While it is no doubt important to preserve Earth-based astronomy, I would imagine that if climate change really did prove catastrophic, the plight of the astronomers might be among the least of our concerns.
If climate change is not going to be catastrophic, then I believe we are unlikely to deploy albedo modification schemes at scale as a risk / damage reduction strategy largely because of issues relating to international relations, governance, compensation for perceived damages, etc. On 4/9/09, Alan Robock <[email protected]> wrote: > > > 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 > >> > >> > >>> > > > > > > > > > > > -- ___________________________________________________ Ken Caldeira Carnegie Institution Dept of Global Ecology 260 Panama Street, Stanford, CA 94305 USA [email protected]; [email protected] http://dge.stanford.edu/DGE/CIWDGE/labs/caldeiralab +1 650 704 7212; fax: +1 650 462 5968 --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ 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 -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
