[geo] call for abstracts for AGU sessions
FYI (Marcia McNutt a CDR expert - who knew?) - Greg From: Dunlea, Edward edun...@nas.edumailto:edun...@nas.edu Date: Wednesday, July 2, 2014 8:30 AM To: Dunlea, Edward edun...@nas.edumailto:edun...@nas.edu Subject: call for abstracts for AGU sessions Dear Colleagues, We would like to call your attention to two sessions at the Fall Meeting of the American Geophysical Union related to climate engineering. Please consider submitting an abstract and/or sharing this announcement with others who might be interested. Removing Carbon Dioxide from Earth's Atmospherehttps://agu.confex.com/agu/fm14/webprogrampreliminary/Session3272.html Conveners: Marcia McNutt, Jennifer Wilcox, Edward Dunlea Human activities over the past centuries--mostly fossil fuel burning and deforestation--have resulted in the release of nearly two trillion tons of carbon dioxide, significantly increasing concentrations in the atmosphere. Today, scientists, engineers, and policy makers are working together to discover, validate, and implement strategies to reduce CO2 emissions. However, given the pace of emissions reductions, efforts to remove anthropogenic CO2 from the atmosphere and sequester them may be necessary within the portfolio of solutions to reduce negative climate-change impacts. This session provides a venue to discuss various carbon dioxide removal techniques, including bioenergy with carbon capture and sequestration, land management (afforestation, reforestation, etc.), and ocean iron fertilization. Abstracts that consider carbon reservoir properties and carbon disposal are also invited. Geoengineering the Climate through (Solar) Radiation Modificationhttps://agu.confex.com/agu/fm14/webprogrampreliminary/Session1795.html Conveners: Piers Forster, Ben Kravitz, Hauke Schmidt, and Simone Tilmes Engineering ideas to reduce the impact of climate change have been proposed that involve (e.g.) injection of aerosol particles, modification of clouds and/or surface albedo. This session solicits papers that examine processes associated with these techniques and studies where such techniques have been implemented in either high resolution and/or global climate models. Case studies are welcome. Geoengineering research has significantly moved on from the first simple climate model experiments. Papers could give key insights into the effectiveness and side effects from different techniques, and how detectable these will be with the limitations of our observing system and climate variability. They could also provide insights into the engineering challenges and give unique tests for climate models, for example, identifying robust patterns of climate change caused by rapid adjustment to radiative perturbations. The abstract submission deadline is Tuesday, 6 August 2014. Please go to: http://fallmeeting.agu.org/2014/scientific-program/ for more information. This email has been sent to multiple email lists; apologies if you receive multiple copies. - Edward Dunlea, Ph.D. Senior Program Officer Board on Atmospheric Sciences and Climate The National Academy of Sciences 202-334-1334 edun...@nas.edumailto:edun...@nas.edu Subscribe to newsletter: http://dels.nas.edu/subscribe -- 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 geoengineering+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to geoengineering@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/geoengineering. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
[geo] Session Proposal: Geoengineering the Climate through (Solar) Radiation Modification (2014 AGU Fall Meeting)
https://agu.confex.com/agu/fm14/webprogrampreliminary/Session1795.html Geoengineering the Climate through (Solar) Radiation Modification Session ID#: 1795 Engineering ideas to reduce the impact of climate change have been proposed that involve (e.g.) injection of aerosol particles, modification of clouds and/or surface albedo. This session solicits papers that examines processes associated with these techniques and studies where such techniques have been implemented in either high resolution and/or global climate models. Case studies are welcome. Geoengineering research has significantly moved on from the first simple climate model experiments. Papers could give key insights into the effectiveness and side effects from different techniques, and how detectable these will be with the limitations of our observing system and climate variability. They could also provide insights into the engineering challenges and give unique tests for climate models, for example, identifying robust patterns of climate change caused by rapid adjustment to radiative perturbations. A - Atmospheric Sciences 0305 Aerosols and particles [ATMOSPHERIC COMPOSITION AND STRUCTURE] 0370 Volcanic effects [ATMOSPHERIC COMPOSITION AND STRUCTURE] 1622 Earth system modeling [GLOBAL CHANGE] 1630 Impacts of global change [GLOBAL CHANGE] -- 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 geoengineering+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to geoengineering@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/geoengineering. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
[geo] GiveWell names geoengineering research as important funding area
GiveWell, a New York-based non-profit dedicated to finding outstanding [philanthropic] opportunities recently took a look at responses to potential global catastrophic risks. They list geoengineering research and governance as an area especially worthy of funding. The excerpt below comes from a recent update post at http://blog.givewell.org/2014/06/26/potential-global-catastrophic-risk-focus-areas/ *Geoengineering research and governance* We see a twofold case for the importance of work on geoengineering research and governance: - Climate change could turn out to be much worse than anticipated http://www.givewell.org/shallow/climate-change/extreme-risks, and solar geoengineering could potentially offer a cheap (in purely financial, not necessarily cost-benefit, terms) and fast-acting response if it does http://www.givewell.org/labs/causes/geoengineering#Whatistheproblem. Further research to determine the viability of solar geoengineering could accordingly be quite valuable http://www.givewell.org/labs/causes/geoengineering#Openquestions. However, our understanding is that geoengineering, should it work, would be a distant second best to a policy of cutting emissions now, and some people have argued that research on geoengineering could undermine current efforts to reduce emissions, making further research *potentially* harmful. - The incentives of different countries to adopt solar geoengineering could differ dramatically, and it might be cheap enough for even small countries to do unilaterally, potentially leading to conflict http://files.givewell.org/files/conversations/Klaus%20Keller,%20April%2018,%202013%20(public).pdf. Questions about whether and how solar geoengineering could be governed are accordingly increasingly