The most damaging hurricanes rely heavily on warm water over their last 2-3 days before landfall. Suppose we focused these bright cloud emitters on the water in front of a tropical storm, as a way to prevent it from strengthening into a hurricane? Imagine the city of Miami deciding that eliminating local hurricanes would benefit its local real estate market. They invest in a fleet of hurricane blockers to be deployed…
We Could Brighten Clouds to Cool the Earth
51–60 of 165 posts
Re: We Could Brighten Clouds to Cool the Earth
#52I think I'm a relative optimist about global warming because there are a number of possible climate engineering interventions which seem fairly cheap and could plausibly buy us another decade or so. I can imagine a future where perhaps India or China decides to act on their own to this effect, risks be damned.
Re: We Could Brighten Clouds to Cool the Earth
#53Wasn't this the plot to kill the machines in the Animatrix?
Re: We Could Brighten Clouds to Cool the Earth
#54I am counting on there being enough Starlink satellites to block out the Sun. Problem solved.
I know you're joking, but your comment inspires me to imagine a blanket of orbiting solar panels that simultaneously generate a lot of electricity, and also shade the Earth. One can dream!
The better the efficiency of the solar panels, the worse the shadowing effect. Even worse, the solar array in orbit also reflects heat back at Earth! If the size of the array is significant enough to shadow Earth from the sun, it's obviously significant enough to impact this flipside of the balance of radiative transfer. Keeping it on the day side always would offset that ... maybe - but for that it would have to be in solar orbit.
Any energy you transfer to Earth (fusion reactors in orbit, off-planet solar arrays, whatever) is part of it, the form of energy does not matter much, almost all of it is heat in the end and affects the thermodynamic equilibrium of the planet.
As an exaggerated example, if you put a giant solar array into solar orbit and beamed the converted power to Earth, it's like Earth suddenly having a larger surface but just for receiving solar radiation. For the purposes of Earth radiating heat back into space, the solar array does nothing.
Sure, the effects wouldn't be multiplied as with an atmosphere with too many far IR-scattering molecules that we have now but the power wouldn't come for free.
Re: We Could Brighten Clouds to Cool the Earth
#55The most damaging hurricanes rely heavily on warm water over their last 2-3 days before landfall. Suppose we focused these bright cloud emitters on the water in front of a tropical storm, as a way to prevent it from strengthening into a hurricane? Imagine the city of Miami deciding that eliminating local hurricanes would benefit its local real estate market. They invest in a fleet of hurricane blockers to be deployed…
protip: New York City gets hit by hurricanes more than Miami but its just a tiny current consistently protecting Miami at the last minute, for now
[1] https://cdn-codes-pdf.iccsafe.org/bundles/document/new_docum... 2017 Florida Residential Code Fig 301.2(4) Ultimate Design Wind Speeds V_{ult}
[2] https://cdn-codes-pdf.iccsafe.org/bundles/document/new_docum... 2020 New York Residential Code Fig R301.2(5)B Regions Where Wind Design is Required
Re: We Could Brighten Clouds to Cool the Earth
#56I think I'm a relative optimist about global warming because there are a number of possible climate engineering interventions which seem fairly cheap and could plausibly buy us another decade or so. I can imagine a future where perhaps India or China decides to act on their own to this effect, risks be damned.
"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 science works!"
Re: We Could Brighten Clouds to Cool the Earth
#57I think I'm a relative optimist about global warming because there are a number of possible climate engineering interventions which seem fairly cheap and could plausibly buy us another decade or so. I can imagine a future where perhaps India or China decides to act on their own to this effect, risks be damned.
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…
Could we do this with 7 billion people though? Will my children make it to this world? That’s what keeps me up at night.
Re: We Could Brighten Clouds to Cool the Earth
#58Earlier quoted context omitted.
protip: New York City gets hit by hurricanes more than Miami but its just a tiny current consistently protecting Miami at the last minute, for now
Cite? Prevailing building code design criteria[1][2] suggests otherwise. [1] https://cdn-codes-pdf.iccsafe.org/bundles/document/new_docum... 2017 Florida Residential Code Fig 301.2(4) Ultimate Design Wind Speeds V_{ult} [2] https://cdn-codes-pdf.iccsafe.org/bundles/document/new_docum... 2020 New York Residential Code Fig R301.2(5)B Regions Where Wind Design is Required
Re: We Could Brighten Clouds to Cool the Earth
#59The most damaging hurricanes rely heavily on warm water over their last 2-3 days before landfall. Suppose we focused these bright cloud emitters on the water in front of a tropical storm, as a way to prevent it from strengthening into a hurricane? Imagine the city of Miami deciding that eliminating local hurricanes would benefit its local real estate market. They invest in a fleet of hurricane blockers to be deployed…
BTW, if sea levels rise, property values in Miami are liable to go down the drain anyway, hurricanes or no hurricanes...