Hello John Nissen and All,
John N says:-
"Just before the hearing, the committee had received an email [6] from
some
geoengineering experts recommending research but suggesting that development
and deployment of geoengineering techniques was premature, thus undermining
the AMEG position".
I was one of the signatories that John alluded to. I believe that each one of
us feel
it shameful and dangerous that that research into promising SRM ideas has not
been significantly financially supported. The major stages of the required
research
involve modelling, resolution of all technological questions, examination of -
and
international agreement on - possible adverse consequences of deployment, and
the execution of (in the case of MCB, for example), of a limited area
field-testing
experiment. If the required funding was available now I think I think all the
above
goals could be achieved in 5 years, perhaps even 3.
At the moment these goals are far from being achieved. An attempt to
successfully
deploy now any likely SRM technique would be doomed to failure. The
technological
questions have not been fully resolved - so it would not work - and there would
be
- in my opinion - an international outcry against deployment.
We would be shooting ourselves in the foot, I think, if we tried to deploy now.
If
there was a major failure - which is likely - the response could be such as to
prohibit
further SRM work for a long time.We need to engage in crash programmes of
research
now, which means that we need immediately to obtain the required funding. [How,
I
dont know, I'm afraid].
All Best, John (Latham)
John Latham
Address: P.O. Box 3000,MMM,NCAR,Boulder,CO 80307-3000
Email: lat...@ucar.edu or john.latha...@manchester.ac.uk
Tel: (US-Work) 303-497-8182 or (US-Home) 303-444-2429
or (US-Cell) 303-882-0724 or (UK) 01928-730-002
http://www.mmm.ucar.edu/people/latham
________________________________________
From: geoengineering@googlegroups.com [geoengineering@googlegroups.com] on
behalf of John Nissen [johnnissen2...@gmail.com]
Sent: Sunday, March 18, 2012 12:40 PM
To: joshuahorton...@gmail.com
Cc: geoengineering; John Nissen; P. Wadhams; Stephen Salter; JON HUGHES; Albert
Kallio
Subject: Re: [geo] Re: We are top story on BBC environmental news
Hi Josh,
Before commenting on your question, I need to explain the recent activities of
AMEG, a group whose position Professor Salter supports. Professor Peter
Wadhams and I gave evidence, on behalf of AMEG, to the first of two hearings of
the Environment Audit Committee (AEC) inquiry "Protecting the Arctic" on 21st
February. We were given an opportunity to make a further presentation of the
AMEG case to the All-Party Parliamentary Climate Change Group (APPCCG) on 13th
March, i.e. last Tuesday, where we were joined by Professor Salter and
journalist, Jon Hughes. Richard Black, of the BBC, reported on the APPCCG
meeting [1]. The second hearing of EAC was on 14th March, at which the Met
Office gave oral evidence, reported by the Guardian [2] [3].
I am a great supporter of Stephen's cloud brightening approach, and we both
want it deployed as soon as possible. Stephen is a supporter of Peter Wadhams
and the AMEG position, that geoengineering is urgently needed to try to save
the sea ice. The sea ice is disappearing extraordinarily rapidly as Richard
Black reports from the APPCCG presentation [4] and you can see from the graph
of sea ice volume decline [5]. One can see from this graph that, if we are
unlucky and the sea ice volume declines this summer as much as it did between
the minimum in 2009 and 2010, i.e. ~2000 km-3, then it would halve the sea ice
left this September. Such a collapse in volume is likely to be accompanied by
a collapse in sea ice extent. With less heat flux going into melting the ice,
there could be a sudden spurt in Arctic warming, making a reversal to restore
the ice, by geoengineered cooling, extremely difficult if not impossible.
A point of no return could be reached this summer. Therefore we are in a
desperate situation. As I pointed out to the EAC, beggars can't be choosers,
so we have to use available means to try and cool the Arctic quickly, and avoid
any actions which could make this daunting task more difficult. Thus for
example, we urged EAC to recommend an immediate halting of Arctic drilling
because escape of methane (the main constituent of natural gas) would have a
warming effect on the Arctic.
Stephen was not at the EAC hearing on 21st February, but afterwards made it
clear to the committee that he supported the AMEG position. Just before the
hearing, the committee had received an email [6] from some geoengineering
experts recommending research but suggesting that development and deployment of
geoengineering techniques was premature, thus undermining the AMEG position.
The signatories had apparently included Stephen Salter, but this was a mistake
- he had not agreed to the wording that was used.
On the other hand the APPCCG meeting last week was an opportunity for Stephen
to trumpet the advantages of cloud brightening over what is seen as its main
rival. So I think you should take Stephen's strong statement as a warning
that, if used at the wrong time and place, stratospheric aerosols could be
counterproductive. I'll let him produce his detailed argument, which he
submitted as written evidence to the EAC hearing. We will no doubt have to
use a combination of techniques and measures to deal with the desperate
situation in the Arctic.
Cheers,
John
[1] http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-17400804
[2] http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2012/mar/14/oil-spill-arctic-exploration
[3]
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/mar/14/met-office-arctic-sea-ice-loss-winter
[4] "Analysis from the University of Washington, in Seattle, using ice
thickness data from submarines and satellites, suggests that Septembers could
be ice-free within just a few years."
[5] http://neven1.typepad.com/.a/6a0133f03a1e37970b0153920ddd12970b-pi taken
from
http://neven1.typepad.com/blog/2011/10/piomas-september-2011-volume-record-lower-still.html
[6] Email from Hue Coe to members of the AEC, 21st Feb, forwarded to the
geoengineering group on 23rd by Andrew Lockley.
