Re: [geo] Population control, emission cuts, but geoengineering?

[John Nissen]

Hi Dave, I'll deal first with John's case from the "back of the envelope" calculation, and then with the scientific reticence. The case is even stronger than John Gorman has put it.  Even if emissions were stopped overnight, the mean annual temperature in the Arctic would continue to rise, and with an acceleration, due to the positive feedback of the sea ice - as ice (with high albedo) melts it gives way to open water (with low albedo) which absorbs most of the sunlight.  This albedo effect is thought to be part of the basic mechanism of polar amplification.  Now for the scientific reticence. It's not quite the entire scientific community who are reticent.  There are some good folks on this list who have stood out for geoengineering, David Keith for one.  He gave an excellent presentation on geoengineering, at the Royal Geographical Society, here in London.  He pointed out the ginormous quantity of CO2 mankind had dumped in the atmosphere, and he pointed out that some of this CO2 would last thousands of years - worse than nuclear waste!  It was quite clear that the associated global warming would last a time longer than the Arctic sea ice. The fear that academics have of their own peers is quite understandable.  Paul Crutzen had enormous difficulty in publishing his seminal paper on geoengineering with stratospheric sulphate - and then received a lot of flack from colleagues after it was published - so much flack that he seems to have retired from the scene. The other fear, which is more forgiveable, is that academics, and scientific advisers generally, didn't want to disrupt the Copenhagen process. They have strained every ounce of intellect to persuade the politicians to get the best possible deal at Copenhagen.  This has meant that government advisers (like ex-IPCC Bob Watson in the UK) who perfectly understand the dangers of Arctic sea ice, have been telling the government that cutting emissions is the top priority.  What the advisers have not acknowledged is the speed of retreat of the sea ice - that is until their "Copenhagen Diagnosis" report [1].  The sea ice summer extent has been 40% below the IPCC models predictions for three years in a row!  So the summer sea ice is now expected disappear by 2040 - and there is the possibility of it disappearing end summer within a few years, especially because of the natural variability of Arctic weather.  The sea ice is indeed the "elephant in the room". However now that the politicians seem committed to obtaining good Copenhagen results, we could see everything change, and scientists will point out that, not only do we have to reduce emissions, but we have to do other things to save the planet.  It is already accepted by some leading climate scientists, such as Jim Hansen, that geoengineering will be required to suck CO2 out of the atmosphere.  It must also be accepted that SRM geoengineering is needed to save the Arctic sea ice - since nobody can dispute the argument. Cheers from Chiswick, John [1] http://www.copenhagendiagnosis.org/ --- Hawkins, Dave wrote: Come on folks. There is no reason to dismiss the entire scientific community as afraid to publish a paper due to concerns about political correctness or impact on careers. I don't buy this slur on an entire profession. -----Original Message----- From: John Gorman [mailto:gorm...@waitrose.com] Sent: Friday, December 11, 2009 3:33 AM To: Hawkins, Dave; j...@cloudworld.co.uk; geoengineering@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: [geo] Population control, emission cuts, but geoengineering? this is a case where the correct answer is that "there isnt any peer reviewed reference because it wouldnt be politically correct to say it and to do so would be to risk ones career" However the back of an envelope calculation is simple; The area of sea ice has halved in little more than a decade. Whatever scenario one takes it will be gone in 30,40,50 years. Even with no further emissions from today the CO2 will stay at 380 and the temperature in the arctic will stay at 3 or 4 deg C above 50 years ago. The sea ice will continue to melt. With any conceivable emissions limitation scenario it will be gone much sooner. This is partly why I included that quote from Schumaker in my submission to the parliamentary committee. All this talk of tree rings, computers, models etc is just stopping us from recognising the obvious. Vick Pope would say " can you prove that this will happen?" no of course i cant. Its in the future. john Gorman ----- Original Message ----- From: "Hawkins, Dave" <dhawk...@nrdc.org> To: <j...@cloudworld.co.uk>; <geoengineering@googlegroups.com> Sent: Thursday, December 10, 2009 10:06 PM Subject: Re: [geo] Population control, emission cuts, but geoengineering? Hi John, In your note you say, "The undisputed fact that emissions reduction cannot save the Arctic sea ice, at its current rate of retreat..." Can you provide a reference or two that reaches this conclusion? (I'm not asking to dispute what you say but would like to see what you have in mind as support for the proposition.) Thanks David ----- Original Message ----- From: geoengineering@googlegroups.com <geoengineering@googlegroups.com> To: Geoengineering <geoengineering@googlegroups.com> Sent: Thu Dec 10 16:46:31 2009 Subject: [geo] Population control, emission cuts, but geoengineering? Hi all, Two excellent programmes on the environment and mankind's impact: David Attenborough: http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00pdjmk/Horizon_20092010_How_Many_ People_Can_Live_on_Planet_Earth/ Iain Stewart: http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00jf6md/Hot_Planet/ Unfortunately, although Iain had sympathetic mention of Klaus Lackner's artificial trees, solar radiation management was represented by sulphur being fired into the stratosphere by guns - mention of ozone disruption - and the programme ended with punch line "geoengineering is too expensive and too dangerous". This was an unwarranted dismissal of the technology with probably the best chance of saving the Arctic sea ice. The undisputed fact that emissions reduction cannot save the Arctic sea ice, at its current rate of retreat, was not mentioned. Cheers, John -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "geoengineering" group. To post to this group, send email to geoengineering@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to geoengineering+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/geoengineering?hl=en. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "geoengineering" group. To post to this group, send email to geoengineering@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to geoengineering+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/geoengineering?hl=en. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "geoengineering" group. To post to this group, send email to geoengineer...@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to geoengineering+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/geoengineering?hl=en.