Hello All, Just to add a little to Steve's excellent points:-
Jones et al (2009) reported that their computations re MCB - in which they seeded 3 large regions of stratocumulus clouds - produced a significant rainfall reduction in the Amazonian region. In their (2011) paper they report that if seeding of one of the 3 regions (Namibia) is switched off there is no significant Amazonian rainfall reduction. Studies by Bala,Caldeira et al (2010) and Rasch et al (2009), in which MCB seeding occurs over much larger oceanic areas do not indicate significant rainfall loss in this region. It follows that it is not justifiable, in the light of these studies, to state that significant rainfall reduction in this area WOULD occur. COULD is of course still acceptable. As the work of Steve & colleagues shows, the geographical distribution of MCB seeding is critical in determining the impacts. It behoves us therefore to become more enlightened re seeding patterns. Cheers, John. John Latham Address: P.O. Box 3000,MMM,NCAR,Boulder,CO 80307-3000 Email: [email protected] or [email protected] 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: [email protected] [[email protected]] on behalf of Stephen Salter [[email protected]] Sent: 20 February 2013 15:48 To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [geo] pre-print of forth-coming paper: Svoboda, T and Irvine, PJ, "Ethical and Technical Challenges in Compensating for Harm Due to Solar RadiationManagement Geoengineering" Hi All There are so many papers on the ethics of geo-engineering (two today already) that the guys trying to do the practical bits cannot read all of them even though they are mostly the same. But I hope that there may be time for some minor corrections in the one by Tony and Peter. They quote Jones et al 2009 saying that marine cloud brightening would cause a large reduction in Amazon rainfall when this it is only 300 mm a year out for a typical 2300 mm a year and then only for spray off Namibia. Figure 3 from the attached paper based on results from Ben Parkes shows that spray in many other places, including amazingly south of the Aleutian islands, can increase precipitation in the Amazon. So far no modellers have thought of varying the spray rate or position with respect to monsoons or the phase of the el Nino oscillation. It would be very odd if these had no effect. Tony and Peter quote Bala et al. 2010 in Climate Dynamics saying that SRM decreases annual precipitation in some regions. In fact the final line of Climate Dynamics 36 (5-6), pp 1-17 reads Climate Dynamics 37(5-6), pp. 1-1 '. . . . our study indicates that reflecting sunlight to space by reducing cloud droplet size over the oceans could lead, on average, to a moistening of the continents.' I will be very grateful to anyone who can save me wasting my time working on something which has bad effects but so far it really seems that keeping sea surface temperatures close to where they used to be is good and that by choosing the time and place for cloud albedo control we can vary precipitation in either direction. The only people who have benefited from the droughts in America and Russia are grain speculators. Nobody benefited from the floods in Queensland and Pakistan. Droughts and floods are we we must expect, more and worse. They are what geo-engineering is trying to stop. Tony and Peter write that SRM does nothing for ocean acidity. They might have added that it does not turn base metals into gold or cure AIDS. It is also true that fixing ocean acidity does nothing for melting ice caps. We are allowed more than one tool in the box and we should use all possible tools to do what they are good at. If Tony and Peter could read the attached short note they might be persuaded to write two more papers. One would be the 'Rewards to people who managed to get practical hardware for friendly geo-engineering developed just in time despite having no money'. The second paper would be 'Punishments to people who delayed the development of essential geo-engineering hardware by use of dodgy references'. Stephen Emeritus Professor of Engineering Design School of Engineering University of Edinburgh Mayfield Road Edinburgh EH9 3JL Scotland [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> Tel +44 (0)131 650 5704 Cell 07795 203 195 WWW.see.ed.ac.uk/~shs<http://WWW.see.ed.ac.uk/~shs> On 20/02/2013 13:59, p.j.irvine wrote: Toby Svoboda and I have produced a piece on some of the difficulties that would face a compensation scheme for SRM geoengineering. The link below is for a pre-print version of the article which is forthcoming in the journal Ethics, Policy and Environment. This will not make it into print until late 2013 or early 2014 but we thought it would be nice to get it seen before then. The version at the end of this link is not the final version of the paper but the differences are minor. http://www.academia.edu/2198791/Ethical_and_Technical_Challenges_in_Compensating_for_Harm_Due_to_Solar_Radiation_Management_Geoengineering -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "geoengineering" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/geoengineering?