Andrew, The answer to your question is to understand meteorology, which few climate scientists seem to do nowadays. In fact there is still a lot we don’t know. They ignore small scale ( < 20km) processes.
If you look at the last Iccp report aerosols will only produce 0.9 W /m2 difference /error bars on radiation balance. Aerosols are often washed out in the boundary layer ( except in high pressures and under SC clouds). Clouds are incredibly important in radiation balance. Look at Mars and Venus. Put aerosols in the stratosphere , they last a long time but can do funny things like remove the ozone (protecting layer ) and last for years like cfcs and produce skin cancers, as found in South American toad workers. One has to understand the atmosphere!! Alan T --- Alan Gadian, UK. Tel: +44 / 0 775 451 9009 T --- > On 10 Feb 2021, at 18:27, Andrew Lockley <[email protected]> wrote: > > > > https://jabberwocking.com/in-2040-we-will-collectively-decide-to-flood-the-atmosphere-with-aerosols/ > > In 2040 We Will Collectively Decide to Flood the Atmosphere With Aerosols > AuthorKevin DrumPublished onFebruary 9, 2021 – 9:21 am23 Commentson In 2040 > We Will Collectively Decide to Flood the Atmosphere With Aerosols > I see that Ezra Klein is reading my mind today: > > Should We Dim the Sun? Will We Even Have a Choice? > > That’s the central theme of the Pulitzer Prize-winning author and journalist > Elizabeth Kolbert’s new book, “Under a White Sky: The Nature of the > Future.”...In my conversation with her on my podcast, “The Ezra Klein Show,” > I wanted to focus on one [subject] that obsesses me: solar geoengineering. To > even contemplate it feels like the height of hubris. Are we really going to > dim the sun? And yet, any reasonable analysis of the mismatch between our > glacial politics and our rapidly warming planet demands that we deny > ourselves the luxury of only contemplating the solutions we would prefer. > > Fifteen years ago my view on climate change was conventionally liberal: we > needed bold policies to fight global warming. This included things like > carbon taxes; federal initiatives to spur investment in solar and wind; > regulations to reduce power consumption, and so forth. One of my earliest > magazine pieces for Mother Jones represents this kind of thinking. You can > read it here. > > For fifteen years I waited for evidence that the world would make even the > mildest efforts to enter this fight. But this is a global problem that > demands a global response, and on that score we've gotten almost nothing. We > all signed the Paris Accord, but compliance is voluntary and few countries > have any real hope of meeting their goals. Extraction of fossil fuels > continues apace in virtually every country where it's possible: Canada has > oil sands, Norway has offshore oil, the United States has fracking, Germany > has coal, China has coal, and even Britain, which gave up mining coal years > ago, is now set to open a new coal mine. No matter how green a country claims > to be, it will extract all the fossil fuels it can if it means generating a > few more jobs or making a small dent in its balance of trade figures. In the > meantime, carbon levels in the atmosphere continue to rise like a metronome: > A couple of years ago I finally gave up on this: It was obvious there was no > hope for an adequate global response in anywhere close to the necessary time > frame. I now believe that our only option is to invest massive amounts of > money in technology solutions, hoping against hope that enough of them > succeed to reverse warming before it destroys the planet. You can read all > about that here. > > But there's one more thing. Technological progress may be our best hope right > now, but how likely is it to work? Since it requires no big personal > sacrifice other than trainloads of cash—which can be put on national credit > cards if push comes to shove—it could gain enough public support. And since > it will produce technology that everyone can use, other countries might well > pitch in. And finally, since it does nothing one way or the other about the > Uighurs, even China might get on board. It has a legitimate chance. > > By "legitimate," however, I mean that my personal guess is that it has maybe > a 10% chance of panning out. If you're an optimist, you might give it 20%. > > Which brings us to this: what do I predict will happen? The answer is that I > think around 2040 or so we will collectively conclude that we're screwed. > Global temps will already be 2ºC above the historical average and we'll be on > an irreversible path to 3ºC. The future will look so horrific that we simply > have no choices left. And so we will shoot gigatons of aerosols into the > atmosphere. This will dim the sun's heat just enough to halt, and then > reverse, global warming. > > This is not the only possible form of geoengineering. There are lots of > others, many of them fascinating and some of them far better, in theory, than > aerosols. But all of them are pipe dreams right now, and even in the future > will probably be prohibitively expensive and intrusive. Aerosols, by > contrast, are surprisingly well understood and surprisingly cheap. > > They're well understood partly because every few years a volcano dumps a huge > load of ash and aerosols into the atmosphere, which has given us a chance to > study their impact. And they're cheap because, well, because they are. > Roughly speaking, all it takes is a fleet of about a hundred aircraft > spraying loads of sulfate aerosols 24/7. The cost would be in the range of > $5-10 billion a year, which is peanuts, and it would lower the temperature of > the earth by about a twentieth of a degree per year. We would slowly get back > to a manageable level, and then continue spraying to keep temps steady. > > Do I think this is a good idea? Absolutely not. For one thing, it doesn't > solve all the problems of climate change. Ocean acidification, for example. > For another, different areas of the planet have different ideal temperatures. > Who's going to decide what our global goal should be? And what's to stop any > country from spraying its own aerosols if it thinks temperatures should be > even lower? > > So of course it's not a good idea. It's a terrible idea. But is it a worse > idea than warming of 3ºC? Nope. And it's not even close. > > The things we're doing now will probably have an impact by 2040. That's good, > since the less spraying we have to do the better. But they most likely won't > be anywhere close to what we need, and the pressure to adopt a cheap, fast, > and decently understood second-best solution will eventually become > irresistible. And so we'll spray > -- > 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 view this discussion on the web visit > https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/geoengineering/CAJ3C-07idNQJE3LeoAuJPOfsOeOQwuoZUOz8wvbigMU-S36kKA%40mail.gmail.com. -- 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 view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/geoengineering/EA9C882D-867A-4085-9763-853A170574B7%40gmail.com.
