitutes a disaster.

Given the potential to end civilization, I feel any outcome short of that is a win of some kind. Even if the consequences are still severe. I also have serious doubts that we'll actually remove enough carbon to stay under 1.5 degrees of warming. We may just have to live with the consequences. I definitely don't mean to imply in any way that things will be just like normal. It's going to get rough.

Re: We Could Brighten Clouds to Cool the Earth

#153

Post by ncmncm »

marcosdumay wrote: post #126
ncmncm wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All of the "climate engineering interventions" people keep trotting out that don't actually remove carbon from the air end up making things radically, disastrously worse. We know how to remove carbon from the atmosphere, in bulk, with super-plentiful olivine. Cutting off emissions and deploying olivine works. Almost anything else ends up doing no net good, at best, and funnels us deeper into the hole. Soluble iron co…

> those other manufactured gasses trap heat thousands or tens of thousands of times better than CO2 does, and are already a big part of the Problem. If by big you mean 1/5 of the problem, ok. But that is really not big enough to remove the focus from the other 4/5 And the way those gases work on the long term, in that the amount of them on the atmosphere is proportional to the speed of emission, instead of total emis…

Big, meaning that even eliminating all of the excess CO2, would not get us back to the pre-industrial heat-forcing condition. We have reasons not to want to take CO2 concentration below that point, but to want forcing to reach that point.

Just getting the excess CO2 out is a big enough job, and one responsive enough to known practical measures, that it leaves some time for research on the tails, if we start now.

Nothing about this unfolding disaster is small, or about any measure to counter it.

Re: We Could Brighten Clouds to Cool the Earth

#154

Post by R0b0t1 »

SllX wrote: post #124
R0b0t1 wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's "easier" to capture from water in chemical terms but harder to actually move the water. I think the economy of moving the weight of water makes this a nonstarter. Also yes, ocean acidification is likely to be the bigger immediate problem. People depend heavily on fish protein and other sealife. That plus poor farming yields will be bad.

Mechanical and electrical engineering aren’t going to do you enough good quickly enough. But can you think of any forms of life on the bottom of the food chain that depend on carbon inputs as part of its own metabolic processes in order to reproduce itself? Because if you want a self-sustaining ocean-based carbon capture solution, that’s where I would look.

The problem with GMO life is an organism trying to reproduce plus your goal is inherently less fit than an organism merely trying to reproduce. This really only works at accelerating a reset after a mass die off.

Re: We Could Brighten Clouds to Cool the Earth

#155

Post by marcosdumay »

eloff wrote: post #149
marcosdumay wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have good sources? Anything that I find says the speed of increase has been decreasing almost steadily since 2008, and 2019 had a decrease in total emissions compared to 2018 (and whatever series I find, it never goes beyond 2019).

That'd be hopeful if true. I agree the speed of increase is slowing. I'm not aware if the actual increase is now negative. That would be great news.

> I'm not aware if the actual increase is now negative.

Yeah, that's a single point. The overall trend looks like it's a methodology fluke, and that the real trend is of 0 growth.

That's why I'm interested on more data :)

Re: We Could Brighten Clouds to Cool the Earth

#156

Post by marcosdumay »

ncmncm wrote: post #153
marcosdumay wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> those other manufactured gasses trap heat thousands or tens of thousands of times better than CO2 does, and are already a big part of the Problem. If by big you mean 1/5 of the problem, ok. But that is really not big enough to remove the focus from the other 4/5 And the way those gases work on the long term, in that the amount of them on the atmosphere is proportional to the speed of emission, instead of total emis…

Big, meaning that even eliminating all of the excess CO2, would not get us back to the pre-industrial heat-forcing condition. We have reasons not to want to take CO2 concentration below that point, but to want forcing to reach that point. Just getting the excess CO2 out is a big enough job, and one responsive enough to known practical measures, that it leaves some time for research on the tails, if we start now. Noth…

> Big, meaning that even eliminating all of the excess CO2

Well, it gets you >87% of the way, and stabilizes there as long as emissions do not grow. Where going to 97% depends on lots of changes on agriculture, and only the last 3% is about the gases you cite.