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. -- John Latham Address: P.O. Box 3000,MMM,NCAR,Boulder,CO 80307-3000 Email: [email protected] or [email protected] 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: [email protected] [[email protected]] on behalf of Stephen Salter [[email protected]] Sent: 20 February 2013 15:48 To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [geo] pre-print of forth-coming paper: Svoboda, T and Irvine, PJ, "Ethical and Technical Challenges in Compensating for Harm Due to Solar RadiationManagement Geoengineering" Hi All There are so many papers on the ethics of geo-engineering (two today already) that the guys trying to do the practical bits cannot read all of them even though they are mostly the same. But I hope that there may be time for some minor corrections in the one by Tony and Peter. They quote Jones et al 2009 saying that marine cloud brightening would cause a large reduction in Amazon rainfall when this it is only 300 mm a year out for a typical 2300 mm a year and then only for spray off Namibia. Figure 3 from the attached paper based on results from Ben Parkes shows that spray in many other places, including amazingly south of the Aleutian islands, can increase precipitation in the Amazon. So far no modellers have thought of varying the spray rate or position with respect to monsoons or the phase of the el Nino oscillation. It would be very odd if these had no effect. Tony and Peter quote Bala et al. 2010 in Climate Dynamics saying that SRM decreases annual precipitation in some regions. In fact the final line of Climate Dynamics 36 (5-6), pp 1-17 reads Climate Dynamics 37(5-6), pp. 1-1 '. . . . our study indicates that reflecting sunlight to space by reducing cloud droplet size over the oceans could lead, on average, to a moistening of the continents.' I will be very grateful to anyone who can save me wasting my time working on something which has bad effects but so far it really seems that keeping sea surface temperatures close to where they used to be is good and that by choosing the time and place for cloud albedo control we can vary precipitation in either direction. The only people who have benefited from the droughts in America and Russia are grain speculators. Nobody benefited from the floods in Queensland and Pakistan. Droughts and floods are we we must expect, more and worse. They are what geo-engineering is trying to stop. Tony and Peter write that SRM does nothing for ocean acidity. They might have added that it does not turn base metals into gold or cure AIDS. It is also true that fixing ocean acidity does nothing for melting ice caps. We are allowed more than one tool in the box and we should use all possible tools to do what they are good at. If Tony and Peter could read the attached short note they might be persuaded to write two more papers. One would be the 'Rewards to people who managed to get practical hardware for friendly geo-engineering developed just in time despite having no money'. The second paper would be 'Punishments to people who delayed the development of essential geo-engineering hardware by use of dodgy references'. Stephen Emeritus Professor of Engineering Design School of Engineering University of Edinburgh Mayfield Road Edinburgh EH9 3JL Scotland [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> Tel +44 (0)131 650 5704 Cell 07795 203 195 WWW.see.ed.ac.uk/~shs<http://WWW.see.ed.ac.uk/~shs> On 20/02/2013 13:59, p.j.irvine wrote: Toby Svoboda and I have produced a piece on some of the difficulties that would face a compensation scheme for SRM geoengineering. The link below is for a pre-print version of the article which is forthcoming in the journal Ethics, Policy and Environment. This will not make it into print until late 2013 or early 2014 but we thought it would be nice to get it seen before then. The version at the end of this link is not the final version of the paper but the differences are minor. http://www.academia.edu/2198791/Ethical_and_Technical_Challenges_in_Compensating_for_Harm_Due_to_Solar_Radiation_Management_Geoengineering -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "geoengineering" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/geoengineering?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. -- -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "geoengineering" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/geoengineering?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
