Andrew
I think that you may be mistaken about the vulnerability of spray
vessels. They will be widely dispersed in remote parts of the ocean. It
will be slow and expensive to knock out large numbers of them. Their
loss will take some time to hurt. Attacking ships will be visible on
radar for a day or so before they get close. Attacking aircraft can be
intercepted on their return flight. Either will be much more expensive
that a spray vessel. If I wanted to destroy human existence I could
think of much more damaging ways to do it.
During WWII the Americans were building three 14,000 ton Liberty ships a
day which was faster than the U boats could sink them. Mean construction
time was seven weeks but one was built in less than 5 days. Spray
vessels will be only 300 tons each and we can get the Chinese to help.
Stephen
Emeritus Professor of Engineering Design
School of Engineering and Electronics
University of Edinburgh
Mayfield Road
Edinburgh EH9 3JL
Scotland
tel +44 131 650 5704
fax +44 131 650 5702
Mobile 07795 203 195
[email protected]
http://www.see.ed.ac.uk/~shs
Andrew Lockley wrote:
There's another fairly critical issue about cloud ships that's rarely
considered, and that's their vulnerability. Let's image we're 50
years into a geoengineering programme, with either CCN or sulfur, and
let's say we've got an 8C warming effect. In the sulfur world, we'll
be using a firehose, tanker fleet, or gunnery to shift the sulfur.
You won't be able to get near any of that infrastructure if you fancy
throwing a spanner in the works.
Not so the cloud ships. They will be floating about autonomously in
the sea, and if anyone doesn't like them, they're quite free to set
fire to them, blow them up, or just hack their software. Trying to
build them all again in a hurry when we're already in the midst of 8C
warming could be a serious problem. They won't be terribly expensive,
but would a few months/years of 8C be highly damaging, or would the
heat capacity of the ocean save our bacon?
It's a point that needs to be clarified. If they're worth keeping
then it's worth someone blowing them up, Dr. Evil style.
A
On 11 February 2010 22:26, Kelly Wanser <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
A number of recent high caliber dicussions of Solar Radiation
Management research, governance and deployment have focused
exclusively on stratospheric aerosol dispersal. It may be useful
for any who are thinking about solar radiation management to
include tropospheric techniques, particularly the (relatively)
mature proposed method of SRM via Marine Cloud Brightening
(Latham-Salter technique) in policy and research considerations.
There are important reasons to include marine cloud brightening as
a component of any SRM research program.
1. *The global cooling potential may be similar to
stratospheric aerosols*. More work is needed, but early
studies by Latham et. al. and more recent studies from Rasch
et. al. and Caldeira et.al <http://et.al/>. indicate
potential cooling/ CO2 offset effects and ice retention that
compare favorable to forecasts for stratospheric aerosols.
2. *The primary risk profile is different from stratospheric
aerosols. *The techniques have differing precipitation
effects and atmospheric chemistry.
3. *The deployment profile is different. *Marine cloud
brightening supports local /regional testing and deployment
possibilities vs inherently global distribution in the
stratosphere.
4. *The duration of the effect is different. *Marine cloud
brightening has a 2-3 day dissipation of the effect vs
months or years for stratospheric aerosols.
5. *The research profile is different. *Cloud-aerosol dynamics
are an important gap in atmospheric science and cloud
models, and aspects of early research in marine cloud
brightening are similar or identical to studies of these
general questions. In addition, it is possible to study
engineered effects on cohorts of clouds or regions of
climate in a way that is difficult or impossible to do in
the stratosphere.
6. *Policy and public perception are different.* Local or
regional cloud-aerosol research is likely to have fewer
international regulatory considerations and a more benign
public perception.
7. *Experience and knowledge transfer*. There is likely to be
very useful knowledge sharing across teams working on
scientific, modeling and technical issues for both the
stratosphere and the troposphere which should lend to more
rigor, transparency and better informed regulation and
monitoring of each.
8. *Inadvertent tropospheric/cloud brightening effects are
already occurring*, and require additional research. Large
scale reduction in emissions may have warming effects in
which albedo offset alternatives may be desirable.
9. *The optimum approach may be to use multiple techniques*.
The risk-benefit profiles of the two most mature methods of
solar radiation management, stratospheric aerosol dispersal
and marine cloud brightening, suggest the possibility that
the use of multiple sources of radiative forcing may reduce
overall side-effects.
A large collaborative effort is underway that includes researchers
at Manchester University, Leeds University, the University of
Washington, the University of Edinburgh, NCAR, PNNL, PARC, Purdue
University and elsewhere, to continue to analyze cloud aerosol
effects in marine clouds and their impact on climate. This
research will advance both understanding of currently poorly
understood dynamics in the climate system (clouds and aerosols,
boundary layer effects etc) and to advance knowledge relevant to
marine cloud brightening as a form of geoengieering.
Kelly Wanser
Silver Lining Project
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