The answer to the astronomy issue is a slam dunk. Too damn bad! There is far too much at stake to worry that astronomy takes a temporary hit. In any case the clouds need not be permanent.
-----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Alvia Gaskill Sent: Thursday, April 09, 2009 2:39 PM To: [email protected]; [email protected] Subject: [geo] Re: Wouldn't stratospheric aerosols ruin astronomical observations? 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-g > eoengineering > > 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 -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
