We Could Brighten Clouds to Cool the Earth • Hacker News Board

Re: We Could Brighten Clouds to Cool the Earth

#161

Post by curryst » Sat, Sep 11, 2021, 5:33 AM UTC

spywaregorilla wrote: post #97

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.

I'm not sure I buy that, but sure, both are important problems. Question, what do we know about the ocean as a carbon sink? Is it's capture rate variable with anthing? Is it easier to capture carbon from the ocean than in the air? Could we try to increase the capture rate into the ocean and then extract rapidly from the same area?

There are some feedback effects to acidification, one of which is that plankton will struggle. They absorb a lot of CO2.

Someone else pointed out that we can cause blooms. That's basically what you want, because plankton or algae sequester it. I don't know that we can "hack" that without risking damaging the oceans though. They're pretty good at what they do as is.

It is a gas exchange though, so heat and pressure have an impact. They're not great for marine life though. Surface area does as well, though it'd be hard to meaningfully change the ocean's surface area.

The bigger issue would be containment. The ocean is huge, and a very good CO2 sink. Anything that's going to make a significant dent in the total CO2 absorption of the ocean is going to have to happen over a very large area. Things aren't going to be much better if we sterilize the ocean in the process.

Re: We Could Brighten Clouds to Cool the Earth

#162

Post by Seb-C » Sat, Sep 11, 2021, 9:48 AM UTC

Avalaxy wrote: post #77

Seb-C wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm quite optimistic about this too. Sure, we have to reduce our impact on the climate and be responsible about it, but even in the worst case scenario, I'm confident that we'll just find a way to deal with it. The current apocalyptic scenarios we see on the medias is too extreme and pessimistic. "If the Earth can't support seven billion people, then all seven billion of us just have to figure out a way! That's how s…

> The current apocalyptic scenarios we see on the medias is too extreme and pessimistic Source? If anything, scientists have been too conservative in their warnings. Time and time again, we see that climate change is going _much_ faster than we anticipated.

I don't need a source to express my very own and subjective opinion about how mankind will adapt in the future.

Besides, you did not give any for your own affirmations either.

Re: We Could Brighten Clouds to Cool the Earth

#163

Post by dr_dshiv » Sat, Sep 11, 2021, 11:21 AM UTC

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.

Do you have a source for the argument that acidification is worse than warming? I'm more familiar with the pressing problem of positive feedback effects, like accelerated release of natural stores of carbon and methane. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_change_feedback#:~:t....

There is a moral threat of "with climate management tools, we don't need to act on carbon reduction." I think that is less dangerous than the threat of "we have no validated climate management tools to deal with rapidly accelerated climate change." Ideally, we would research and develop the science and technology of weather control and climate management now so we don't feel compelled to do anything drastic in the near future. For instance, we know that dumping sulfur in the upper atmosphere can cool the earth for Also, keep in mind that some approaches might be applied locally to protect certain ecosystems rather than aiming for a global effect. E.g., cloud brightening R&D to cool areas with lots of melting permafrost. We should be spending billions on this r&d.

We need time to transition, it's happening. In 20-30 years, we will have a much cleaner global economy, with no coal and minimal oil. But we don't want to have the permafrost melt in the meantime!

Re: We Could Brighten Clouds to Cool the Earth

#164

Post by bernulli » Sat, Sep 11, 2021, 2:55 PM UTC

_y5hn wrote: post #160

bernulli wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

Thank you!

Re: We Could Brighten Clouds to Cool the Earth

#165

Post by WhompingWindows » Tue, Sep 14, 2021, 2:38 PM UTC

alexgmcm wrote: post #135

WhompingWindows wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you assuming we'd only use SRM and not continue the MASSIVE efforts already underway to lower yearly GHG emissions? And once we go zero, we're already seeing dozens of plans and ideas to handle what we've already emitted. Really, our current playbook is in its infancy and climate change is WAY out in front of us already due to our political and economic foot-dragging. I don't think we should nay-say anything nasc…

Our "MASSIVE efforts" don't seem to be doing much so far: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/annual-co2-emissions-per-... And that's just annual emissions, Atmospheric CO2 concentration is even worse: https://climate.nasa.gov/internal_resources/1914 If we go into the 2030's and we are still doing business as usual with our near-exponentially increasing global CO2 emissions then I suspect a large amount of climate dam…

The first chart you posted is global emissions. If you break out Europe and the US, you'll see our emissions-reductions efforts are in fact leveling off emissions, and in some countries reducing them. But globally speaking, China and India have energy impoverishment, they're still ramping up coal to provide lighting, A/C, refrigeration, and things we take for granted. This is expected and we can't fault them for providing basic utilities to their people.

Yeah, we're in pretty huge trouble. I'm definitely cynical in the short-term and medium-term, but I see potential for all these nascent technologies to work over the decades to save our bacon by 2100. Technology got us into this mess, but we're enslaved to our technology now, so we're going to just have to make better and better technology while being slightly more efficient and green-minded as well.