[geo] Re: AW: [prag] [HPAC] Harvard has halted its long-planned atmospheric geoengineering experiment | MIT Technology Review

[Michael MacCracken]

024 3:40 PM
*To:* Alan Kerstein 
    *Cc:* H simmens ; Michael MacCracken
; Planetary Restoration
; geoengineering
;
healthy-planet-action-coalition

*Subject:* Re: [HPAC] Harvard has halted its long-planned
atmospheric geoengineering experiment | MIT Technology Review

If we are still asking the question we need to talk to
them directly, frankly, to understand. So far everything
I’ve read suggests 1. they don’t think human geo-measures
will work (even if they are unwilling to test to see)
and/or because the human track record is abysmal; 2. they
think these measures will divert from decarbonization; 3.
They think decarbonization is sufficient.

All these lead to the same point: #3.

That’s the one to focus on.

Robin

On Mon, Mar 18, 2024 at 11:26 AM Alan Kerstein
 wrote:

Dear Herb,

Is it plausible that the opponents of DCC are
cognizant of the present danger and the urgency of
action? Personally I don’t think so. Would opposition
soften if they better understood the situation. I
think it’s at least possible, perhaps likely.

Before a doctor advises a patient to go through
chemotherapy that will almost kill them, the doctor
confronts the patient with the prognosis. (Of course,
DCC will not do anything like ‘almost kill’ the
planet, but that seems to be the mentality out there.)
Sorry for repeating myself, but the circumstances call
for hammering away at the prognosis until opposition
to DCC softens, setting aside advocacy of DCC until
then. This must be done by trusted messengers, who are
few and far between these days. The needed steps go
from scientific luminaries like James Hansen to
trusted messengers to the general public and other
stakeholders.

That said, I agree about the need for the NGO that you
suggest, but it needs to be cagey regarding its public
pronouncements.

Regards,

Alan

    On Mon, Mar 18, 2024 at 7:29 AM Michael MacCracken
 wrote:

Hi Herb--And yet Elon Musk et al. shoot big
rockets through the stratosphere with an
increasing pace, not to mention the sort of
ballistic missiles that North Korea and Houtis are
firing, etc. This fear of the slippery slope hangs
on and on while the lowering cost of renewable
energy continues to reverse the original argument.

Mike

On 3/18/24 9:56 AM, H simmens wrote:



Harvard announced this morning the termination
of the SCoPEx atmosphere geoengineering
experiment that was first proposed a decade ago.

It was originally planned for Arizona around
2018 and was then moved to Sweden in 2021

As many of you know due to local opposition in
Sweden by the Sami people that experiment was
canceled several years ago.

The project itself has now been officially
canceled.

The explanation given was quite generic as the
article details.

There a link to a lengthy final report by the
Harvard SCoPEx advisory committee.

Whether this decade long utter fiasco is a
clear signal that even micro-scale DCC /direct
climate cooling /atmospheric research remains
a non-starter or whether future endeavors - if
there are any - will be more successful
remains to be seen.

The cancellation of SCoPEx along with the
announcement of the release of reflective
particles into the atmosphere by Make Sunsets
leading immediately to the prohibition of such
releases in Mexico and Mexican advocacy
against such experimentation at the UNEA in
Nairobi earlier this month demonstrates the
risk of attracting immense backlash even to
the most microscopic of baby steps.

 

[geo] Re: [HPAC] Harvard has halted its long-planned atmospheric geoengineering experiment | MIT Technology Review

[Michael MacCracken]

Hi Herb--And yet Elon Musk et al. shoot big rockets through the 
stratosphere with an increasing pace, not to mention the sort of 
ballistic missiles that North Korea and Houtis are firing, etc. This 
fear of the slippery slope hangs on and on while the lowering cost of 
renewable energy continues to reverse the original argument.


Mike

On 3/18/24 9:56 AM, H simmens wrote:


Harvard announced this morning the termination of the SCoPEx 
atmosphere geoengineering experiment that was first proposed a decade 
ago.


It was originally planned for Arizona around 2018 and was then moved 
to Sweden in 2021


As many of you know due to local opposition in Sweden by the Sami 
people that experiment was canceled several years ago.


The project itself has now been officially canceled.

The explanation given was quite generic as the article details.

There a link to a lengthy final report by the Harvard SCoPEx advisory 
committee.


Whether this decade long utter fiasco is a clear signal that even 
micro-scale DCC /direct climate cooling /atmospheric research remains 
a non-starter or whether future endeavors - if there are any - will be 
more successful remains to be seen.


The cancellation of SCoPEx along with the announcement of the release 
of reflective particles into the atmosphere by Make Sunsets leading 
immediately to the prohibition of such releases in Mexico and Mexican 
advocacy against such experimentation at the UNEA in Nairobi earlier 
this month demonstrates the risk of attracting immense backlash even 
to the most microscopic of baby steps.


Which leads me to once again share my perspective that unless and 
until an extremely well funded international NGO with a clear mission 
and a superb staff focused on the deployment of DCC in the context of 
climate restoration is established the prospects for effective cooling 
in time to make a difference will remain negligible.


That’s what the advocacy efforts of any group supportive of the 
essential need for DCC must focus on IMHO.


Herb

https://www.technologyreview.com/2024/03/18/1089879/harvard-halts-its-long-planned-atmospheric-geoengineering-experiment/

Herb Simmens
Author of /A Climate Vocabulary of the Future/
“A SciencePoem and an Inspiration.” Kim Stanley Robinson
@herbsimmens
HerbSimmens.com

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Re: [geo] Aerosols effects on polar ice

[Michael MacCracken]

Dear Jeff--A couple of thoughts:

1. The lifetime of the Cloud Condensation Nuclei (i.e., sea salt) that 
would be injected lofted (well, misted) up are really quite 
short--indeed, the real challenge of the approach is having the CCN last 
beyond hours and perhaps to a day or two, so not much likelihoo of them 
drifting for a long way and getting deposited on ice.


2. MCB will be most effective if it is done over a dark surface. That 
is, if one wants to reflect more sunlight to space, no real sense doing 
it over ice covered areas that are already bright. The best place to do 
in terms of energy reflected (which is not the only consideration) would 
be over dark oceans, and at generally lower latitudes where there is 
more sunlight coming down on the clouds (yes, high latitudes can have 
equally hig total daily sunlight, but the sun angle is so low that 
brightening the clouds I don't think is all that effective in increasing 
reflection of sunlight out to space, which is the intent).


Mike MacCracken

On 2/11/24 3:17 PM, Jeff Suchon wrote:

Hi everyone,

I just joined this group and am glad to be here. Am sold on MCB, 
surface reflection, and SAI and at that being deployed wisely asap. 
Please give me any answer to the question of the aerosols' effects on 
the polar ice. Specifically, salt from MCB. I realize really it 
doesn't rain much yet over the polar regions. And, of course SO2, or 
any new possible aerosols. Thanks!


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[geo] Re: [prag] Re: [HPAC] Solar geoengineering could start soon if it starts small | MIT Technology Review

[Michael MacCracken]

It is really not clear to me why the United Nations could (and should) 
not be the structure--or at least the designator of the structure, but 
better yet, of the overall goal, namely to offset future warming and 
gradually return the climate to something similar to its mid-20th 
century situation (with allowances for those nations facing special 
needs to ask for consideration of possible fine scale adjustments as 
knowledge improves--or something similar).


There is a UN Commission on Sustainable Development (UNCSD), and if 
there were ever anything that is impinging on their mandate, it is 
climate change. The UN Secretary General, with concurrence I imagine of 
General Assembly, could refer matter to them asking for a report on the 
matter and to propose a recommendation to the General Assembly and 
Security Council. I'd note that I was on a panel that prepared a report 
for the UN Commission on Sustainable Development (see 
https://www.sigmaxi.org/programs/critical-issues-in-science/un-sigma-xi-climate-change-report), 
and I and other lead authors, courtesy of contacts made by former 
Senator and UN Foundation lead Tim Wirth (the UN Foundation having 
provided some of the funding for the effort), met with the UN Secretary 
General upon the report's issuance.


I'm not clear on how the Conference of the Parties of the UNFCCC might 
mesh (or not) with the UNCSD, but this too could be outlined. The UNCSD 
I think meets annually and so could well move things along,


Mike MacCracken

On 2/6/24 2:41 PM, H simmens wrote:

Ron,

It’s quite telling I think that a breakthrough article like this has 
been released without essentially anyone noticing.


The only mention of it I see is from the excellent Technology Review 
reporter James Temple who posted it on X.


The only comments the post received were from Andrew Lockley and 
someone posting a vile obscenity.


I was the only one who even retweeted the post to my loyal following 
of bots, trolls, fake porn stars and a few Climate informed folks.


Is it fair to observe that most everyone laments the understandable 
and very real challenges of developing a governance architecture but 
no one in any kind of authority has yet to propose a serious effort to 
get such a governance structure discussed and agreed to by the world 
community?


If and until that happens the strategy you’re proposing while sound 
will be very difficult to advance very far.


Herb

Herb Simmens
Author of /A Climate Vocabulary of the Future/
“A SciencePoem and an Inspiration.” Kim Stanley Robinson
@herbsimmens
HerbSimmens.com



On Feb 6, 2024, at 2:20 PM, Ron Baiman  wrote:


Good catch Herb!  Thanks for sharing. I haven't read the article yet, 
but though acknowledging the feasibility and possible relevance 
gradual polar SAI scenario would definitely be progress (that David 
Keith was very critical of this in his HPAC talk), from skimming the 
abstract the article appears to focus on SAI geopolitical concerns 
that echo Gideon Futerman's recent HPAC talk.


 On this, needless to say, I agree with Robert C and Mike. Waiting 
for a fully operational global governance regime (like hoping for a 
super expidited  emissions and drawdown only policy) is not realistic 
in the near future - the only future that counts if humanity is going 
to have a non-catastrophic immediate future, at all.


I think the alternative of starting slow by getting the consent of 
polar jurisdictions and peoples for  a 'Save the polar ecosystems' 
effort (following current MCB 'save the Great Barrier Reef' efforts) 
and inviting all nations who wish to contribute to contribute in a 
'coalition of the willing' model (as with the 'International Space 
Station') that would be gradual (initially local SAI focused on polar 
summers), public, and transparent, and hopefully successful in 
gradually reducing warming and cooling the poles and helping to 
stabilize the global climate is an example of a more realistic 
approach for urgent deployment. Waiting for 'global governance' or 
'absolute confidence from research that does not include deployment 
pilot testing' before beginning deployment is not an urgently 
workable option.  At the risk of beating a dead horse I'm again 
attaching a draft of this proposal that many of you may have seen: 
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1o5xQogx1kKgD-QlM4MVPdWeL2BzBtwUm/view?usp=sharing


Best,
Ron

On Mon, Feb 5, 2024 at 12:38 PM  wrote:

Hi Herb and Greg and all

Working on something else, the other day I chanced upon the
dedication for my PhD thesis written in 2012/13.  It was
addressed to my then two year-old and newborn grandchildren
expressing the hope that as adults they would come to be
awestruck by humanity's achievements, yet forgive it its
failings, and all the while see the funny side of both.  This
piece by Keith and Smith definitely requires one to see the funny
side.

First, they're playing a great game of dissimulation, 

[geo] Re: Meeting of possible interest

[Michael MacCracken]

US moves out of summer time on Sunday, so consider that as well.

Mike

On 11/1/23 5:58 PM, John Nissen wrote:

Hi everyone,

CEST appears incorrect.  I believe that Central Europe time has moved 
out of summer time, from CEST to CET, which is GMT + 1.  The UK moved 
from BST to GMT last Sunday.


Somebody needs to check what the actual start time is!  If the 
organisers say CEST they may have made a mistake.


