Hi all,
I think some of you may have missed this planetwork article on
geoengineering, referring to SRM as 'climate protection' (CP) and CDR,
including biochar, as 'climate restoration' (CR).
http://www.planetwork.net/climate/
Lloyd Helferty, who brought this article to my attention, hopes that it
is "overblown" in its facts, but I think it is rather a well balanced
account of the situation except that it understates the problem of the
speed of Arctic sea ice retreat and hence the timescale for SRM (under
two years for full-scale deployment if humanly possible).
But the first paragraph gives a timescale for getting the CO2 level down
to below 350 ppm, which I've not seen before.
/Recent findings on the risk of the collapse of the oceans
<http://www.planetwork.net/pr/index.html> has brought CO2 back to the
top of the list of the most acute threats in what has up until now been
referred to as climate change. The new understanding of ocean acidity
<http://www.planetwork.net/oceanacidity/index.html> suggests that we
must reduce the atmospheric CO2 level back to pre 1980's levels of
350ppm, or less, within less than 50 years. This is virtually
unimaginable within the current framework of negotiations, and
represents an urgency that has not previously been understood. To do so
will not only require massive CO2 removal, but will require us to do so
on a timeframe that will require a transformation of society on a par
with the mobilization for WWII. The question will be whether society can
recognize that this is necessary to avert the collapse of the biosphere
as we know it, and act in time.
/
From ocean acidification articles I've read, I think we might need to
get down to 350 ppm within two or three decades, and suggest we should
be aiming for global carbon neutrality by 2020 and below 350 ppm by
2030, as could be achieved by a WWII effort on CDR with funding growing
to $1 trillion per year (equivalent to about 1.5% global GDP -
commensurate with Sir Nicholas Stern's report/review [1]) by 2020. Such
funding money could be raised by a tax on carbon out of the ground, i.e.
to pay to put the carbon back in the ground and achieve a global carbon
neutral economy by 2030. A further tax increase over ten years could
then be arranged to bring the CO2 level back down to below 350 ppm by
2030, or whatever is considered safe. (Biochar should take an important
role in all this, not only for CDR but also to improve soils and help to
feed the growing world population.)
This article at last brings some realism to the enormity of the
challenge we face if we want to protect the environment from overheating
_and_ restore the carbon cycle. It really has to be a WWII effort on
both fronts. But saving the Arctic sea ice is the most urgent, because
of the overwhelming quantity of methane that could be released from
permafrost if the Arctic continues to warm [2].
Cheers,
John
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stern_Review
[2] http://www.sciencemag.org/content/327/5970/1246.abstract
---
On 14/12/2010 18:04, Lloyd Helferty wrote:
Richard,
Thank you very much for your response. I hope that you don't mind
if I share this information among some of our group members who seems
to be interested in the topic of Ocean Acidification.
It is my hope that the information contained in articles such as
http://www.planetwork.net/climate/ are in fact overblown in their
"facts", for the consequences could be rather tragic -- for the Earth
and (most likely) for Humanity.
[snip]
Also, I had just read the following article:
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/329/5990/428.short, that was
published this summer in Science Magazine, where they state that,
"Ocean acidification fueled by rising levels of atmospheric CO_2 ^is
/*likely*/ to become a major challenge for ocean ecosystems."
The Italian researchers (Erba et al.) presented "a detailed
stratigraphic and geochemical characterization of 120-million-year-old
marine sediments from a time when the oceans acidified because of a
massive outgassing of volcanic CO2."
They found that "microscopic fossils in the sediments, such as
calcareous nano-plankton", showed "evidence of having responded to
this major disruption through species-specific adaptations like
*deforming and shrinking their cells*."
... "These changes allowed these abundant and diverse organisms to
avoid extinction, even through *a subsequent global depletion of ocean
oxygen levels*."*
(*What they referred to as the "*Aptian Oceanic Anoxic Event* (~120
Ma - sometimes called the /*Selli Event */or OAE 1a), which resulted
from a massive addition of volcanic CO2"**)
This last tidbit of information (global depletion of ocean oxygen
levels) is probably the most troubling.
If this is any indication that our current CO2 emission trajectory
could be leading to a similar "/*pre-anoxia calcification crisis*/" in
the oceans, could this also mean that we might also be headed toward
another long-term (~160,000 year) event that results in "/*persistent
global dysoxia-anoxia*/"?
** It seems that this "massive addition of volcanic CO2" is likely to
have triggered a "*major rapid negative carbon-isotope^excursion*"
during the Early Aptian (Early Cretaceous) period. It has been been
proposed to be "*the result of (a) large methane gas-hydrate
dissociation event*":
http://www.ajsonline.org/cgi/content/abstract/302/1/28
In other words, "large episodic *methane releases* of about *3000 Gt
*... promoting warm 'greenhouse' conditions", having "increased the
atmospheric CO2 concentration by... *600 ppmv*", resulting in
increases in average "land surface temperatures by 2.5° to 3.0°C".
Luckily (perhaps) they also "show that much of the methane released
from oceanic sediments is *rapidly sequestered by terrestrial and
marine components in the global carbon cycle*, and this effect
strongly attenuated the potential for ancient methane gas-hydrate
dissociation events to act as major amplifiers in global warming".
But what does "rapidly" mean in this case, especially when we are
talking about /*Geologic time*/? A few tens of thousands of years?
Perhaps it refers to the 160,000 years of "persistent global
dysoxia-anoxia" referred to in the above article?
(A relative "blink of the eye" in Geologic terms...)
Lloyd Helferty, Engineering Technologist
Principal, Biochar Consulting (Canada)
www.biochar-consulting.ca
603-48 Suncrest Blvd, Thornhill, ON, Canada
905-707-8754; 647-886-8754 (cell)
Skype: lloyd.helferty
Steering Committee member, Canadian Biochar Initiative
President, Co-founder& CBI Liaison, Biochar-Ontario
Advisory Committee Member, IBI
[snip]
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