If you want to understand the media and government attitude to geoengineering, you should read this thread and the UK Met office statements on geoengineering. If the scietists, that are paid by the public to study the subject, take such a strongly anti-geoengineering position, we can hardly blame the government ministers and science correspondents for believing them.
This contrasts with the recent statement by the American Meteorologiical Society (Ken's email July 20th) which was generally accepting that geoengineering would be necessary. When will the UK met offfice get real? John Gorman ----- Original Message ----- From: John Nissen To: Pope, Vicky Cc: David Keith ; Mark Serreze ; Stephen Salter ; [email protected] ; John Gorman ; Andrew Lockley ; Peter Read ; [email protected] ; Ken Caldeira Sent: Friday, July 24, 2009 3:18 PM Subject: Re: A policy to prevent uncontrollable warming and sea level rise Dear Vicky, Thanks for your response, which gives some insight into Met Office thinking about geoengineering. Let me first address Dr Boucher's policy paper about the risks of geoengineering [1]: 1. Moral hazard argument The whole argument from Dr Boucher seems to be based on a mistaken idea that we are proposing geoengineering as an alternative to emissions reduction or even a Plan B. On the contrary, we urge geoengineering as part of a combined approach [2]. In her evidence to the DIUS committee last November, Joan Ruddock said "scientists should probably not be looking at [geoengineering] ... because we need all our energies directed at the plan A [mitigation and adaptation]" [3]. This argument was summarily dismissed by the committee. [4] 2. Implications of CO2 lifetime As he points out, the anthropogenic CO2 has a long life-time - and some experts, such as David Keith, consider it is effectively thousands of years [5]. The implication is that emissions reductions, however severe, may not be sufficient to halt global warming before tipping points are reached. A particular fear is that the Arctic would continue to warm (due to existing positive feedback), the sea ice would disappear, massive quantities of methane would be released, and the Greenland ice sheet would disintegrate. 3. Minimising the risks The Arctic warming shows signs of strong positive feedback from the "albedo flip". Such positive feedback effects were largely ignored by IPCC in their models, and the 2007 sea ice retreat was completely outside the range of any of their models. Experts on sea ice, such as Mark Serreze, now accept that there is a small but significant possibility of sea ice seasonal disappearance within a few years. In order to seriously reduce the risk of catastrophe in the Arctic, we have no alternative to SRM geoengineering, and to minimise the risk we need to deploy that as soon as possible. If we fail to halt the Arctic warming, we certainly pass on a poison challace as legacy of our procrastination! 4. Side effects As regards the other web reference [6], I am aware of some concern over decrease of Amazon rainfall if stratospheric aerosols were used inadvisedly, especially if not in conjunction with emissions reduction. I personally would like to see trial experimentation in the Arctic next spring. Meanwhile the Salter's cloud brightening technique needs urgent engineering development, as it has promise to provide localised cooling, with a possibility to complement the stratospheric aerosol geoengineering - with the latter providing general cooling and the former fine tuning. [7] 5. FCO and MoD Who is taking an interest in climate security within those organisations, and has an appreciation of the increasing concern felt by scientists? Thanks, John P.S. Please copy your reply to [email protected] and to John Gorman. [1] http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climatechange/policymakers/policy/geoengineering.html [2] http://geo-engineering.blogspot.com/2009/03/open-letter-to-dr-pachauri.html [3] DIUS committee 08/09 session Report: "Engineering: turning ideas into reality", Volume 1, para 186. [4] Ibid, para 188. [5] David Keith presentation to the Royal Geographical Society, 14th May 2009. [6] http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/corporate/pressoffice/2009/pr20090604.html [7] John Latham mentioned this suggestion from Ken Caldeira --- Pope, Vicky wrote: Please see these web articles on geoengineering http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/corporate/pressoffice/2009/pr20090604.html http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climatechange/policymakers/policy/geoengineering.html FCO and MoD have an interest in climate security amongst others. Dr Vicky Pope Head of Climate Change Advice Met Office Hadley Centre, FitzRoy Road, Exeter, EX1 3PB Tel: +44 (0)1392 884655 mobile + 44 (0)7753 880669 Fax: +44 (0)1392 885681 (mark FAO Vicky Pope) E-mail: [email protected] http://www.metoffice.gov.uk --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ 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 -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