Cheers, John


On Tue, Oct 31, 2023 at 11:59 PM Bruce Parker  wrote:

Thank you for registering for:* Methane: possible tipping points
or surprises. Why is methane rising, how are sources and sinks
changing, what is the risk from hydrates?*

The event will take place on *7 November, 15:30-17:00 CEST.*

Bruce P

*From:*noac-meeti...@googlegroups.com
[mailto:noac-meeti...@googlegroups.com] *On Behalf Of *John Nissen
*Sent:* Tuesday, October 31, 2023 5:30 PM
*To:* Michael MacCracken
*Cc:* Tom Goreau; Veli Albert Kallio; Gene Fry;
healthy-planet-action-coalition; Robert Chris; Planetary
Restoration; 'Eelco Rohling' via NOAC Meetings; geoengineering
*Subject:* Re: Meeting of possible interest

Hi Mike,  they give a time for the webinar but no clue I could see
for the time zone.  Do you know what it is?

Cheers John from mobile

On Tue, 31 Oct 2023, 20:54 Michael MacCracken,
 wrote:

See
https://methane-possible-tipping-points-or-surprises.confetti.events/?

Mike MacCracken

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[geo] Meeting of possible interest

[Michael MacCracken]

See https://methane-possible-tipping-points-or-surprises.confetti.events/?

Mike MacCracken


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Re: [HCA-list] RE: [geo] REMINDER Professor Chris Field in conversation on the Climate Overshoot Commission report at the Healthy Planet Action Coalition meeting September 21, 4:30 PM EDT

[Michael MacCracken]

Hi Peter--

I'd suggest (without consulting Herb):

1. This is the first international body of high decision-maker level 
officials (former government, NGO, etc.) to actually keep climate 
intervention (at least not dismiss) on the table as policy that may well 
be needed as mitigation, adaptation and CDR seem quite unlikely to be 
enough to prevent overshoot (which they held on to barely as still 
possible, likely mainly because they kept relying on the IPCC 
time-lagged global average metric for the amount of warming to date).


2. While there are scientific uncertainties about intervention, the most 
critical issues about intervention being used now have to do with 
ethical and social justice (and related) issues that need to be 
addressed in a convincing way.


Mike MacCracken

On 10/4/23 12:18 PM, Peter Fiekowsky wrote:


Herb or Michael- Thank you for the recording. I skimmed the video and 
couldn't find the meat. What were your two top take-aways from that 90 
minute discussion?


Was there new information or a specific recommendation to a specific 
person or group coming out of the Overshoot Commission?


Peter

*From: *healthy-climate-allia...@googlegroups.com 
 on behalf of 
rob...@rtulip.net 

*Date: *Wednesday, October 4, 2023 at 1:43 AM
*To: *hsimm...@gmail.com , 'geoengineering' 
, 'via NOAC Meetings' 
, 'healthy-planet-action-coalition' 
, 'Planetary 
Restoration' , 'Healthy 
Climate Alliance' 
*Subject: *[HCA-list] RE: [geo] REMINDER Professor Chris Field in 
conversation on the Climate Overshoot Commission report at the Healthy 
Planet Action Coalition meeting September 21, 4:30 PM EDT


The recording of the discussion with Professor Chris Field is at 
https://youtu.be/RATVY9v7vsI 


*From:*geoengineering@googlegroups.com 
 *On Behalf Of *H simmens

*Sent:* Wednesday, September 20, 2023 11:48 PM
*To:* geoengineering ; via NOAC 
Meetings ; 
healthy-planet-action-coalition 
; Planetary 
Restoration ; Healthy Climate 
Alliance 
*Subject:* [geo] REMINDER Professor Chris Field in conversation on the 
Climate Overshoot Commission report at the Healthy Planet Action 
Coalition meeting September 21, 4:30 PM EDT





I am pleased to announce that Stanford Professor Chris Field, an
advisor to the Climate Overshoot Commission (COC) will be our
guest at the next Healthy Planet Action Coalition meeting this
Thursday, September 21, at 4:30 PM EDT for 90 minutes.

Mike MacCracken will moderate the conversation.

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/88954851189?pwd=WVZoeTBnN3kyZFoyLzYxZ1JNbDFPUT09

Access to previous HPAC meeting conversations can be found at

Healthyplanetaction.Org

The Commission, a private entity sponsored by the Paris Peace
Forum, has 12 members from all over the planet drawn mostly from
those who previously held high-level governmental positions,
 including several with strong backgrounds in climate change.

Their previous Director Dr Jesse Reynolds spoke with HPAC in January.

*Jesse Reynolds *

*muse.ai *

The COC report /Reducing the Risks of Climate Overshoot/ was
released on September 14.

*0c3b70_bab3b3c1cd394745b387a594c9a68e2b

*

*PDF Document · 10.7 MB

*

While the COC did not solicit public input it did hold a series of
meetings to learn and discuss the full range of questions facing
the international community in dealing with the risk of climate
overshoot.

Their 4-part high-level recommendations were summarized in the
acronym CARE, for Cut (emissions), Adapt, Remove (CO2), and
Explore (SRM).

Specifically, its recommendation on climate intervention advocated
expanding research while placing "a moratorium on the deployment
of solar radiation modification and large-scale outdoor
experiments that would carry risk of significant transboundary harm."

We look forward to getting a fuller understanding of their
reasoning in discussion with Professor Field.

Chris Field is the Perry L. McCarty Director of the Stanford Woods 
Institute for the Environment and the Melvin and Joan Lane Professor 
for Interdisciplinary Environmental Studies at Stanford University.


Prior to his 2016 appointment at the Stanford Woods Institute, Field 
was a staff member at the Carnegie Institution for Science (1984-2002) 
and founding director of the Carnegie’s Department of Global Ecology 
(2002-2016).


Field's research focuses on climate change, especially solutions that 
improve lives now, decrease the amount of future warming, and support 
vibrant economies. Recent projects emphasize decreasing risks from 
coastal flooding and wildfires. He has been deeply involved with 

Re: [geo] See how a quick-fix climate solution could also trigger war

[Michael MacCracken]

Just a note that I sent in my comment on this really poorly done article:

The whole cartoon sequence has a huge number of errors, misconceptions, 
and misportrayals. The most reasonable application would be to start 
intervention small and gradually increase it with the intent of 
counterbalancing future warming or just slightly more. No country wants 
further warming with increasing likelihood of more intense extreme 
weather events, wildfires, biodiversity loss, etc. And it is unlikely 
any country wants the climate to return to the 19th century or even the 
first half of the 20th century. So, the idea would be return, for 
example, to conditions of the mid- to second half of the 20th century. 
Assuming countries continue on their path of reducing emissions, this 
would end up involving reflecting back to space less than 1% of incoming 
solar radiation--something that would be pretty hard to notice without 
very careful instruments. In that the climate is made up of the average 
across the weather events over multiple years, it is the distribution of 
weather events that would be changed, with less likelihood of the 
warmest such weather events, so generally lower likelihood and intensity 
of the worst weather events at locations around the world--so back 
toward the distributions present in the past. The return will not be 
perfect and a bit different everywhere, with research needed to check if 
new, adverse conditions out of the range of weather events that have 
occurred in the past would occur. As the weather system is global, to 
really an approach that could be weaponized. And the main threat for 
society is having global climate change continue to intensify for the 
several decades, at least, that it will take to totally eliminate global 
greenhouse gas emissions, during which quite catastrophic consequences 
are projected. The relative risk analysis that is needed is between 
climate change relying on mitigation and GHG removal with and without 
intervention. That is the key choice in my view, having been a climate 
change scientist for a half century.


Mike MacCracken

On 5/3/23 6:41 PM, Simone Tilmes wrote:

Dear Alan,
in addition to that this comic is completely not line with what 
current model studies are showing what SRM would do in a short time to 
the weather (as scientists we really need to work on setting this 
straight) I am interested to understand where the number 1 deg cooling 
from Mt.Pinatubo is coming from? NASA???
One of the recent IPCC reports estimated 0.3degree of warming after 
Mt.Pinatubo when we remove the ocean variability.

Simone

On Wed, May 3, 2023 at 3:31 PM 'Alan Robock ☮' via geoengineering 
 wrote:



https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2023/05/03/comic-geosolar-engineering-explained/

*See how a quick-fix climate solution could also trigger war*

By Michael Birnbaum and Tom Humberstone

Washington Post, May 3, 2023

-- 
Alan


Alan Robock, Distinguished Professor
   Editor, Reviews of Geophysics
Department of Environmental Sciences Phone: +1-848-932-5751
Rutgers UniversityE-mail:rob...@envsci.rutgers.edu
14 College Farm Roadhttp://people.envsci.rutgers.edu/robock/
New Brunswick, NJ 08901-8551  USA   ☮http://twitter.com/AlanRobock

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/Atmospheric  Chemistry, Observations & Modeling Lab
National Center for Atmospheric Research/
/PO Box 3000/
/Boulder, Colorado  80307-3000/
/303-497-1445/
/303-497-1400 (fax)
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[geo] Re: 5-8° climate sensitivity

[Michael MacCracken]

/isbn/9781466557734>
*No one can change the past, everybody can change the future*
**
*It’s much later than we think, especially if we don’t think*
**
*Those with their heads in the sand will see the light when global
warming and sea level rise wash the beach away*
**
*Geotherapy: Regenerating ecosystem services to reverse climate
    change*
*From:*Michael MacCracken 
*Date:*Monday, April 10, 2023 at 4:23 PM
*To:*Tom Goreau , Robert Chris

*Cc:*"healthy-planet-action-coalit...@googlegroups.com"
, Planetary
Restoration , 'Eelco
Rohling' via NOAC Meetings ,
geoengineering 
*Subject:*Re: [prag] Re: [geo] Are 1.5 c or 2.0 c thresholds
economically realistic in a voluntary NDC regime?
Hi Tom--I'd be interested in seeing your 1990 paper because 16 C
would take temperatures to much higher than they have ever been,
and yet there have been periods when the CO2 concentration has
apparently been well above 1000 ppm, so the 16 C value seems
seriously inconsistent with what we know of Earth history.
Best, Mike
On 4/10/23 5:02 AM, Tom Goreau wrote:

BEFORE UNFCCC was signed, it was clear from paleoclimate data
that +16 degrees C or so is the equilibrium temperature for
400ppm CO2 (Goreau 1990), but all governments ignored the real
data because they preferred the fictitious claim from models that
warming would “only” be around 1-4 degrees C, and occur well
after a new leader emerges from the next election, selection, or
coup.
I briefed the Association of Small Island States just before they
signed on to a treaty that  was an effective death sentence for
low coasts and a suicide pact for low lying island nations to
that effect, but their heads of states were told by the rich
countries to sign or they would lose their foreign aid, something
none could afford. They were effectively bought off to sacrifice
their own people’s futures for worthless promises of financial
support for adaptation that never came. No politician ever turns
down money, no matter how insufficient.
Instead what they got from the funding agencies was sea walls
made from concrete and rock imported half way across the world,
which have all fallen down due to erosion caused by wave
reflection scouring. Their consultants keep promising that the
next seawall, built to armor the ruins of previous seawalls, will
last forever, it’s another shell game with peoples futures.
*Thomas J. F. Goreau, PhD
President, Global Coral Reef Alliance*
*Chief Scientist, Blue Regeneration SL
President, Biorock Technology Inc.*
*Technical Advisor, Blue Guardians Programme, SIDS DOCK*
*37 Pleasant Street, Cambridge, MA 02139*
*gor...@globalcoral.org
www.globalcoral.org <http://www.globalcoral.org/>
Skype: tomgoreau
Tel: (1) 617-864-4226 (leave message)*
*Books:*
*Geotherapy: Innovative Methods of Soil Fertility Restoration,
Carbon Sequestration, and Reversing CO2 Increase*
http://www.crcpress.com/product/isbn/9781466595392
<http://www.crcpress.com/product/isbn/9781466595392>
*Innovative Methods of Marine Ecosystem Restoration*
http://www.crcpress.com/product/isbn/9781466557734
<http://www.crcpress.com/product/isbn/9781466557734>
*No one can change the past, everybody can change the future*
**
*It’s much later than we think, especially if we don’t think*
**
*Those with their heads in the sand will see the light when
global warming and sea level rise wash the beach away*
**
*Geotherapy: Regenerating ecosystem services to reverse climate
change*
*From:*Michael MacCracken
<mailto:mmacc...@gmail.com>
*Date:*Sunday, April 9, 2023 at 9:37 PM
*To:*Tom Goreau
<mailto:gor...@globalcoral.org>, Robert
Chris <mailto:robertgch...@gmail.com>
*Cc:*"healthy-planet-action-coalit...@googlegroups.com"

