Embark on what?
The Guardian article is somewhat confused in general. Basically, there’s only two real observations. Harvard has some research money. And some quite small fraction of that research money will go into very small scale outdoor field experiments. I personally think it is quite advisable to pursue research, which is all that is going on; individual opinions on whether outdoor experiments are advisable even at process-scale may differ, but no-one should form their opinions of those based solely on the Guardian article. From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Adrian Tuck Sent: Saturday, March 25, 2017 11:49 AM To: [email protected] Cc: geoengineering <[email protected]> Subject: Re: [geo] US scientists launch world's biggest solar geoengineering study The idea that we know enough by way of predictability to embark on this, when models predict macro weather rather than climate, is inadvisable, to put it mildly. On 25 Mar 2017, at 05:10, Shinichiro ASAYAMA <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> > wrote: Dear all, In association with this new Harvard solar geoengineering research program, I would like to take an opportunity to selfishly advertise our paper on Japanese lay public views on outdoor experiments of stratospheric aerosol injection, recently published in Geoforum. Ambivalent climate of opinions: Tensions and dilemmas in understanding geoengineering experimentation http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0016718517300209 In our paper, we explicitly delved into how lay publics conceptualized the idea of small-scale outdoor experiment of SAI and what this experimentation is for and about. Our paper is also the first critical social science research to empirically inquiry public understanding of geoengineering in Asian context. Your feedback is more than welcome! Best wishes, Shinichiro 2017-03-25 6:49 GMT+09:00 Andrew Lockley <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> >: US scientists launch world's biggest solar geoengineering study https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/mar/24/us-scientists-launch-worlds-biggest-solar-geoengineering-study?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Gmail US scientists launch world's biggest solar geoengineering study Research programme will send aerosol injections into the earth’s upper atmosphere to study the risks and benefits of a future solar tech-fix for climate change Scientists say the planet could be covered with a solar shield for as little as $10bn a year. Photograph: ISS/Nasa Arthur Neslen Published:12:39 GMT+00:00 Fri 24 March 2017 Follow Arthur Neslen US scientists are set to send aerosol injections 20km up into the earth’s stratosphere in the world’s biggest solar geoengineering programme to date, to study the potential of a future tech-fix for global warming. The $20m (£16m) Harvard University project will launch within weeks and aims to establish whether the technology can safely simulate the atmospheric cooling effects of a volcanic eruption, if a last ditch bid to halt climate change is one day needed. AdvertisementHide Scientists hope to complete two small-scale dispersals of first water and then calcium carbonate particles by 2022. Future tests could involve seeding the sky with aluminium oxide – or even diamonds. Is geoengineering a bad idea? | Karl Mathiesen “This is not the first or the only university study,” said Gernot Wagner, the project’s co-founder, “but it is most certainly the largest, and the most comprehensive.” Janos Pasztor, Ban Ki-moon’s assistant climate chief at the UN who now leads <https://www.carnegiecouncil.org/news/announcements/411> a <https://www.carnegiecouncil.org/news/announcements/411> geoengineering governance initiative, said that the Harvard scientists would only disperse minimal amounts of compounds in their tests, under strict university controls. “The real issue here is something much more challenging,” he said “What does moving experimentation from the lab into the atmosphere mean for the overall path towards eventual deployment?” Geoengineering advocates stress that any attempt at a solar tech fix is years away and should be viewed as a compliment to – not a substitute for – aggressive emissions reductions action. But the Harvard team, in a <http://geoengineering.environment.harvard.edu/> promotional video for the project, suggest a redirection of one percent of current climate mitigation funds to geoengineering research, and argue that the planet could be covered with a solar shield for as little as $10bn a year. Geoengineering is fast and cheap but not key to halting climate change Some senior UN climate scientists view such developments with alarm, fearing a cash drain from proven mitigation technologies such as wind and solar energy, to ones carrying the potential for unintended disasters. Kevin Trenberth, a lead author for the UN’s intergovernmental panel on climate change, said that despair at sluggish climate action, and the rise of Donald Trump were feeding the current tech trend. “But solar geoengineering is not the answer,” he said. “Cutting incoming solar radiation affects the weather and hydrological cycle. It promotes drought. It destabilizes things and could cause wars. The side effects are many and our models are just not good enough to predict the outcomes” Natural alterations to the earth’s radiation balance can be short-lasting, but terrifying. A 1991 Mount Pinatubo eruption lowered global temperatures by 0.5C, while the Mount Tambora eruption in 1815 triggered Europe’s ‘year without a summer’, bringing crop failure, famine and disease. A Met Office study in 2013 said that the dispersal of fine particles in the stratosphere could <http://www.climatechangenews.com/2013/04/02/geoengineering-could-cause-drought-in-sahel/> precipitate a calamitous droughtacross North Africa. Frank Keutsch, the Harvard atmospheric sciences professor leading the experiment, said that the deployment of a solar geoengineering system was “a terrifying prospect” that he hoped would never have to be considered. “At the same time, we should never choose ignorance over knowledge in a situation like this,” he said. “If you put heat into the stratosphere, it may change how much water gets transported from the troposphere to the stratosphere, and the question is how much are you [creating] a domino effect with all kinds of consequences? What we can do to quantify this is to start with lab studies and try to understand the relevant properties of these aerosols.” <https://www.ethz.ch/en/news-and-events/eth-news/news/2015/01/geoengineering-going-outdoors.html> Stratospheric controlled perturbation experiments (SCoPEX) are seen as “critical” to this process and the first is planned to spray water molecules into the stratosphere to create a 1km long and 100m wide icy plume, which can be studied by a manoeuvrable flight balloon. If lab tests are positive, the experiment would then be replicated with a limestone compound which the researchers believe will neither absorb solar or terrestrial radiation, nor deplete the ozone layer. Bill Gates and other foundations are substantially funding the project, and aerospace companies are thought to be taking a business interest in the technology’s potential. The programmme’s launch will follow a major conference involving more than 100 scientists, which begins in Washington DC today. Solar geoengineering’s journey from the fringes of climate science to its mainstream will be sealed at a prestigious <https://www.grc.org/programs.aspx?id=17348> Gordon research conference in July, featuring senior figures from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and Oxford University. Pasztor says that most scientific observers now see the window to a 1.5C warmed world as “practically gone” and notes that atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations will continue rising for many decades after the planet has reached a ‘net zero emissions’ point planned for mid-late century. But critics of solar radiation management approach this as a call to redouble mitigation efforts and guard against the elevation of a questionable Plan B. “It is appropriate that we spend money on solar geoengineering research,” said Kevin Anderson, the deputy director of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research. “But we also have to aim for 2C with climate mitigation and act as though geoengineering doesn’t work, because it probably won’t.” -- 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 https://groups.google.com/group/geoengineering. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. -- \\\\\\\\\\\ Shinichiro ASAYAMA, PhD Postdoctoral Research Fellow, National Institute for Environmental Studies (NIES), Japan e-mail: [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> (ORCID) http://orcid.org/0000-0001-6817-3862 (researchmap) http://researchmap.jp/shinichiro.asayama/ /////////// -- 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 https://groups.google.com/group/geoengineering. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. -- 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 https://groups.google.com/group/geoengineering. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. -- 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 https://groups.google.com/group/geoengineering. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