Of course, for 100% you will need to cure all the causes. But "87% solved and not getting any worse" does really not sound like an emergency. I maintain that changing any focus away from CO2 is a mistake.

Re: We Could Brighten Clouds to Cool the Earth

#157

Post by labster »

specialist wrote: post #119
labster wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Source is I am a meteorologist who has studied climatology. The residence time of GHGs ensure that we will have elevated levels for at least a century, even if we do all the nice things like plant trees. The terrestrial biosphere is too small, and not a long-term solution. Here in California, carbon-credit forests are going up in smoke. We have already committed to levels that I consider catastrophic. Particularly in…

Yes and: non-human carbon emitters are now in a positive feedback loop. Thawing tundra, burning forests, ocean acidification, etc. We need to restore 350ppm asap. Meaning carbon negative. I know you know this. Just expounding for the lurkers.

To be fair, it’s not all positive feedbacks. Ocean acidification is definitely a negative feedback. So too is desertification, which turns dark forest into high albedo grassland and deserts. Clouds are… complicated. Of the positive feedbacks that terrify me, it’s the undersea methane clathrates.

Re: We Could Brighten Clouds to Cool the Earth

#158

Post by ncmncm »

marcosdumay wrote: post #156
ncmncm wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Big, meaning that even eliminating all of the excess CO2, would not get us back to the pre-industrial heat-forcing condition. We have reasons not to want to take CO2 concentration below that point, but to want forcing to reach that point. Just getting the excess CO2 out is a big enough job, and one responsive enough to known practical measures, that it leaves some time for research on the tails, if we start now. Noth…

> Big, meaning that even eliminating all of the excess CO2 Well, it gets you >87% of the way, and stabilizes there as long as emissions do not grow. Where going to 97% depends on lots of changes on agriculture, and only the last 3% is about the gases you cite. Of course, for 100% you will need to cure all the causes. But "87% solved and not getting any worse" does really not sound like an emergency. I maintain that c…

It is fortunate that you are not in charge of efforts to replace use of SF6 in current high-voltage electrical equipment; or to phase out HFCs, and to ensure that the HFCs replaced or in decommissioned equipment are destroyed safely. Each person working on those has more effect than any thousand working on carbon. But we also need all those thousands working on carbon.

According to EPA, just three companies release the overwhelming bulk of problem fluorine-containing gases today. It is much easier to get three companies to change what they do than to get tens of thousands in line.

In practice, carbon is such a big problem that a solution will only come very slowly. Anything that can be done more quickly has outsize impact.

Re: We Could Brighten Clouds to Cool the Earth

#159

Post by _y5hn »

marcosdumay wrote: post #155
eloff wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That'd be hopeful if true. I agree the speed of increase is slowing. I'm not aware if the actual increase is now negative. That would be great news.

> I'm not aware if the actual increase is now negative. Yeah, that's a single point. The overall trend looks like it's a methodology fluke, and that the real trend is of 0 growth. That's why I'm interested on more data :)

On year-by-year basis you're looking at noise. On decade basis there's mostly steady acceleration of CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere:

https://gml.noaa.gov/ccgg/trends/gl_gr.html

Lower growth may also be corellated with human depression, strife and war. So the human systems are working against decrease of CO2 growth.

Re: We Could Brighten Clouds to Cool the Earth

#160

Post by _y5hn »

bernulli wrote: post #150
m0llusk wrote: post #95

This assumes that global warming is the problem, but arguably the most pressing aspect of carbon pollution is the acidification of the oceans which this plan would not address. It might make more sense to focus on capturing carbon pollution than to mitigate some of the side effects of rampant carbon pollution.

Could you provide some links to more information? I was only aware of warming as a big problem. Thank you!

[0] https://earthsky.org/earth/anticipating-future-sea-level-pro...

[1] https://www.climate.gov/news-features/featured-images/ocean-...

[2]https://www.noaa.gov/education/resource-collections/ocean-co...

[3] http://www.lteconomy.it/en/articles-en/articoli/the-power-of...

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