<mailto:healthy-planet-action-coalit...@googlegroups.com>
<mailto:healthy-planet-action-coalit...@googlegroups.com>,
Planetary Restoration
<mailto:planetary-restorat...@googlegroups.com>, 'Eelco Rohling'
via NOAC Meetings
<mailto:noac-meeti...@googlegroups.com>,
geoengineering
<mailto:geoengineering@googlegroups.com>
*Subject:*Re: [prag] Re: [geo] Are 1.5 c or 2.0 c thresholds
economically realistic in a voluntary NDC regime?
Hi Tom--Indeed, which is why I don't understand why the mainly
island nation accepted, even insisted upon 1.5 C, as an
aspirational goal. From paleoclimatic analysis, the equilibrium
sensitivity for sea level rise is of order 15-20 METERS per
degree C increase in the global average temperature. And how it
is somehow justified that the curve shape for the sensitivity is
a cubic and we are presently in the low sens

[geo] Re: 16° climate sensitivity

[Michael MacCracken]

Apologies for being offline for a bit--trying to catch up.

To be terminologically correct, albedo feedback was what made the 
climate sensitivity so high; such changes, being integral to the climate 
system, are not considered an external driver such as the changes in the 
orbital parameters that redistributed incoming solar radiation by season 
and latitude.


Mike MacCracken

On 4/10/23 9:02 PM, Gene Fry wrote:
Albedo changes were the primary drivers of past temperature changes, 
most notably during the ice ages.


When there is a lot of ice to melt, the Earth’s temperature is more 
sensitive to changes in greenhouse gas levels.  Lots of albedo change 
to be had - like uncovering 60% of North America.


When there is not so much ice left to melt (now), Earth’s temperature 
is much less sensitive to changes in greenhouse gas levels.  Because 
albedo changes are smaller.


Sensitivity was greater during the recent ice ages than it is now.  No 
longer 16° for doubled CO2.
More like 6° now, with only about 1/3 as much ice (deduced from sea 
level changes) left as at the Last Glacial Maximum.


When all the ice is gone, Earth’s climate is not very sensitive to 
changes in greenhouse gas levels.  Maybe 2°C.
Still, sometimes there are huge changes in GHG levels  (e.g. 55 Mya), 
so temperatures can still change quite a bit.


Gene Fry



On Apr 10, 2023, at 4:29 PM, Tom Goreau  wrote:

It’s just the regression of Antarctic Ice temperature versus CO2 data. 
The sea level regression implies +23 meters.
When I did it in 1990 there was only one glacial cycle of data, but 
Eelco Rohling independently did the same analysis when there was 
800,000 years of data, and got essentially identical values.
The models must be serious underestimates to fall so far off the 
actual long term climate data.

*Thomas J. F. Goreau, PhD
President, Global Coral Reef Alliance*
*Chief Scientist, Blue Regeneration SL
President, Biorock Technology Inc.*
*Technical Advisor, Blue Guardians Programme, SIDS DOCK*
*37 Pleasant Street, Cambridge, MA 02139*
*gor...@globalcoral.org
www.globalcoral.org
Skype: tomgoreau
Tel: (1) 617-864-4226 (leave message)*
*Books:*
*Geotherapy: Innovative Methods of Soil Fertility Restoration, Carbon 
Sequestration, and Reversing CO2 Increase*
http://www.crcpress.com/product/isbn/9781466595392 
<http://www.crcpress.com/product/isbn/9781466595392>

*Innovative Methods of Marine Ecosystem Restoration*
http://www.crcpress.com/product/isbn/9781466557734 
<http://www.crcpress.com/product/isbn/9781466557734>

*No one can change the past, everybody can change the future*
**
*It’s much later than we think, especially if we don’t think*
**
*Those with their heads in the sand will see the light when global 
warming and sea level rise wash the beach away*

**
*Geotherapy: Regenerating ecosystem services to reverse climate change*
*From: *Michael MacCracken 
*Date: *Monday, April 10, 2023 at 4:23 PM
*To: *Tom Goreau , Robert Chris 

*Cc: *"healthy-planet-action-coalit...@googlegroups.com" 
, Planetary 
Restoration , 'Eelco Rohling' 
via NOAC Meetings , geoengineering 

*Subject: *Re: [prag] Re: [geo] Are 1.5 c or 2.0 c thresholds 
economically realistic in a voluntary NDC regime?
Hi Tom--I'd be interested in seeing your 1990 paper because 16 C would 
take temperatures to much higher than they have ever been, and yet 
there have been periods when the CO2 concentration has apparently been 
well above 1000 ppm, so the 16 C value seems seriously inconsistent 
with what we know of Earth history.

Best, Mike
On 4/10/23 5:02 AM, Tom Goreau wrote:
BEFORE UNFCCC was signed, it was clear from paleoclimate data that 
+16 degrees C or so is the equilibrium temperature for 400ppm CO2 
(Goreau 1990), but all governments ignored the real data because they 
preferred the fictitious claim from models that warming would “only” 
be around 1-4 degrees C, and occur well after a new leader emerges 
from the next election, selection, or coup.
I briefed the Association of Small Island States just before they 
signed on to a treaty that  was an effective death sentence for low 
coasts and a suicide pact for low lying island nations to that 
effect, but their heads of states were told by the rich countries to 
sign or they would lose their foreign aid, something none could 
afford. They were effectively bought off to sacrifice their own 
people’s futures for worthless promises of financial support for 
adaptation that never came. No politician ever turns down money, no 
matter how insufficient.
Instead what they got from the funding agencies was sea walls made 
from concrete and rock imported half way across the world, which have 
all fallen down due to erosion caused by wave reflection scouring. 
Their consultants keep promising that the next seawall, built to 
armor the ruins of previous seawalls, will last forever, it’s another 
shell game with peoples futures.

*Thomas J. F. Goreau, PhD
President, Global Coral Reef Alli

Re: [geo] Re: [CDR] Re: [HCA-list] Iron Salt Aerosol: Article in MIT Technology Review

[Michael MacCracken]

Hi Andy--Growing up in 1950s with college in early 1960s, I'll admit I'm 
an idealist, and likely naive, but what is that old saying: "Never 
wrestle with a pig. You get dirty and the pig likes it." (for 
attribution controversy, see https://quoteinvestigator.com/2017/07/08/pig/)


As noted in my response to Robert's email, I think we can make our point 
convincingly with sound arguments.


Best, Mike


On 2/17/23 5:12 PM, Andrew Revkin wrote:
Important discussion and Mike’s point about roles and sequencing has 
merit, but may be. missing an important negative feedback loop.


That loop exists when the ethical frame of one faction in civil 
society, let’s say represented by EWG, is used to demonize and 
prohibit relevant science itself.


(Typing on phone so hopefully this isn’t too telegraphic to understand)


On Fri, Feb 17, 2023 at 5:01 PM Michael MacCracken 
 wrote:


Dear Peter--A couple of comments:

1. What reducing methane emissions would do is to reduce the
radiative forcing over the ensuing decade or two. With the heat
from the higher levels having built up in the ocean, the time for
recovery of the temperature (and climate)  is longer, so until the
heat comes back out of the ocean and is radiated to space and/or
the time it takes to be mixed into the deeper ocean so it is not
affecting surface temperatures.

2. On behalf of scientists, let me say that our mantra is to focus
on the facts of what has happened and what would be expected to
happen under various types of situations/scenarios--and for
statements about such aspects to be made by those who truly
understand/research the issue (speculation by scientists needs to
be made clear that it is speculation) and strengths and limits of
findings (so uncertainties) should be listed. Like it or not, the
role of the scientist is not to be an advocate or to think of
themselves as decisionmakers (even though some of us might want to
be kings or the equivalent)--it is the decisionmakers (so, for
government, the elected leaders; and, as appropriate for the
question, business leaders--though the capitalist system would say
their main, or even only, role relates to finances of their
investors). I do agree that how scientists phrase things, how they
explain their decision framework, etc. can all be relevant, but is
it not the choices that policymakers are (or are not) making
decisions where the ethics enter in--for everyone but the elected
decisionmakers, what they can do is mainly try to present useful
information to decisionmakers, which is where the risk and ethical
perspectives actually come into determining what actually happens?
I'm just suggesting that actions need to be directed appropriately.

Best, Mike

On 2/17/23 3:49 PM, Peter Fiekowsky wrote:

Robert-

Good point about the scientists uniformly calling for delaying
implementation, essentially indefinitely, since they don't offer
any criteria for actually starting to restore safe methane levels
and protect against a methane burst.

Do you think this is an ethical issue? Doubling the methane
oxidation rate would result, in 5 years, in methane levels cut
roughly in half--bringing warming back to roughly 2002 levels.
This would likely save a million lives a year lost in the severe
hurricanes, floods, wildfires and droughts we have now. And if
today's methane burst gets serious, it could also save a quarter,
or even all of humanity from the kind of extinction event that
happened last time our planet lost the Arctic sea ice.

Even if it's only a 1% chance that history repeats itself
(warming is now happening 10 times faster than during the
previous methane burst called the PETM), statistically that's 8
billion people divided by a 1/1000 probability, or 8 million
people we could save.

Is it ethical for climate scientists to make the same claims that
health scientists made for tobacco companies and later that oil
company scientists made about climate actions--that we need
undefined "more research" before acting?

Should we establish a climate ethics committee to discuss this
issue publicly?

Peter

On Fri, Feb 17, 2023 at 4:44 AM  wrote:

This article by James Temple provides a professional overview
of efforts to commercialise Iron Salt Aerosol (ISA).


https://www.technologyreview.com/2023/02/15/1068495/these-startups-hope-to-spray-iron-particles-above-the-ocean-to-fight-climate-change/

It discusses cooling effects of ISA including methane
removal, ocean iron fertilization and marine cloud
brightening.   The article comments that a marine cloud
brightening effect “would muddy the line between
greenhouse-gas removal and the more controversial field of
solar geoengineering.”  My

[geo] Re: [CDR] Re: [HCA-list] Iron Salt Aerosol: Article in MIT Technology Review

[Michael MacCracken]

Dear Peter--A couple of comments:

1. What reducing methane emissions would do is to reduce the radiative 
forcing over the ensuing decade or two. With the heat from the higher 
levels having built up in the ocean, the time for recovery of the 
temperature (and climate)  is longer, so until the heat comes back out 
of the ocean and is radiated to space and/or the time it takes to be 
mixed into the deeper ocean so it is not affecting surface temperatures.


2. On behalf of scientists, let me say that our mantra is to focus on 
the facts of what has happened and what would be expected to happen 
under various types of situations/scenarios--and for statements about 
such aspects to be made by those who truly understand/research the issue 
(speculation by scientists needs to be made clear that it is 
speculation) and strengths and limits of findings (so uncertainties) 
should be listed. Like it or not, the role of the scientist is not to be 
an advocate or to think of themselves as decisionmakers (even though 
some of us might want to be kings or the equivalent)--it is the 
decisionmakers (so, for government, the elected leaders; and, as 
appropriate for the question, business leaders--though the capitalist 
system would say their main, or even only, role relates to finances of 
their investors). I do agree that how scientists phrase things, how they 
explain their decision framework, etc. can all be relevant, but is it 
not the choices that policymakers are (or are not) making decisions 
where the ethics enter in--for everyone but the elected decisionmakers, 
what they can do is mainly try to present useful information to 
decisionmakers, which is where the risk and ethical perspectives 
actually come into determining what actually happens? I'm just 
suggesting that actions need to be directed appropriately.


