http://www.lemonde.fr/web/article/0,[EMAIL PROTECTED],36-869416,0.html (translations mine)
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/02/aerosols-the-last-frontier/#more-406 The above editorial in Le Monde is quite interesting. It basically argues that the battle against the "denialists" is over, and the next one is against the "geoengineers", whose basic message is the same "nothing needs to change". "Not because of scientific uncertainties, but to the contrary because one day there will the the power to undo what has already been wreaked. ... It is a battle that, in summary, pits arrogance against humility." The editorial cites a climatologist, Edouard Bard, who is quoted as having said that "The injection of aerosols will perturb the natural phenomenon known as the Arctic Oscillation, which will result in local episodes of heat in winter in certain regions and focus the global cooling effect [of the aerosols] on other regions." It is also interesting to read the discussion of aerosols already being emitted over on real climate. One way of looking at it, is to say that we are already engaged in geoengineering with aerosols, offsetting some of the warming of CO2 with fossil fuel derived aerosols, but doing so in a rather poorly controlled manner, where most of the aerosols gets washed out of the atmosphere within days. This is rather unlike what happens in major volcanic eruptions, where the aerosols are flung up high enough that they stay in the stratosphere for a few years. The geoengineering we are doing at the moment with aerosols has major health effects, and results in local issues with acidification, emulating major volcanic eruptions would not, as the amount of material is much smaller, washed out over the whole planet and only in aerosol form in the stratosphere, which most people don't breathe. --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Global Change ("globalchange") newsgroup. Global Change is a public, moderated venue for discussion of science, technology, economics and policy dimensions of global environmental change. Posts will be admitted to the list if and only if any moderator finds the submission to be constructive and/or interesting, on topic, and not gratuitously rude. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/globalchange -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
