Dear Alvia, This is a nice paper that shows how aerosol clouds can be measured by astronomers, but it does not show that astronomy will not be harmed by a permanent aerosol cloud in the stratosphere.
Alan Alan Robock, Professor II Director, Meteorology Undergraduate Program Associate Director, Center for Environmental Prediction Department of Environmental Sciences Phone: +1-732-932-9800 x6222 Rutgers University Fax: +1-732-932-8644 14 College Farm Road E-mail: [email protected] New Brunswick, NJ 08901-8551 USA http://envsci.rutgers.edu/~robock On Thu, 9 Apr 2009, Alvia Gaskill wrote: > The effect of aerosols can be corrected for as indicated in the attached > paper. Note also that periodic dust storms create localized extinction > coefficients of around 0.25, similar to that from Pinatubo. Since Pinatubo > levels would not be needed for a long time, the actual extinction would be > much less. Some of the observational problems from Pinatubo were also due > to transient ash from the eruption and not the aerosol. > > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Alan Robock" <[email protected]> > To: <[email protected]> > Cc: "Climate Intervention" <[email protected]> > Sent: Thursday, April 09, 2009 1:17 PM > Subject: [geo] Wouldn't stratospheric aerosols ruin astronomical > observations? > > >> >> Dear All, >> >> As some of you know, I published a paper last year: >> >> Robock, Alan, 2008: 20 reasons why geoengineering may be a bad idea. >> Bull. Atomic Scientists, 64, No. 2, 14-18, 59, doi:10.2968/064002006. >> >> http://climate.envsci.rutgers.edu/pdf/20Reasons.pdf >> >> which also produced a roundtable discussion: >> >> http://www.thebulletin.org/web-edition/roundtables/has-the-time-come-geoengineering >> >> Since then, I have been evaluating these reasons and two of them seem to >> not be of concern, excess acid deposition and cost. Our two papers on >> these results, now under review, are: >> >> Kravitz, Ben, Alan Robock, Luke Oman, Georgiy Stenchikov, and Allison B. >> Marquardt, 2009: Sulfuric acid deposition from stratospheric >> geoengineering with sulfate aerosols. Submitted to J. Geophys. Res. >> >> http://climate.envsci.rutgers.edu/pdf/AcidDepositionJGRsubmitted.pdf >> >> Robock, Alan, Allison B. Marquardt, Ben Kravitz, and Georgiy Stenchikov, >> 2009: The practicality of geoengineering. Submitted to Geophys. Res. >> Lett. >> >> http://climate.envsci.rutgers.edu/pdf/practicality8NoFig3.pdf >> >> But I have also been giving talks on the subject and two days ago a >> member of an audience suggested another reason why geoengineering (with >> stratospheric aerosols) may be a bad idea: >> >> It would ruin Earth-based optical astronomy! >> >> With the tremendous investment in equipment, and mountain-top >> observatories to get above most of the junk in the atmosphere, not to >> mention sophisticated signal processing algorithms to remove the >> remaining atmospheric influence, how could astronomers stay silent and >> allow permanent clouds that would block their seeing? >> >> Alan >> >> Alan Robock, Professor II >> Director, Meteorology Undergraduate Program >> Associate Director, Center for Environmental Prediction >> Department of Environmental Sciences Phone: +1-732-932-9800 x6222 >> Rutgers University Fax: +1-732-932-8644 >> 14 College Farm Road E-mail: [email protected] >> New Brunswick, NJ 08901-8551 USA http://envsci.rutgers.edu/~robock >> >> >>> > > > > --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "geoengineering" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/geoengineering?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