Best, Mike

On 2/17/23 3:49 PM, Peter Fiekowsky wrote:

Robert-

Good point about the scientists uniformly calling for delaying 
implementation, essentially indefinitely, since they don't offer any 
criteria for actually starting to restore safe methane levels and 
protect against a methane burst.


Do you think this is an ethical issue? Doubling the methane oxidation 
rate would result, in 5 years, in methane levels cut roughly in 
half--bringing warming back to roughly 2002 levels. This would likely 
save a million lives a year lost in the severe hurricanes, floods, 
wildfires and droughts we have now. And if today's methane burst gets 
serious, it could also save a quarter, or even all of humanity from 
the kind of extinction event that happened last time our planet lost 
the Arctic sea ice.


Even if it's only a 1% chance that history repeats itself (warming is 
now happening 10 times faster than during the previous methane burst 
called the PETM), statistically that's 8 billion people divided by a 
1/1000 probability, or 8 million people we could save.


Is it ethical for climate scientists to make the same claims that 
health scientists made for tobacco companies and later that oil 
company scientists made about climate actions--that we need undefined 
"more research" before acting?


Should we establish a climate ethics committee to discuss this issue 
publicly?


Peter

On Fri, Feb 17, 2023 at 4:44 AM  wrote:

This article by James Temple provides a professional overview of
efforts to commercialise Iron Salt Aerosol (ISA).


https://www.technologyreview.com/2023/02/15/1068495/these-startups-hope-to-spray-iron-particles-above-the-ocean-to-fight-climate-change/

It discusses cooling effects of ISA including methane removal,
ocean iron fertilization and marine cloud brightening.   The
article comments that a marine cloud brightening effect “would
muddy the line between greenhouse-gas removal and the more
controversial field of solar geoengineering.”  My view is that
taking this as a criticism shows the incoherence in popular
understanding of climate science.  If marine cloud brightening
could be a fast, safe, cheap and effective way to mitigate
dangerous warming, field research of ISA could be a great way to
test this.  Solar geoengineering is no more controversial than
ocean iron fertilization, given that both are under a de facto ban
on field research.

The article comments that “if it brightened marine clouds, it
would likely draw greater scrutiny given the sensitivity around
geoengineering approaches that aim to achieve cooling by
reflecting away sunlight.”  It may prove to be the case that ISA
could only be deployed by an intergovernmental planetary cooling
agreement of the scale of the Bretton Woods Agreement of 1944 to
establish the IMF and World Bank.  In that governance scenario,
the scrutiny placed on all cooling technologies will be intense
regardless of the balance of effects between brightening and
greenhouse gas removal.

I disagree with the scientists quoted in the article who 

Re: [geo] Nuclear Winter and SRM (including termination shock)

[Michael MacCracken]

There is a real question about how much smoke an India-Pakistan conflict 
could generate and loft. So, in a normal scenario, one shoots one's 
weapons at the other sides offensive weapons (missiles, control systems, 
maybe fuel storage locations, etc.) and not clear (at least to me) that 
this could create a hot enough fire to really loft much smoke--lighting 
the Kuwait oil fields did not really loft much, in part due to the 
typical inversion that prevails. Were the cities attacked, it is also 
just not clear there is enough burnable material to loft smoke, given 
wood is not a typical building material, at least in areas I have 
visited. And a war during the monsoon season would also not seem likely 
to loft much smoke. Might one hae enough to affect the weather--perhaps, 
but the thermal capacity of the oceans is very large and I'd suggest it 
would take a lot more smoke than that to cause a significant effect.


Mike MacC

On 7/26/22 5:48 PM, Andrew Lockley wrote:
I'm not sure I agree with the framing that is being used here. We do 
not have to imagine a global cataclysm. Alternatively we could imagine 
that India is the only country engaging in geoengineering, and it 
engages in a locally catastrophic but limited war with Pakistan. In 
this case, we could consider a situation where the global economy was 
suffering little Direct damage, but there was a nuclear winter as a 
result of large urban fires. If both geoengineering hardware and know 
how is lost in the war, termination shock occurs simultaneously with 
nuclear winter. That might serve to hasten and worsen the sudden 
change in temperature coming out of a nuclear winter leading to a 
nuclear summer


A

On Tue, 26 Jul 2022, 22:33 Daniele Visioni, 
 wrote:


Dear Gideon,
not to pile on but I feel like this should be corrected: none of
the most current IPCC projections say that 550ppm have a 10%
chance of leaving us with 6K of warming.
Even the most high sensitivity models in CMIP6 only show a ECS of,
at most, 5 per doubling of CO₂ (so 560), but the best estimate is
still around 3K given a whole range of approaches to estimate it.
For more relevant IPCC scenarios during this century, given
transient sensitivity and more, scenarios that lead to 550ppm
(considering also other GHG, LUC, aerosols) like SSP2-4.5 have a
median warming of a bit less than 3K.
How can surely say the IPCC is wrong and climate models are wrong,
of course.

(Ça vas sans dire, I’m not trying to downplay climate change! But
being precise helps having better discussions :) )



On 26 Jul 2022, at 17:20, Gideon Futerman 
wrote:

Dear Dr Robock,
Whilst I would admit that 3K of cooling by SRM is unlikely, it is
certainly not out of the range of possibility. Given CO2
concentrations of 550PPM have a 10% chance of leaving us with 6K
of warming (and that certainly doesn't seem to be an unreasonable
amount of emissions given mitigation trajectories), it certainly
doesn't seem like there is a less than 10% probability of a given
deployment scheme being 3K of forcing.
Secondly, why care about this if there is a nuclear war. Maybe
you are correct, and there is no worry. But if you care about
post-nuclear war societal recovery, it may be important to know
whether SRM-driven termination shock makes that more or less
likely, or is entirely negligible. Of course, the primary worry
here is avoid the initial catastrophe (nuclear war). Nonetheless,
the question of whether SRM termination shock under nuclear war
has any effect (even if only 10% of the magnitude of the effects
of the nuclear war) is significant.
I am trying to look at low probability, heavy tailed risks of
SRM, including how it interacts with other risks. This is why I
want to look at the (relatively unlikely) scenario which I have
laid out.
And apologies for the spelling mistake, spelling is certainly not
my strong suit!
Kind Regards
Gideon Futerman
He/Him
www.resiliencer.org 
On Tuesday, 26 July 2022 at 16:05:48 UTC+1 Alan Robock wrote:

Dear Gideon,

It is spelled "negligible."  And nobody is suggesting enough
SAI to produce 3K cooling, because that means there has been
no mitigation.

A nuclear war could kill billions of people from starvation,
and would collapse civilization, surely reducing greenhouse
gas emissions.  Why would you even worry about global warming
and geoengineering then?  That's why I say your are comparing
two things that are of completely different scales.


Alan Robock

Alan Robock, Distinguished Professor
Department of Environmental Sciences Phone:
+1-848-932-5751 
Rutgers UniversityE-mail:
rob...@envsci.rutgers.edu
14 College Farm 

Re: [geo] Nuclear Winter and SRM (including termination shock)

[Michael MacCracken]

I'm with Alan on this one.

With 3 C warming offset by SAI, if done thoughtfully the society and 
agriculture  would have been adjusting along the way, and then comes 
nuclear war to disturb that ongoing situation.


And as the SCOPE study on the consequences of nuclear war made clear, 
there is the matter of the direct damage. As that report noted it would 
take destruction of only a few of the world's financial centers to 
collapse international trade of medicines, seeds, fertilizers, grain and 
much more (computer chips, coffee). As we are seeing from the invasion 
of Ukraine, which is one of the top exporters of grains and fertilizer, 
disrupting this producing area has prospects for causing widespread 
starvation. For each of the major grains in international trade, 
something like 90% comes from typically five countries or so, with their 
exports going to of order 100 countries importing the grain in order to 
provide reasonably priced food for their people. And then add sudden 
disruption of the weather in these key zones and making it difficult for 
nations around the world, global nuclear war would be overwhelmingly worse.


What would happen to the conditions of the following years might be of 
theoretical interest, but the consequences of the first months and year 
would have created such disruption that the society you'd be considering 
would be almost unimaginably different.


Mike MacCracken

On 7/26/22 11:20 AM, Gideon Futerman wrote:

Dear Dr Robock,
Whilst I would admit that 3K of cooling by SRM is unlikely, it is 
certainly not out of the range of possibility. Given CO2 
concentrations of 550PPM have a 10% chance of leaving us with 6K of 
warming (and that certainly doesn't seem to be an unreasonable amount 
of emissions given mitigation trajectories), it certainly doesn't seem 
like there is a less than 10% probability of a given deployment scheme 
being 3K of forcing.
Secondly, why care about this if there is a nuclear war. Maybe you are 
correct, and there is no worry. But if you care about post-nuclear war 
societal recovery, it may be important to know whether SRM-driven 
termination shock makes that more or less likely, or is entirely 
negligible. Of course, the primary worry here is avoid the initial 
catastrophe (nuclear war). Nonetheless, the question of whether SRM 
termination shock under nuclear war has any effect (even if only 10% 
of the magnitude of the effects of the nuclear war) is significant.
I am trying to look at low probability, heavy tailed risks of SRM, 
including how it interacts with other risks. This is why I want to 
look at the (relatively unlikely) scenario which I have laid out.
And apologies for the spelling mistake, spelling is certainly not my 
strong suit!

Kind Regards
Gideon Futerman
He/Him
www.resiliencer.org
On Tuesday, 26 July 2022 at 16:05:48 UTC+1 Alan Robock wrote:

Dear Gideon,

It is spelled "negligible."  And nobody is suggesting enough SAI
to produce 3K cooling, because that means there has been no
mitigation.

A nuclear war could kill billions of people from starvation, and
would collapse civilization, surely reducing greenhouse gas
emissions.  Why would you even worry about global warming and
geoengineering then?  That's why I say your are comparing two
things that are of completely different scales.


Alan Robock

Alan Robock, Distinguished Professor
Department of Environmental Sciences Phone:
+1-848-932-5751 
Rutgers UniversityE-mail:
rob...@envsci.rutgers.edu
14 College Farm Road http://people.envsci.rutgers.edu/robock
New Brunswick, NJ 08901-8551 ☮ https://twitter.com/AlanRobock

Signature


On 7/26/2022 10:59 AM, Gideon Futerman wrote:

Dear Alan Robock,
When you say overwhelm, is the suggestion here that the increase
in radiative forcing from the termination of aerosol injection
would be entirely negligable compared to the nuclear winter scenario?
If SAI were masking 3K of warming, and you got a nuclear winter
driven cooling of say 7K, surely the impact of the termination of
SAI would not be negligable, even if it would be significantly
less than the cooling of nuclear winter (ie you still get a
nuclear winter)? I am trying to work out if the "double
catastrophe" as Baum calls it actually applies in the nuclear
winter scenario. So the question of whether the removal of the
contribution of SAI to radiative forcing (by termination) makes
the nuclear winter (and the resulting warming afterwards) worse,
less bad or is entirely negligable is important.
Moreover might sunlight removal effects be important in the short
term, particularly if it were a relatively high SAI radiative
forcing and (relatively) minor nuclear winter (say about 6K of
cooling)? Given up to 50% of sulfate aerosols remain in the
stratosphere up to 8 months after termination, 

[geo] Re: MacCraken SAI Restoring Arctic Climate Field Trial Proposal

[Michael MacCracken]

Actually, it was written in 2010 as a hypothetical letter that would go 
to John Holdren as Science Adviser in 2015 after a 5-year research and 
planning effort.