---
On Sat, Mar 17, 2012 at 5:55 PM, Josh Horton
<joshuahorton...@gmail.com<mailto:joshuahorton...@gmail.com>> wrote:
"The idea of putting dust particles into the stratosphere to reflect sunlight,
mimicking the cooling effect of volcanic eruptions, would in fact be disastrous
for the Arctic, said Prof Salter, with models showing it would increase
temperatures at the pole by perhaps 10C."
That's a pretty strong statement--what's the evidence for this?
Josh Horton
On Saturday, March 17, 2012 6:25:22 AM UTC-4, Andrew Lockley wrote:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-17400804
Climate 'tech fixes' urged for Arctic methane
By Richard Black Environment correspondent, BBC News
An eminent UK engineer is suggesting building cloud-whitening towers in the
Faroe Islands as a "technical fix" for warming across the Arctic.
Scientists told UK MPs this week that the possibility of a major methane
release triggered by melting Arctic ice constitutes a "planetary emergency".
The Arctic could be sea-ice free each September within a few years.
Wave energy pioneer Stephen Salter has shown that pumping seawater sprays into
the atmosphere could cool the planet.
The Edinburgh University academic has previously suggested whitening clouds
using specially-built ships.
At a meeting in Westminster organised by the Arctic Methane Emergency Group
(Ameg), Prof Salter told MPs that the situation in the Arctic was so serious
that ships might take too long.
"I don't think there's time to do ships for the Arctic now," he said.
"We'd need a bit of land, in clean air and the right distance north... where
you can cool water flowing into the Arctic."
Favoured locations would be the Faroes and islands in the Bering Strait, he
said.
Towers would be constructed, simplified versions of what has been planned for
ships.
In summer, seawater would be pumped up to the top using some kind of renewable
energy, and out through the nozzles that are now being developed at Edinburgh
University, which achieve incredibly fine droplet size.
In an idea first proposed by US physicist John Latham, the fine droplets of
seawater provide nuclei around which water vapour can condense.
This makes the average droplet size in the clouds smaller, meaning they appear
whiter and reflect more of the Sun's incoming energy back into space, cooling
the Earth.
On melting ice
The area of Arctic Ocean covered by ice each summer has declined significantly
over the last few decades as air and sea temperatures have risen.
For each of the last four years, the September minimum has seen about
two-thirds of the average cover for the years 1979-2000, which is used a
baseline. The extent covered at other times of the year has also been shrinking.
What more concerns some scientists is the falling volume of ice.
Analysis from the University of Washington, in Seattle, using ice thickness
data from submarines and satellites, suggests that Septembers could be ice-free
within just a few years.
Data for September suggests the Arctic Ocean could be free of sea ice in a few
years
"In 2007, the water [off northern Siberia] warmed up to about 5C (41F) in
summer, and this extends down to the sea bed, melting the offshore permafrost,"
said Peter Wadhams, professor of ocean physics at Cambridge University.
Among the issues this raises is whether the ice-free conditions will quicken
release of methane currently trapped in the sea bed, especially in the shallow
waters along the northern coast of Siberia, Canada and Alaska.
Methane is a much more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide, though it
does not last as long in the atmosphere.
Several teams of scientists trying to measure how much methane is actually
being released have reported seeing vast bubbles coming up through the water -
although analysing how much this matters is complicated by the absence of
similar measurements from previous decades.
Nevertheless, Prof Wadhams told MPs, the release could be expected to get
stronger over time.
"With 'business-as-usual' greenhouse gas emissions, we might have warming of
9-10C in the Arctic.
"That will cement in place the ice-free nature of the Arctic Ocean - it will
release methane from offshore, and a lot of the methane on land as well."
This would - in turn - exacerbate warming, across the Arctic and the rest of
the world.
Abrupt methane releases from frozen regions may have played a major role in two
events, 55 and 251 million years ago, that extinguished much of the life then
on Earth.
Meteorologist Lord (Julian) Hunt, who chaired the meeting of the All Party
Parliamentary Group on Climate Change, clarified that an abrupt methane release
from the current warming was not inevitable, describing that as "an issue for
scientific debate".
But he also said that some in the scientific community had been reluctant to
discuss the possibility.
"There is quite a lot of suppression and non-discussion of issues that are
difficult, and one of those is in fact methane," he said, recalling a
reluctance on the part of at least one senior scientists involved in the Arctic
Climate Impact Assessment to discuss the impact that a methane release might
have.
Reluctant solutions
The field of implementing technical climate fixes, or geo-engineering, is full
of controversy, and even those involved in researching the issue see it as a
last-ditch option, a lot less desirable than constraining greenhouse gas
emissions.
"Everybody working in geo-engineering hopes it won't be needed - but we fear it
will be," said Prof Salter.
Adding to the controversy is that some of the techniques proposed could do more
harm than good.
The idea of putting dust particles into the stratosphere to reflect sunlight,
mimicking the cooling effect of volcanic eruptions, would in fact be disastrous
for the Arctic, said Prof Salter, with models showing it would increase
temperatures at the pole by perhaps 10C.
And last year, the cloud-whitening idea was also criticised by scientists who
calculated that using the wrong droplet size could lead to warming - though
Prof Salter says this can be eliminated through experimentation.
He has not so far embarked on a full costing of the land-based towers, but
suggests £200,000 as a ballpark figure.
Depending on the size and location, Prof Salter said that in the order of 100
towers would be needed to counteract Arctic warming.
However, no funding is currently on the table for cloud-whitening. A proposal
to build a prototype ship for about £20m found no takers, and currently
development work is limited to the lab.
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