Hello Michael,
Absolutely agreed on your point about rich desert ecology, and that we
need to be humble in the face of the complex earth system. In all
likelihood, all goeengineering methods are in some way 'simplistic'
because they intervene in processes which have evolved over time, in
symbiosis with the Earth system's changing state, as driven from the
outside by Milankovich cycles and tectonic processes.
However, we are at the point now where we are looking for 'least worst'
solutions rather than magic bullets which moderate global forcing with
little impact on important ecosystem services, as they probably don't
exist. Hence, there is a risk calculation where we may need to accept a
limited amount of damage to achive the greater good, i.e., a reduction
in glocal forcing to preserve as many ecosystems as possible. Saving
every desert ecosystem with little biomass may be a luxury we cannot
afford.
Furthermore, I would argue that we need to shift away from a 'magic
bullet' geoengineering paradigm to one which advocates a diverse mix or
'package' of smaller scale solutions which all together have a
synergetic impact on forcing, e.g., a mixture of regional aforestation,
white roofs, marine cloud brightening, cirrus thinning, enhanced
weathering, CCS and so on (these must be scaleable, sustainable and
quickly reversible). By doing this, we retain the option to assess these
pathways and then emphasize or deemphasize individual options over time
as their impacts on society and environment become apparent.
In consequence, one must redefine 'geoengineering' in a way that removes
the requirement that any one single method needs to have a measurable
impact on global forcing. An example of this is instead is to call
methods 'regional geoengineering'. We would also need to refine our
notion of what success is for these solution. In other words, a
reduction in forcing of 0.01 W m-2 might be called a success, instead of
requiring 0.2 W m-2 or similar as a benchmark (arbitrary numbers).
Research would need to reflect this complex mix instead of writing paper
after paper on the impacts of e.g. global reforestation alone, or global
SAI alone, and so on.
However, in my opinion SAI should be thought of in a different catgory
to geoengineering. Recreating Pinatubo or Krakatoa is neither scaleable,
or easily reversible and hence gives the rest of geoengineering
proposals a bad name. On the other hand, marine or cirrus cloud seeding
and its meteorological impacts can be stopped much more rapidly (of
course, feedbacks with vegetation may be much slower).
Regards
Oliver
--
Dr. Oliver Branch
Inst. for Physics and Meteorology (120)
University of Hohenheim
Garbenstr. 30
D-70599 Stuttgart
phone: 0711 - 459 -23132
On 10/11/2021 23:52, Michael Kleeman wrote:
Irrespective of the benefits or risks of solar radiation management
the ecosystem impacts are real.
And for reference deserts have a rich life and are sensitive to light,
pressure, vibration and general disruption. Different from forested
area but no less alive in their own way
We need to be humble in the face of complex systems and not propose
simplistic interventions that make assumptions based on too little data.
On Nov 10, 2021, at 12:55 PM, Oliver <oliver_bra...@uni-hohenheim.de>
wrote:
Do you not think this is rather a kneejerk reaction? Is it as awful
an idea as injecting thousands of tons of silver dioxide or similar
materials into the stratosphere? An action which will influence the
global weather for a minimum of 4 years if done at the equator. Now
that is a truly awful idea. On the other hand, I would say that the
consequences of lighting forests are more predictable, and the idea
is scalable and can be stopped easily.
In any case perhaps with some adjustment the idea may have merit. How
about lighting desert plantations in marginal areas, not in pristine
forest where delicate flora and fauna exist. Solar power can recharge
batteries or lighting. Or extreme northern boreal forest, where few
other animal forest species exist in large numbers. In areas of low
radiation such a light boost may be just what it takes to increase
productivity.
Oliver
--
Dr. Oliver Branch
Inst. for Physics and Meteorology (120)
University of Hohenheim
Garbenstr. 30
D-70599 Stuttgart
phone: 0711 - 459 -23132
On 10/11/2021 17:52, Jessica Gurevitch wrote:
This is a truly awful idea. These authors are apparently totally
ignorant of, or uninterested in, the natural world of ecological
communities and of biodiversity. Many, many organisms in tropical
forests depend on nighttime darkness to survive and function. The
"unintended (or uninformed) consequences" of this are horrifically
mind blowing.
Jessica
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Jessica Gurevitch
Distinguished Professor and Co-Chair
Department of Ecology and Evolution
Stony Brook University
Stony Brook, NY 11794-5245 USA
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
On Wed, Nov 10, 2021 at 1:54 AM Geoeng Info <infogeo...@gmail.com>
wrote:
https://esd.copernicus.org/preprints/esd-2021-85/
Exploration of a novel geoengineering solution: lighting up
tropical forests at night
Xueyuan Gao, Shunlin Liang, Dongdong Wang, Yan Li, Bin He, Aolin Jia
Abstract.
Plants primarily conduct photosynthesis in the daytime, offering
an opportunity to increase photosynthesis and carbon sink by
providing light at night. We used a fully coupled Earth System
Model to quantify the carbon sequestration and climate effects
of a novel carbon removal proposal: lighting up tropical forests
at night via lamp networks above the forest canopy. Simulation
results show that additional light increased tropical forest
carbon sink by 10.4 ± 0.05 petagrams of carbon per year during a
16-year lighting experiment, resulting in a decrease in
atmospheric CO2 and suppression of global warming. In addition,
local temperature and precipitation increased. The energy
requirement for capturing one ton of carbon is lower than that
of Direct Air Carbon Capture. When the lighting experiment was
terminated, tropical forests started to release carbon slowly.
This study suggests that lighting up tropical forests at night
could be an emergency solution to climate change, and carbon
removal actions focused on enhancing ecosystem productivity by
altering environmental factors in the short term could induce
post-action CO2 outgassing.
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