Mike MacCracken

On 7/22/22 12:37 PM, Ron Baiman wrote:

Dear Colleagues,

FYI, Mike talked about this at Yesterday's (7/21) special HPAC 
meeting. It appears that this practical proposal (from 2015) would be 
a good way to start testing the efficacy of SAI for cooling the 
Arctic, and could be acted upon immediately.


Best,
Ron


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Re: [geo] Possible Breakthrough: Sulfate Aerosol Geoengineering from Earth's Surface

[Michael MacCracken]

But it also does not have to be released at surface to be 
effective--release it from remote mountain tops or otherwise at elevated 
levels. Also, the study here was for a rather high loading--if the world 
would get busy on emissions reductions and the desired effect were to 
shave off peak warming, the concentrations would be lower. There is no 
perfect situation and the question is the relative tradeoffs for 
realistic applications. And if one could combine it with something less 
toxic that would only dissociate with high UV, the COS would end up 
primarily in the stratosphere. So, chemists need to keep searching.


Mike

On 6/25/22 9:56 PM, Ron Baiman wrote:
Thanks Alan.  Yes, more investigation on this is needed, as noted in 
my blurb as well.  I'm adding the lead author to this discussion in 
the event that she might be interested in participating in this 
discussion and is not in any of the lists.


Below is a snippet from the paper (p. 57580 that I think is relevant 
to your point.


Ron


"In quiescent volcanic conditions, COS is the main contributor
of sulfate aerosols in the Junge layer (Brühl et al., 2012),
where, after photodissociation by ultraviolet light and oxidation
processes, it is turned into SO2 and subsequently oxidized
into sulfuric acid, forming sulfate aerosols (Crutzen,
1976). It is naturally produced by various biological processes
and environments, such as saline ecosystems, rainwater
(Mu et al., 2004), and biomass burning. Furthermore, it is
also produced in various industrial processes (Lee and Brimblecombe,
2016) after CS2 is oxidized. Its chemical life is
very long (35 years; Brühl et al., 2012), and thus, its main
sink is the uptake from oxic soils (Kuhn and Kesselmeier,
2000; Steinbacher et al., 2004) and vegetation (Sandoval-
Soto et al., 2005). In the concentrations found in the atmosphere,
it is not a toxic gas for humans; negative effects
have not been found even at around 50 ppm (parts per
million), which is 100 000 times more than the background
mixing ratio, and for long exposure times in mice and rabbits
(Svoronos and Bruno, 2002). Higher concentrations than
that can, however, be harmful (Bartholomaeus and Haritos,
2006). Not much is known, however, about the response of
ecosystems in the presence of high concentrations of COS.
Stimler et al. (2010) showed that high levels of COS enhance
the stomatal conductance of some plants, which might
in turn have other unforeseen effects; furthermore, Conrad
and Meuser (2000) proposed that high COS concentrations
may interact with soils and possibly change soil pH. For the
reasons listed above, Crutzen (2006) discarded the idea of
using surface emissions of COS to increase the stratospheric
aerosol burden.
In this work, we use the University of L’Aquila Climate
Chemistry Model (ULAQ-CCM) to perform simulations to
verify if the increase in surface emissions of COS would be a
viable form of sulfate geoengineering, by obtaining a stratospheric
aerosol optical depth (AOD) similar to that obtained
with the injection of 8 TgSO2 in the stratosphere. We also
perform simulations where the release of COS is localized
in the tropical upper troposphere. This allows us to investigate
whether the increase in surface concentrations of COS
can be avoided, while, at the same time, circumventing the
need to reach altitudes that are currently unattainable with
modern aircraft (Smith et al., 2020). Together with assessing
the resulting aerosol cloud, we also explore the eventual side
effects on key chemical components in the atmosphere in order
to determine how the side effects from COS-induced sulfate geoengineering
compare with those from SO2-induced sulfate geoengineering."

On Sat, Jun 25, 2022 at 2:22 PM Alan Robock ☮ 
 wrote:


But it's nasty stuff.  Please keep in mind the last sentence of
the abstract, "However, our assumption that the rate of COS uptake
by soils and plants does not vary with increasing COS
concentrations will need to be investigated in future work, and
more studies are needed on the prolonged exposure effects to
higher COS values in humans and ecosystems."

From the National Library of Medicine,
https://pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/compound/Carbonyl-sulfide :

"Carbonyl sulfide is a colorless, poisonous, flammable gas with a
distinct sulfide odor. The gas is toxic and narcotic in low
concentrations and presents a moderate fire hazard."

Alan

Alan Robock, Distinguished Professor
Department of Environmental Sciences  Phone: +1-848-932-5751
Rutgers University E-mail:rob...@envsci.rutgers.edu
14 College Farm Roadhttp://people.envsci.rutgers.edu/robock
New Brunswick, NJ 08901-8551☮https://twitter.com/AlanRobock

On 6/25/22 2:25 PM, Ron Baiman wrote:

Dear Colleagues,

FYI, if you haven't heard or seen this.

Carbonyl Sulfide (COS) aerosols released from the earth's surface
and in models appear to have a cooling impact 

Re: [geo] Emission reduction remains public’s preferred approach to climate change

[Michael MacCracken]

While mitigation is commendable and essential, a major problem with this 
view is that it is rather unlikely that emissions can be reduced rapidly 
enough to keep the increase in global average temperature (a very 
innocuous metric for the situation that will result) below 2 C, or much 
more realistically, given the challenges ahead, of 3 C. In either case, 
the result is very likely to be catastrophic consequences with respect 
to extreme events, sea level rise and biodiversity loss, among many 
other impacts.


Mike MacCracken


On 5/11/22 9:39 AM, Alan Robock ☮ wrote:

https://www.brookings.edu/blog/fixgov/2022/05/10/emission-reduction-remains-publics-preferred-approach-to-climate-change/

*Emission reduction remains public’s preferred approach to climate change*
by Barry G. Rabe and Christopher Borick

"Americans continue to favor reducing greenhouse gas emissions as 
their preferred approach for staving off the worst impacts of climate 
change, according to new public opinion findings. The public remains 
considerably more skeptical of any pivot from mitigation toward 
climate policy that prioritizes adaptation, use of geoengineering that 
releases particles into the atmosphere in attempting to deter warming, 
or subterranean carbon storage. These findings emerge from the Winter 
2022 National Surveys on Energy and Environment (NSEE). ..."

--

Alan Robock

Alan Robock, Distinguished Professor
Department of Environmental Sciences Phone: +1-848-932-5751
Rutgers UniversityE-mail: 
rob...@envsci.rutgers.edu

14 College Farm Road http://people.envsci.rutgers.edu/robock
New Brunswick, NJ 08901-8551 ☮ https://twitter.com/AlanRobock

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Re: [geo] Re: Is Inadvertent "Reverse Geoengineering" since 2020 significantly warming the planet ?

[Michael MacCracken]

Just to note that way back in 2010 when we organized the Asilomar 
Conference on geoengineering, the State of Victoria in Australia was a 
co-sponsor of the meeting.


And just to note that it is really not clear that use of MCB to address 
some of the impacts affecting Australia (Great Barrier Reef, shifting of 
the storm track) might not have influences much further away than New 
Zealand and so not really clear would need full international 
participation in the primary analysis. So, yes, Australia could, in my 
view, well lead consideration on getting started on such an approach for 
certain types of applications.


Mike MacCracken


On 3/3/22 1:14 AM, Peter Fiekowsky wrote:

Now we’re acting!
Who would we propose it to? Said another way-Who would we invite to do 
that, whom we would support?


Peter
Sent from my iPhone


On Mar 2, 2022, at 9:03 PM, Robbie Tulip  wrote:


The Australian government could be invited to investigate 
international agreement for marine cloud brightening in the Southern 
Ocean to cool Antarctica.


On Thu, 3 Mar 2022 at 3:22 pm, Peter Fiekowsky  wrote:

Robert-
It's one thing to be logically correct, and logically I and
probably everyone on this list agrees with you that SRM right now
would be smart, even moral.

I, and probably you and everyone on this list is working on this
in order to leave a world our children and grandchildren can
flourish in--obviously including our Holocene ecosystems.

As far as I can tell we've been in agreement for ten or fifteen
years. Has that agreement changed the planet?
I'd say no. I don't think the physical world responds much to the
brain patterns in my head, or the ones in your head which we call
agreement.

What's needed is action that will restore the climate. Let's get
action going. Physical action. How do we do that?

On Wed, Mar 2, 2022 at 7:22 PM Robbie Tulip
 wrote:

Low albedo is dangerous and can only be mitigated by oceanic
 and atmospheric technology. Solar radiation management
systems are needed to increase planetary albedo and mitigate
the economic and social and ecological harms of
climate change by limiting extreme weather events. The
benefits of regulating planetary weather far far outweigh the
risks and costs of neglecting work to stabilise the climate.
This is a major and serious moral problem regarding whether
humanity can take action to prevent and reverse the worst
effects of climate change in this decade.

Robert Tulip
On Thu, 3 Mar 2022 at 2:06 pm, Peter Fiekowsky
 wrote:

Robert-
SRM is a logical top priority.
Who will pay for it?
How will those doing it avoid assassination? (Moral or
physical)

Peter
Sent from my iPhone


On Mar 2, 2022, at 6:50 PM, Robbie Tulip
 wrote:


Peter
To answer your question, carbon  capture can collect CO2
to transform it into stable valuable commodities. But
CO2 storage is wrong and useless for climate
restoration. Chemical and photosynthetic use of CO2 as
feedstock to produce biomass and materials needs to
replace the CCS paradigm. First though we need to
increase albedo as the emergency security response
against extreme weather.
Regards
Robert 

On Thu, 3 Mar 2022 at 1:54 am, Peter Fiekowsky
 wrote:

Ye-
What does carbon capture have to do with climate
restoration?
Carbon capture is for enhanced oil recovery and for
selling expensive carbon offsets.

We're interested in carbon sequestration at the 50
Gt/year scale, such as with synthetic limestone,
plankton, kelp.
Peter

On Wed, Mar 2, 2022 at 12:59 AM Ye Tao
 wrote:

No Peter, this is not argument for restoring CO2
below 300ppm; lack of a logical connection
notwithstanding, carbon capture at scale simply
infeasible before we are all fried.

Ye

On 3/1/2022 9:15 PM, Peter Fiekowsky wrote:


Interesting. I remember that Michael Mann wrote
a Scientific American article about 1999,
telling us to expect 0.5C warming when we
eliminate the sulfates. We knew it would
happen, and it's happening. Maybe it's not so
shocking.

Does anyone know how much sulfates still come
from coal plants? Back in 1999 that was the big
source, I think.

   

[geo] Re: Marine Cloud Brightening

[Michael MacCracken]

Hi Clive--

Because the Sun is only up in the Arctic for a few months during the 
year, there is no need to have the aerosol stay up through the whole 
year--and in the winter the stratosphere gets so cold that the particles 
contribute to ozone depletion, so one does not want to be increasing the 
particle concentrations in winter. But doing so in the spring (probably 
only needed in the months after the surface snow starts to melt) and 
early summer when sunlight is strong, has the potential to increase the 
albedo.


And yes, in the troposphere, particles are primarily removed by 
precipitation, but that really is only mainly occurring where there is 
convection, and for convection to occur, the surface has to be quite 
warm adn the atmosphere unstable. While that occurs in lower latitudes, 
in the Arctic as it comes out of winter, convection is not normally 
occurring, so particles injected there into the upper troposphere, 
assuming the circulation does not take them out of the region (and 
predictions of this could be used to determine when and where it would 
be optimal to make or not make an aerosol injection), won't get removed 
by precipitation (coalesence and condensation of water vapor might lead 
to particles growing so large they fall out of the atmosphere, but that 
is generally a slow process and so the lifetime of the particles might 
stretch out for several weeks, reducing how much has to be injected to 
keep a certain loading).