salient. Although solar geoengineering is in the news periodically, research on the science or governance appears to receive relatively little dedicated funding http://www.givewell.org/labs/causes/geoengineering#Whoelseisworkingonthis: our rough survey found about $10 million/year in identifiable support from around the world (mostly from government sources), and we are not aware of any institutional philanthropic commitment in the area (though Bill Gates personally supports some research in the area). Our conversations http://www.givewell.org/conversations#ClimateChange have led us to believe that there is significant scientific interest in conducting geoengineering research and that funding is an obstacle, but, as with biosecurity, we do not have a very detailed sense of what we might fund. We’re wary of the concern that further geoengineering research could conceptually undermine support for emissions reductions, but we regard it as relatively unlikely, and also find it plausible that further research could contribute significantly to governance efforts http://files.givewell.org/files/labs/climate%20change/Bentley%20Allan%203-25-14.pdf . We expect to address the question of what a philanthropist could support in this area with a deeper investigation and a declared interest in funding http://blog.givewell.org/2014/05/14/the-importance-of-committing-to-causes/. Note that we don’t envision ourselves as trying to *encourage* geoengineering, but rather as trying to gain better information and governance structures for it, which could make the actual use more *or* less likely (and given the high potential risks of both climate change and geoengineering, we could imagine that shifting the probabilities in either direction – depending on what comes of more exploratory work – could do great good). -- 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 geoengineering+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to geoengineering@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/geoengineering. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: [geo] Can tiny plankton help reverse climate change? - David Biello - Aeon
A related article - http://www.npr.org/blogs/krulwich/2014/04/03/298778615/the-power-of-poop-a-whale-story We know how much whales eat today. We know that a hundred years ago, there were lots more whales in the southern oceans. We can guess what the whale population was in 1910. If we multiply the number of whales back then times the size of their meals, we can imagine how much krill had to be in the ocean. It comes out to 1.5 billion tons of krill. Nicols' team analyzed 27 fecal samples from four species of baleen whales, reported New Scientist http://www.underwatertimes.com/news.php?article_id=52937108061. He found that on average whale faeces had 10 million times as much iron as Antarctic seawater. ... And guess what? When Antarctica's great whales were nearly destroyed in the 1960s, the krill population, instead of expanding, collapsed, by some 80 percent. ... Smetacek got it right. Whales do, in fact, garden the ocean, fertilizing the seas to grow their own food. Whales recirculate the iron. Even the bits that slip down to the dark bottom get pulled back up by whales. Sperm whales dive to terrifying depths, 3,000 feet below, to hunt iron-rich prey like giant squid. Pressed by the weight of the ocean, their digestion stops; they don't excrete. They consume the iron below, hold it in, climb back to the surface, and that's where they poop. Every sperm whale,it is said http://www.npr.org/books/titles/249234104/the-once-and-future-world-nature-as-it-was-as-it-is-as-it-could-be, draws 50 tons of iron to the surface every year. http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/phytoplankton-population/ Researchers at Canada's Dalhousie University say the global population of phytoplankton has fallen about 40 percent since 1950. A Whale of a decision - http://www.icj-cij.org/docket/files/148/18160.pdf International Court of Justice held that Japan's whaling was illegal and asked it to stop. So we can expect number of whales to increase and fertilize oceans with Iron and restore the Diatom and Krill population. Dr Smetacek's paper www.fbbva.es/TLFU/dat/02SMETACEKSEPARATA.pdf Diatom - Krill - Whales is the food chain of giants Whales got it right, you have to fertilize the oceans with Iron to grow more Diatoms and Krill. I wonder when people will understand this. I have posted about the decline in number of whales and Phytoplankton on this discussion group earlier too. Regards Bhaskar On Wednesday, 2 July 2014 01:06:44 UTC+5:30, Greg Rau wrote: From the article: At the very moment it revealed its promise, the white whale of iron fertilisation seems to have slipped under the waves anew. As I mentioned in my June 10 post, how policy drowned OIF research is cogently detailed here: http://digitalcommons.law.scu.edu/lawreview/vol54/iss1/5/ I'm not a big fan of OIF, but do think its hypotheses deserve to be tested, as do other forms of ocean-based Earth management methods (e.g. attached). After all, do we seriously think we can solve the global CO2 problem by ignoring 70% of the Earth's surface? However, actions by the Ocean Policy Police (e.g. London Protocol) have made scientific exploration of these ideas a whole lot harder by requiring international approval of such research. If the COP process is any indication, both researchers and funding agencies will be unwilling to risk precious time and effort on seeking approval, a process that may have no end, like climate negotiations. It would seem that under the rather grave CO2 circumstances we now face that we need to rapidly seek and carefully test all possible solutions. But instead of finding ways to chill the climate, policy instead has found ways to chill research on this topic. Needless to say, that could prove to be a very large and long-lived mistake for the planet's inhabitants. Let's figure out a way of carefully and expeditiously exploring what our options are, if any, and not, out of unfounded fear, blindly assume that the negatives of such approaches will alway be greater than the benefits. Greg -- *From:* geoengi...@googlegroups.com javascript: [ geoengi...@googlegroups.com javascript:] on behalf of Andrew Lockley [ andrew@gmail.com javascript:] *Sent:* Tuesday, July 01, 2014 10:25 AM *To:* geoengineering *Subject:* [geo] Can tiny plankton help reverse climate change? - David Biello - Aeon http://aeon.co/magazine/nature-and-cosmos/can-tiny-plankton-help-reverse-climate-change/ Extract But Smetacek’s research cruise already demonstrated that iron fertilisation works, and the science behind it has been vetted and published in the journal Nature, as recently as 2012. Despite this progress, there have been no scientific research cruises since 2009, and there are none planned for the future. At the very moment it revealed its promise, the white whale of iron fertilisation seems to have slipped
