Dear John:
You know that I agree fully with your concerns about the loss of Arctic
summer sea ice, but I can¹t sign your letter.
I am tired of calls for a new Manhattan Project. The Arctic does not
require it. What is required is a fully funded RD&D effort (multilateral if
possible) to understand better the importance of the consequences from
loosing summer sea ice and of applying solar radiation management techniques
to arrest it. The RD&D should be carried out under the rules suggested at
the Asilomar Conference.
We need to give John Holdren a well thought out proposal. As far as I know
no such proposal has been written by anyone except by Ehsan Khan of DOE
early in the decade, and the draft report was finally released last year .
The America¹s Climate Choices report of the NAS has not yet been released.
I know, however, that geoengineering was covered in the science part of the
reports and in the mitigation part, I believe, but I haven¹t seen them yet.
I attended the geoengineering workshop that was part of this study.
With best regards,
Bill
On 7/11/10 1:38 AM, "John Nissen" <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> In view of the situation in the Arctic, I would be grateful for support for an
> open letter to John Holdren, along the following lines. Please let me know
> whether you agree with this text and whether you'd be happy for me to add your
> name at the bottom.
>
> Cheers,
>
> John
>
> ---
>
> To John P Holdren, the Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy
>
> Dear Dr Holdren,
>
> The Arctic sea ice acts as a giant mirror to reflect sunlight back into space
> and cool the Earth. The sea ice has been retreating far faster than the IPCC
> predicted only three years ago [1]. But, after the record retreat in September
> 2007, many scientists revised their predictions for the date of a seasonally
> ice free Arctic Ocean from beyond the end of century to beyond 2030. Only a
> few scientists predicted this event for the coming decade, and they were
> ridiculed.
>
> In 2008 and 2009 there was only a slight recovery in end-summer sea ice
> extent, and it appears that the minimum 2010 extent will be close to a new
> record [2]. However the evidence from PIOMAS is that there has been a very
> sharp decline in volume [3], which is very worrying.
>
> The Arctic warming is now accelerating, and we can expect permafrost to
> release large quantities of methane, from as early as 2011 onwards, which will
> lead inexorably to runaway greenhouse warming and abrupt climate change. All
> this could become apparent if the sea ice retreats further than ever before
> this summer. We could be approaching a point of no return unless emergency
> action is taken.
>
> We suggest that the current situation should be treated as a warning for us
> all. The world community must rethink its attitude to fighting global warming
> by cutting greenhouse gas emissions sharply. However, even if emissions could
> be cut to zero, the existing CO2 in the atmosphere would continue to warm the
> planet for many decades. Geoengineering now appears the only means to cool
> the Arctic quickly enough. A geoengineering project of the intensity of the
> Manhattan Project is urgently needed to guard against a global catastrophe.
>
> Yours sincerely,
>
> John Nissen
>
> [Other names to be added here.]
>
> [1] Stroeve et al, May 2007
> http://www.smithpa.demon.co.uk/GRL%20Arctic%20Ice.pdf
>
> [2]
> http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/images/daily_images/N_stddev_timeseries.png
>
> [3] http://nsidc.org/images/arcticseaicenews/20100608_Figure5.png
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