And one reason of increased effectiveness of the reduction of sunlight 
(calculated, as I recall, in the case I did as amount of effect per 
amount of aerosol needed) in these latitudes is a result of doing the 
reduction right where the snow and (sea) ice albedo feedbacks are 
strongest, so just as warming leads to an amplified warming in the high 
latitudes, so will a reduction in warming lead to an amplified effect.


So, a lot would need to be considered to put together an operational 
plan, but, thinking a bit idealistically about only the physics and 
engineering of it, conceptually possible, at least in my view.


Mike



On 1/30/22 7:34 AM, Clive Elsworth wrote:
But John is saying they could cool the Arctic with SAI injected 
/below/ the stratosphere.



On 30/01/2022 12:09 SALTER Stephen  wrote:


Clive

There is not much rain in the stratosphere where SO2 will be injected.

Stephen.

*From:* healthy-planet-action-coalit...@googlegroups.com 
 *On Behalf Of 
*Clive Elsworth

*Sent:* Sunday, January 30, 2022 11:59 AM
*To:* SALTER Stephen 
*Cc:* Ron Baiman ; Sev Clarke ; 
Peter Wadhams ; Chris Vivian 
; H simmens ; John 
Nissen ; Robert Tulip 
; geoengineering 
; Planetary Restoration 
; Shaun Fitzgerald 
; Hugh.Hunt ; Daphne Wysham 
; healthy-planet-action-coalition 
; Dermott Reilly 


*Subject:* RE: Marine Cloud Brightening


*This email was sent to you by someone outside the University.*

You should only click on links or attachments if you are certain that 
the email is genuine and the content is safe.


Stephen


As I understand it SO2 gets rained out more readily than CFCs, which 
eventually drift into the stratosphere. CFCs are stable in the 
troposphere and only get destroyed in the stratosphere by the more 
intense UV.



Clive

On 30/01/2022 09:50 SALTER Stephen  wrote:



Clive

How do you think that stuff got up to the Ozone hole?

Stephen

*From:* healthy-planet-action-coalit...@googlegroups.com
 *On Behalf Of
*Clive Elsworth
*Sent:* Saturday, January 29, 2022 11:22 PM
*To:* SALTER Stephen 
*Cc:* Ron Baiman ; Sev Clarke
; Peter Wadhams ;
Chris Vivian ; H simmens
; John Nissen ;
Robert Tulip ; geoengineering
; Planetary Restoration
; Shaun Fitzgerald
; Hugh.Hunt ; Daphne Wysham
; healthy-planet-action-coalition
; Dermott
Reilly 
*Subject:* Marine Cloud Brightening


*This email was sent to you by someone outside the University.*

You should only click on links or attachments if you are certain
that the email is genuine and the content is safe.

Stephen


I confess I'm not sufficiently familiar with atmospheric physics
to say whether aerosol particles released under the Arctic
stratosphere would substantially move up into it.


Either way, Marine Cloud Brightening seems the safer option to me
for the reasons you have given on numerous occasions. The
question is if it can be ready in time and with sufficient social
license.


I think you're aware of the University of Washington's MCB work:
https://faculty.washington.edu/robwood2/wordpress/?page_id=954


The video on that page is high quality and only about a month
old. I wonder if some collaboration might help speed things up?


Clive


On 29/01/2022 21:03 SALTER Stephen  wrote:



Clive

Here is something about the Brewer Dobson velocity.

Stephen

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[geo] Re: Marine Cloud Brightening

[Michael MacCracken]

Dear Stephen--The atmospheric transport of gases and aerosols differs. 
For gases, atmospheric mixing dominates any consideration of different 
molecular weights up to altitudes of five to ten tens of kilometers. For 
aerosols, their mass and size introduce a fall rate that, depending on 
size, generally takes over in the upper troposphere/lower stratosphere, 
so say by ten kilometers or so. So CFCs get up to the stratospheric 
ozone layer by atmospheric mixing, generally in air in low latitudes. 
Getting aerosols into the stratosphere (unless they are chemically 
formed there, such as in the stratospheric ozone hole region) generally 
takes some sort of major injection mechanism like a volcanic eruption 
(or very major firestorm).


Mike

On 1/30/22 4:50 AM, SALTER Stephen wrote:


Clive

How do you think that stuff got up to the Ozone hole?

Stephen

*From:* healthy-planet-action-coalit...@googlegroups.com 
 *On Behalf Of 
*Clive Elsworth

*Sent:* Saturday, January 29, 2022 11:22 PM
*To:* SALTER Stephen 
*Cc:* Ron Baiman ; Sev Clarke ; 
Peter Wadhams ; Chris Vivian 
; H simmens ; John 
Nissen ; Robert Tulip 
; geoengineering 
; Planetary Restoration 
; Shaun Fitzgerald 
; Hugh.Hunt ; Daphne Wysham 
; healthy-planet-action-coalition 
; Dermott Reilly 


*Subject:* Marine Cloud Brightening

*This email was sent to you by someone outside the University.*

You should only click on links or attachments if you are certain that 
the email is genuine and the content is safe.


Stephen

I confess I'm not sufficiently familiar with atmospheric physics to 
say whether aerosol particles released under the Arctic stratosphere 
would substantially move up into it.


Either way, Marine Cloud Brightening seems the safer option to me for 
the reasons you have given on numerous occasions. The question is if 
it can be ready in time and with sufficient social license.


I think you're aware of the University of Washington's MCB work: 
https://faculty.washington.edu/robwood2/wordpress/?page_id=954


The video on that page is high quality and only about a month old. I 
wonder if some collaboration might help speed things up?


Clive

On 29/01/2022 21:03 SALTER Stephen  wrote:

Clive

Here is something about the Brewer Dobson velocity.

Stephen

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Re: [geo] RE: IPCC AR6 Summary for Policymakers

[Michael MacCracken]

Hi John--I've heard arguments both ways on this (e.g., Susan Solomon et 
al. some years ago in Science; she worked with CO2e and I think used the 
CO2 decay times, and had a very long tail; I've heard, I think it was, 
Steve Pacala and Steve Hamburg make the same point you are--namely the 
fluxes would continue for a while and I think they suggest the CO2 
concentration would get pulled down by about 50 ppm) and am wondering 
what the resolution is on this (I've yet to read the IPCC relevant 
chapter on this).


Basically, the question is the extent to which these fluxes are driven 
by the concentration gradient created by the current year's emissions 
versus by the gradients created by past emissions. For the atmosphere to 
the wind-mixed upper ocean, the lag time I think is pretty short (1-2 
years), but then from the upper ocean to deep ocean may well be based 
mainly on gradient created by past emissions, so it may persist for a 
while, but that flux is pretty small, so emissions would need to get 
below the value of that flux to start to pull things down.


For atmosphere to the terrestrial biosphere, ignoring the return flux 
due to fire, don't experiments like the FACE studies show that higher 
CO2 stimulates additional growth for a few years and then starts to tail 
off, so does not higher uptake stop pretty fast if there is no longer a 
gradient, etc.


Is there a good well-documented resolution about this where theory and 
models and observations agree what happens if one basically heads down 
toward zero emissions by 2050 or so?


Mike MacCracken


On 8/12/21 4:46 PM, John Harte wrote:
Kevin, you write: "Finally, and as you point out, carbon removal will 
be slow. The natural rate of removal is so slow as to not be 
measurable against CO2 emissions”.


The current rate of removal of atmospheric carbon dioxide by natural 
marine and terrestrial processes is about 5 Gt(C)/year, which is about 
half of current annual anthropogenic emissions.


That hardly seems to be unmeasurably slow!

Were we to cease emissions today those natural sinks would persist but 
with diminishing strength in the future as the atmospheric level draws 
down. The sinks will not get the atmosphere down to a pre-industrial 
CO2 level of course, but they will nevertheless make a big difference.


Among the most important things we can do is to stop degrading those 
natural sinks … protecting them is cheaper, would accomplish more than 
engineering artificial sinks, and would also provide  numerous 
co-benefits.



John Harte
Professor of the Graduate School
Ecosystem Sciences
ERG/ESPM
University of California
Berkeley, CA 94720
jha...@berkeley.edu 









On Aug 12, 2021, at 5:01 AM, Kevin Lister > wrote:


To answer Robert's comments on not seeing a downside to his proposal, 
and in the immortal intellectual framework of a previous Secretary of 
Defence:


There are known knowns, these are:


  * If you are dropping wind turbines out of a plane, then best guess
is that these would have a maximum power output of 2kW, or
thereabouts.  If they successfully land and penetrate the ice and
start pumping, and the water forms a volcano shaped dome, with an
inclination angle of 0.1 deg, then it will take a approximately
161 days to grow a cone that is 3 meters high at the pump, and it
will have a radius of 1.7km. It would then take about 107,000 of
these to cover the ice sheet.  That's a lot and probably far more
than all the planes of the US strategic deployment force can
deliver at the beginning of winter.  Even if this is successful,
a significant number will be released from the edge of the ice in
summer, say 10%, so approximately 10,000 will float around in the
ocean.


Then there are known unknowns, these are:

  * You do not know the angle that the water will settle on the ice,
  * You do not know what shape the ice will form around the pump, it
is likely to be a more complex and irregular doughnut shape. The
mathematics behind this is extremely complicated, and after about
a year's effort I managed only a partial solution before giving up.
  * You do not know what effect the continual heat flow from the
subsurface water being pumped onto the existing ice surface will
have. In extremis, the pumps could cause the ice adjacent to them
to melt so all they end up doing is pumping water into water.
  * Even if there are solutions to all of these, there is the
practical engineering matter of establishing the reliability of
the pumps, especially when they are to operate in the Arctic
winter which is both cold, dark and inaccessible.


Then there are the unknown unknowns, these are:

  * With the heat flow into the Arctic from the lower latitudes, then
getting reliable and consistent ice formation, even in the depths
of winter, may no longer be possible.
  * Ice formed on the 

Re: [geo] RE: IPCC AR6 Summary for Policymakers

[Michael MacCracken]

Actually, on population, back in 2000, the one billion or so in the 
developed world had us (and still do have us) on a path that would cause 
disastrous change, just a few decades later. To stop climate this 
billion was going to have to change its ways.


At the time, the five billion or so in the developed world were a pretty 
small share of the problem and if they had gone to zero emissions, as 
noted, the billion would have to have changed--and be doing so now.


Of course, now the six billion in developing world are increasing their 
emissions, still at a per capita level lower than in the developed 
world, and even if developed world went to zero emissions, the path they 
are on would take them to disastrous climate change.


Both developed and developing have to change their ways and choices--we 
really can't have any emissions and need to get to negative emissions, 
so it is the choices that all of us have and are making that is the 
really key issue, and this is true no matter what the population is 
assuming it stays above a billion or so.


So, not really appropriate to be thinking population is the key 
issue--it is our choices that need to change, for all of us, no matter 
the number. Yes, with fewer people it might be a bit easier for the 
world to change and stretch out the time maybe a decade, but given we 
are already a couple of decades too late, the focus has to be on the 
choices and changing them--rapidly.


Mike MacCracken


On 8/11/21 5:09 PM, SALTER Stephen wrote:


Hi All

Behind every root cause is another root cause. The root cause of 
greenhouse gases is excessive human population.  An effective solution 
to that is uncomfortably topical but would not be well received.


