Hi All

It is good to have the correct attributions to wise statements but the main point of my reply to James was the attempt to get comments and help for small experiments which he had said could not be done. It is odd to say that our ignorance of a subject is a justification for NOT doing research on it.

Stephen

Emeritus Professor of Engineering Design
Institute for Energy Systems
School of Engineering
Mayfield Road
University of Edinburgh EH9  3JL
Scotland
Tel +44 131 650 5704
Mobile 07795 203 195
www.see.ed.ac.uk/~shs


On 25/09/2010 22:17, James R. Fleming wrote:
Colleagues:

Stephen Salter wrote: /Ken has pointed out that we are already carrying out an dangerous planetary test which we do not understand. Lowell says that we started it thousands of years ago./

I believe the proper attribution for these ideas are not Caldeira and Wood but a combination of Glbert Plass and Roger Revelle and Hans Suess for the first and William Ruddiman for the second.

    "If at the end of this century, measurements show that the carbon
    dioxide content of the atmosphere has risen appreciably and at the
    same time the temperature has continued to rise throughout the
    world, it will be firmly established that carbon dioxide is an
    important factor in causing climatic change" -- Gilbert Plass (1956).

    "Human beings are now carrying out a large scale geophysical
    experiment of a kind that could not have happened in the past nor
    be reproduced in the future.  Within a few centuries we are
    returning to the atmosphere and oceans the concentrated organic
    carbon stored in sedimentary rocks over hundreds of millions of
    years.  This experiment, if adequately documented, may yield a
    far-reaching insight into the processes determining weather and
    climate" -- REvelle and Suess (1957).

    "The hypothesis (Ruddiman, 2003
    <http://courses.eas.ualberta.ca/eas457/Ruddiman2003.pdf>
    <http://courses.eas.ualberta.ca/eas457/Ruddiman2003.pdf%3E>) that
    early agriculture caused large enough emissions of greenhouse
    gases millennia ago to offset a natural climatic cooling remains
    controversial" -- Ruddiman.


Also, there is no doubt that clouds can be brightened (by ships tracks, etc.), but is this a climate test? Do you know that in 1947 Kathleen Blodget at General Electric told Irving Langmiur that intervening in a cloud was something much different than "controlling the weather?" Seems to have fallen on Langmuir's deaf ears.

Jim Fleming --
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.
The University of Edinburgh is a charitable body, registered in
Scotland, with registration number SC005336.
-- 
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.

Reply via email to