Stephen

*From:* geoengineering@googlegroups.com 
 *On Behalf Of *Cush Ngonzo Luwesi

*Sent:* Wednesday, August 11, 2021 8:30 PM
*To:* rtulip2...@yahoo.com.au
*Cc:* Carbon Dioxide Removal ; 
geoengineering 

*Subject:* Re: [geo] RE: IPCC AR6 Summary for Policymakers

*This email was sent to you by someone outside the University.*

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Dear Robert

I enjoyed pretty much reading your critique on the IPCC AR6 report and 
the AMOC report. I notices that thèse reports put an emphasis on 
mitigation and negative emissions as the way to slowing down ice 
melting and Climate variability. Yet, these arguments seem to be 
"unscientific" to you because of your take on Solar geoengineering. 
Yet, many observées think that brightening the marine clouds and 
spraying aérosols do not solve the very cause of Climate change, which 
is GHGe. Yet, to D.  Hume's point of view, a "scientific" control is 
the one that Solves causality, meaning a solution that controls or 
stabilises the causes. What is your take on this? To what science do 
you refer to in your commenté? Who is fooling who?


Thanks in advance for your feedback.

Regards

Cush

Le mer. 11 août 2021 à 12:16, 'Robert Tulip' via geoengineering 
> a écrit :


I thought it was pretty bad that the IPCC report
 
states
as its headline B.1 finding that "Global warming of 1.5°C and 2°C
will be exceeded during the 21st century *unless* deep reductions
in CO2 and other greenhouse gas emissions occur in the coming
decades."

It should rather state "Global warming of 1.5°C and 2°C will be
exceeded during the 21st century *even if* deep reductions in CO2
and other greenhouse gas emissions occur in the coming decades."
(my bold)

As the NOAA AGGI report  states, CO2
equivalents are now above 500 ppm. Emission reduction, technically
defined, only reduces the future addition of GHGs to the system,
and does nothing to remove the committed warming from past
emissions. Leading scientists (eg Eelco Rohling) think past
emissions already commit the planet to 2°C.

Even a major program of carbon conversion, transforming CO2 into
useful commodities such as soil and fabric, would do nothing to
stop the escalation of extreme weather this decade. Carbon removal
is too small and slow, despite having orders of magnitude greater
potential cooling impact than decarbonisation of the world economy.

My view is the only immediate solution is to brighten the planet.
Albedo enhancement should start by pumping sea water onto the
Arctic sea ice in winter to freeze and reduce the summer melt
using wind energy (diagram attached). Marine cloud brightening is
the next best option, followed by areas that need considerably
more impact research such as stratospheric aerosol injection and
iron salt aerosol.

It is a disgrace that the IPCC seems to have entirely written off
this whole area of response, with no scientific reasoning as to why.

Re: [geo] At last

[Michael MacCracken]

I wonder if they really think that scheduling this so it is airing at 4 
AM for those on the US East Coast and 1 AM in California was thought 
about as the best way to get their key messages across to a country that 
really needs to be motivated to act?


Mike MacCracken

On 8/8/21 12:24 PM, SALTER Stephen wrote:


Hi All

This

https://www.ipcc.ch/2021/08/05/press-conference-details-wgi-ar6/ 



might be of interest.

Stephen

/Emeritus Professor of Engineering Design/

/School of Engineering/

/Mayfield Road/

/Edinburgh EH9 3DW/

/0131 650 5704/

/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZBB6WtH_Ni8 
/


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Re: [geo] Background-Greenland collapse

[Michael MacCracken]

lso shows that it is
possible to get ~5m of SLR in a single century, but that’s coming
out of the last glacial when there was a lot more available to be
melted, and that doesn’t say that it is possible to get anything
close to that this century.)

-Arguably this is simply quibbling over whether we can prove we’re
past the point where even aggressive CDR would work, or whether
there’s simply a risk that we’re past that point, in which case
arguing over whether that is 20% or 50% or 10% might not matter
for policy.  I do agree that we are gambling with the climate, and
with odds that no-one would accept in any other circumstance.

-Personally, given how little research has been done, I don’t
think there’s strong justification for saying that the long-term
climate consequences of waiting another 10-15 years for research
(and to develop governance capacity) will be so bad that we should
go ahead and deploy something now without doing the research
(though if we did deploy something now, I’d worry more about the
societal response than the physical issues).  But, just like the
US didn’t use the first few months of this year to prepare for
covid when it knew it was coming, it would be truly awful to not
do the research now, leaving us in the same boat yet another
decade later.

doug

    *From:*Michael MacCracken mailto:mmacc...@comcast.net>>
*Sent:* Saturday, August 15, 2020 12:54 PM
*To:* Douglas MacMartin mailto:dgm...@cornell.edu>>; andrew.lock...@gmail.com
<mailto:andrew.lock...@gmail.com>; geoengineering
mailto:geoengineering@googlegroups.com>>
*Subject:* Re: [geo] Background-Greenland collapse

Hi Doug et al.--I'm a bit late to this particular conversation,
but I am astonished by the suggestion that Greenland can only
cause such a small potential rate of rise in sea level. There was
just a kerfuffle with the IPCC authors on their draft projections
of rates (see attached letter). While surface melt rate may be
relatively slow as often calculated, it is not the main loss of
mass process--ice stream flow is very likely the major loss rate
once it gets going and the calculations that are done in most
models do not include this term, nor do they include the effects
of ice shelf thinning that is going on. From the peak of the last
interglacial to 8 ka, sea level rose at an average rate of a meter
per century while global average temperature rose at an average
rate of a degree C per 2000 years, and the CO2 concentration was
less than 300 ppm. The documentary "Chasing Ice" shows how fast
ice can disappear, and not just in the ice stream calving that is
the most amazing aspect of that film. And paleo evidence also
makes very clear that ice sheets go away much faster than they
build up.

And the question is not so much when the cities will be under
water as when it will become inevitable that they will be under
water--given that consideration and the paleo sensitivity being
something like 15-20 meters per degree C warming (and this is not
just me saying this, but see Eric Rignot talk to the NAS last
year--see https://vimeo.com/332486918 <https://vimeo.com/332486918> ).

Based on this sensitivity, we're already past the point where it
would be good to have climate intervention underway if we want to
avoid significant and early risk to our cities with a very high
likelihood (and this is the criterion that is often used in
building infrastructure--avoiding 1 in 100 year events or even
rarer ones--consider the Dutch for their levees--1 in 10,000 year
storms).

Mike MacCracken

On 8/15/20 7:03 AM, Douglas MacMartin wrote:

What is not correct in the media report is this sentence:
“This process, however, would take decades.” Well, I guess
arguably that’s true, it’s just it would take a LOT of
decades.  Melt rate is currently of order 1-2mm/yr equivalent
SLR, so to get the 6m from melting all of Greenland would take
a few thousand years.  Obviously it can speed up a lot, but
“hey, it’s losing mass” does not remotely imply “therefore we
only have a few decades before we lose our coastal cities”. 
So no, you can’t use this study to claim that geoengineering
is required to keep our coastal cities.  The problem with
relying on mitigation+CDR is time-scale, but this study
doesn’t prove that our response time-scale needs to be faster
than what CDR can (at least hypothetically) provide.

d

*From:*geoengineering@googlegroups.com
<mailto:geoengineering@googlegroups.com>

<mailto:geoengineering@googlegroups.com> *On Behalf Of *Andrew
Lockley
*Sent:* Saturday, August 15, 2020 3:40 AM
*To:* ge

Re: [geo] Background-Greenland collapse

[Michael MacCracken]

Hi Doug et al.--I'm a bit late to this particular conversation, but I am 
astonished by the suggestion that Greenland can only cause such a small 
potential rate of rise in sea level. There was just a kerfuffle with the 
IPCC authors on their draft projections of rates (see attached letter). 
While surface melt rate may be relatively slow as often calculated, it 
is not the main loss of mass process--ice stream flow is very likely the 
major loss rate once it gets going and the calculations that are done in 
most models do not include this term, nor do they include the effects of 
ice shelf thinning that is going on. From the peak of the last 
interglacial to 8 ka, sea level rose at an average rate of a meter per 
century while global average temperature rose at an average rate of a 
degree C per 2000 years, and the CO2 concentration was less than 300 
ppm. The documentary "Chasing Ice" shows how fast ice can disappear, and 
not just in the ice stream calving that is the most amazing aspect of 
that film. And paleo evidence also makes very clear that ice sheets go 
away much faster than they build up.


And the question is not so much when the cities will be under water as 
when it will become inevitable that they will be under water--given that 
consideration and the paleo sensitivity being something like 15-20 
meters per degree C warming (and this is not just me saying this, but 
see Eric Rignot talk to the NAS last year--see 
https://vimeo.com/332486918 ).


Based on this sensitivity, we're already past the point where it would 
be good to have climate intervention underway if we want to avoid 
significant and early risk to our cities with a very high likelihood 
(and this is the criterion that is often used in building 
infrastructure--avoiding 1 in 100 year events or even rarer 
ones--consider the Dutch for their levees--1 in 10,000 year storms).


Mike MacCracken






On 8/15/20 7:03 AM, Douglas MacMartin wrote:


What is not correct in the media report is this sentence: “This 
process, however, would take decades.” Well, I guess arguably that’s 
true, it’s just it would take a LOT of decades.  Melt rate is 
currently of order 1-2mm/yr equivalent SLR, so to get the 6m from 
melting all of Greenland would take a few thousand years.  Obviously 
it can speed up a lot, but “hey, it’s losing mass” does not remotely 
imply “therefore we only have a few decades before we lose our coastal 
cities”.  So no, you can’t use this study to claim that geoengineering 
is required to keep our coastal cities.  The problem with relying on 
mitigation+CDR is time-scale, but this study doesn’t prove that our 
response time-scale needs to be faster than what CDR can (at least 
hypothetically) provide.


d

*From:*geoengineering@googlegroups.com 
 *On Behalf Of *Andrew Lockley

*Sent:* Saturday, August 15, 2020 3:40 AM
*To:* geoengineering 
*Subject:* [geo] Background-Greenland collapse

If this study is correct https://www.nature.com/articles/s43247-020-0001-2

And is correctly reported here
https://mobile.reuters.com/article/amp/idUSKCN25A2X3

Then it appears to back up a point that I have been making for a long 
time: geoengineering is required, if we are to keep our coastal 
cities. I do not see economic or political feasibility for large scale 
CDR to tackle historic emissions, and thus the task must fall to SRM.


Nobody has managed to rause an objection to this argument to date. I'd 
be grateful if those who might disagree were to raise counter 
arguments now.


If the situation is as I understand it, prevarication has no clear 
benefits, and we should thus move quickly to readiness for deployment.


Andrew

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Re: [geo] Al Gore: climate engineering research reckless and wack-a-doodle

[Michael MacCracken]

I'd just note that in the few times that I served as the scientific 
expert at Al Gore's leadership training sessions, I got into discussions 
with him on SRM as questions came up from the audience, seeking to get 
him to better understand why SRM was being discussed and research is 
needed. I think Andy put the situation very well. Right now AG is really 
taken by how fast technology is improving and all the options this will 
provide and I think does not want to undermine that--but I do think 
those who feel that technology can accomplish the cutbacks needed to do 
so will generally  over time come to understand the challenge of 
replacing 80% of the global energy system, and so the need for at least 
some SRM. I also think there has generally been too little work (well, 
at least publication about work) on peak shaving SRM (so maybe 
offsetting 30-50% CO2 doubling with a phasing out with long-term CDR) as 
opposed to (a)  fully offsetting 2X or even 4X CO2 all by itself (which 
few, if any, advocate as the approach), and (b) comparisons of the 
resulting situation to changes from the preindustrial baseline (and not 
expressing the differences relative to the ranges of natural 
variability) rather than comparing the results with SRM applied to what 
would the situation would be without such SRM.


Mike MacCracken


On 6/29/20 2:10 PM, Andrew Revkin wrote:
Yes, keep in mind it took Al Gore nearly 20 years to accept that 
climate /adaptation/ was not a "form of laziness" (as he wrote in 
1992) and has to be pursued as vigorously as CO2 mitigation.

Wrote on this in Nat Geo: http://j.mp/adaptationrises

Not surprised it will take longer for him to be more nuanced on SRM - 
at least on examining it carefully.



On Mon, Jun 29, 2020 at 12:03 PM E Durbrow > wrote:


So there is a TED interview with Al Gore. His response (rant?) on
climate engineering (he seems to mean SRM but also marine climate
interventions) begins at minute 27. But do keep listening to the
interview for the next 10min. The interview, Chris Anderson,
pushes back and tries to see if Gore has a more nuanced view on
climate engineering. He doesn’t. Note: he doesn't approve of even
research.


https://www.ted.com/talks/al_gore_the_case_for_optimism_on_climate_change/transcript

Me: The interviewer seems to me more rational about climate
intervention than his interviewee. He calls for an adult
conversation after Gore's rant.
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Re: [geo] Budyko (1974)

[Michael MacCracken]

Hi Alan--I'd just add for context that:

1. 1974 was a time before real warming and the recognition of impacts 
had gotten going, so the nature of the tradeoffs to be considered 
(especially given the research at that time) was quite different, and


2. Budyko's view, based on application of paleoclimatic analogs from the 
Eemian, etc., was that GHG-induced greater warmth would be good for the 
USSR (well, for what are now the -stan republics, which he though would 
get more precipitation and so have more productive agriculture). When he 
presented these views to the US scientists involved in  the US-USSR 
bilateral, a number of us thought that his analog-based conclusion 
needed to be qualified given that CO2 and other GHG forcing would not be 
expected to lead to the same climatic response as the analog period 
responses to changes in orbital forcing that had high summertime solar 
radiation.


Mike  MacCracken

On 5/6/20 5:01 PM, Alan Robock ☮ wrote:

Dear All,

If you have not read it yet, I highly recommend to you the 1974 paper 
by the brilliant Russian climatologist Mikhail Budyko, who was born 
100 years ago, on July 28, 1920.  I attach the paper in Russian and 
English.  You can see that the Russian version is a copy that was 
presented to Joe Smagorinsky, director of GFDL, by Budyko and 
autographed by him.  The English translation I obtained was missing 
the last page, so I did my best to translate it from Russian to English.


The paper discusses in detail the idea of creating a sulfate layer in 
the stratosphere to cool Earth, and is very prescient, addressing, 
among other things, feedback control, impacts on precipitation, a call 
for more research on impacts, governance, and mitigation.  In it, for 
example, you can find:


"investigation of the circulation in the lower stratosphere may make 
it possible to substantiate the choice of optimum regions and times 
for the spreading of the reagents, ensuring its most effective 
utilization."


"The second problem is to substantiate the method of controlling the 
existing climate for preventing fluctuations which lead to a reduction 
of precipitation."


and it ends with

    "It must be emphasized that the use of the climate 
modification method described above will be possible only after 
accurate calculation of the effect of such action on atmospheric 
processes in all regions of the Earth.  The implementation of the 
climate modification program before the fulfillment of this condition 
would be extremely risky. It is necessary in this connection to 
consider the international aspect of the problem of climate control. 
Ye. K. Fedorov [11] has repeatedly stated that the implementation of 
any large scale climate control project is possible only on the basis 
of international cooperation.
 "The climate modification method described here will alter 
climatic conditions for many countries, and the character of these 
changes will be different in various regions.
    "Therefore the question rises concerning the need for an 
international agreement to forbid the implementation of disapproved 
climate modification actions. Such actions must be permitted only on 
the basis of plans that have been examined and approved by the 
appropriate international agencies and with the approval of all 
countries concerned. This agreement should embrace both measures aimed 
at climate modification and the types of industrial activity that 
might lead to inadvertent changes in climatic conditions."




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Re: [geo] Personal sulfate budget

[Michael MacCracken]

Hi Andrew--Teller, of course, did not balloons to burst--in fact, his 
priority was for balloons to stay up there, and to make it all more 
workable, I think the idea was to launch them from aircraft so they were 
not having to also provide lift from the surface so they could be 
efficiently designed for staying aloft in lower stratosphere. And they 
did not have to carry sulfate up--their outer shape and corner reflector 
design as the plan, and they might be a meter in diameter.


Other questions had to do what they would do to communications, 
visibility for astronomers, etc.


Mike

On 4/11/20 1:13 PM, Andrew Lockley wrote:
The point is that solar balloons will not require any lifting gas, at 
all.


Latex canopies are weakly biodegradable, but mylar caponies are 
essential stable in the environment, making them a poor option, unless 
rigorous retrieval is implemented.


Any balloon that is designed to burst will typically descend within a 
hundred miles or so. Bearing in mind that injection regimes proposed 
are typically 15-30 latitude, this places them towards the desert 
belts (30), where retrieval is potentially easier. Towards the equator 
(15), forests are more common - so that biodegradation is faster.


Andrew


On Sat, 11 Apr 2020, 17:45 Michael MacCracken, <mailto:mmacc...@comcast.net>> wrote:


Edward Teller had a balloon suggestion in the early 90s as I
recall. Rather than containing sulfate, his notion was to have
long-lasting balloons up there, the surface of which were corner
reflectors, so would reflect direct radiation back in the
direction that it came. I gave an AGU talk on approaches about
that time and called them the "trillion points of light" approach
(a bit of a take off of a George H. W. Bush phrase). An advantage
of the idea was that there would not be so much diffuse light
generated, but the number did have to be really large as the
reflectivity per unit mass would be much greater for sulfate
aerosols than for the balloon.

As to balloons popping, the criticism was expressed as raining
condoms. In that the Teller's balloons were intended to stay aloft
for a while, they would presumably preferentially have been
carried toward the poles, and they eventually perhaps would have
popped and come down there. I would note that perhaps, with the
new discoveries of microbes that eat the plastic, perhaps those
could be embedded. As to what lofts the balloon, it would be
better to fill the balloon with hydrogen than helium (and I agree
helium is scarce)--fire would not likely be a threat.

Regards, Mike

On 4/11/20 11:38 AM, david.sev...@carbon-cycle.co.uk
<mailto:david.sev...@carbon-cycle.co.uk> wrote:


I would add further concerns about “trash rain” effects of
numerous small balloons eventually returning to earth. Unless the
balloons are fully biodegradable this may make the plastic
problem worse. See issues of turtles eating plastic bags. The
potential use of helium also concerns me as this is a very
limited resource that already is being wasted far too much.

*From:*geoengineering@googlegroups.com
<mailto:geoengineering@googlegroups.com>

<mailto:geoengineering@googlegroups.com> *On Behalf Of *Douglas
MacMartin
*Sent:* 11 April 2020 15:59
*To:* andrew.lock...@gmail.com <mailto:andrew.lock...@gmail.com>;
Aaron Franklin 
<mailto:stateoftheart...@gmail.com>
*Cc:* geoengineering 
<mailto:geoengineering@googlegroups.com>; Arctic Methane Google
Group 
<mailto:arcticmeth...@googlegroups.com>
*Subject:* RE: Re: [geo] Personal sulfate budget

No… see
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09644016.2019.1648169

*From:*geoengineering@googlegroups.com
<mailto:geoengineering@googlegroups.com>
mailto:geoengineering@googlegroups.com>> *On Behalf Of *Andrew
Lockley
*Sent:* Saturday, April 11, 2020 5:28 AM
*To:* Aaron Franklin mailto:stateoftheart...@gmail.com>>
*Cc:* geoengineering mailto:geoengineering@googlegroups.com>>; Arctic Methane Google
Group mailto:arcticmeth...@googlegroups.com>>
*Subject:* Re: Re: [geo] Personal sulfate budget

Aaron,

As far as I know, you are the first person to propose solar
balloons for lofting climate-active gases. I would encourage you
to publish this. I'm happy to assist.

Andrew Lockley

On Fri, 10 Apr 2020, 23:28 Aaron Franklin,
mailto:stateoftheart...@gmail.com>>
wrote:

"Dear Andrew,

I'm not sure I understand.  How do you propose to put the
sulfate into the stratosphere?  And will you be personally
responsible for your share of the risks associated with the
impacts?

Alan"

Sounds like a good thing to set the kids on.

Lots of u

Re: [geo] Personal sulfate budget

[Michael MacCracken]

ssure on emissions is
likely to intensify despite progress in renewable energy.
This is driven by a global population heading towards 10
billion; by adaptation burdens from climate change such as
cities that have to be relocated in the face of sea level
rises; and with military arms races now being
unconstrained.  No body wants it to be this way, but that
is the way that it is. A simple game theoretical analysis
show the chance of a global agreement on getting the CO2
emission cuts to address climate change is in the in the
order of 6E-64 with the current approach.

So the only prudent way forward now is to start thinking
in detail about what an SRM programme would be and how we
would manage it.

Kevin

Sent from Mail
<https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=550986> for
Windows 10

*From: *Alan Robock ☮ <mailto:rob...@envsci.rutgers.edu>
*Sent: *10 April 2020 17:47
*To: *mmacc...@comcast.net <mailto:mmacc...@comcast.net>;
geoengineering <mailto:geoengineering@googlegroups.com>
*Subject: *Re: [geo] Personal sulfate budget

Dear Mike,

That's what many of us are spending years trying to
assess.  Each potential benefit and risk has to be
evaluated, and the answers depend on the specific
scenarios of global warming and SRM implementation, as
well as many assumptions that are made.   Since the answer
to your question is not yet, and maybe never, I think it
is prudent to not implement SRM at this time.  And it is
prudent to mitigate as much as we can.

Alan

  


On 4/10/2020 12:43 PM, Michael MacCracken wrote:

Hi Alan--Is there a comparative and comprehensive
assessment that indicates that the risks from
injecting sulfates into the stratosphere that you
raise are greater than the alleviated risks from
global warming that is cancelled out, and how this
evaluation changes with amounts of warming and cooling
and how the evaluation might vary as one considers
near-term to long-term aspects (and including related
aspects like sea level rise and ocean acidification
impacts)?

Mike

On 4/10/20 12:31 PM, Alan Robock ☮ wrote:

Dear Andrew,

I'm not sure I understand.  How do you propose to
put the sulfate into the stratosphere?  And will
you be personally responsible for your share of
the risks associated with the impacts?

Alan

  


Alan Robock, Distinguished Professor

   Associate Editor, Reviews of Geophysics

Department of Environmental Sciences Phone: 
+1-848-932-5751

Rutgers University    
E-mail:rob...@envsci.rutgers.edu  <mailto:rob...@envsci.rutgers.edu>

14 College Farm Roadhttp://people.envsci.rutgers.edu/robock

New Brunswick, NJ 08901-8551  USA☮  
http://twitter.com/AlanRobock

On 4/10/2020 12:13 PM, Andrew Lockley wrote:

I've just run some numbers on what my
'personal sulfate budget' might be. By the
calculations below, if a typical person put
10kg sulphate in the stratosphere for every
year of their life, they'd net out their
entire RF carbon footprint for a century.

Obviously, this has a whole pile of caveats
and flaws, but is it vaguely right? Is it a
useful concept?

Here's the obvious caveats:

Need temporally and spatially even distribution

Doesn't work once CO2 forcing very high

Assumes full offset of future emissions, nil
of historic

Termination shock, ocean acidification, Etc.

Andrew

-0.25 (W m-2)/ (Tg-S yr-1) from Wake

1.5 trillion tonnes CO2 historic 2017

https://ourworldindata.org/co2-and-other-greenhouse-gas-emissions#cumulative-co2-emissions

1.6 w/m2 Current RF 2010 (bit out of date)

Approx 1 Tt/W (calculated)

10t/capita/Yr CO2 only (UK), nearly 14 Co2e

Re: [geo] Personal sulfate budget

[Michael MacCracken]

Hi Alan--No question we need as much mitigation as possible, long- and 
short-lived species, conservation, efficiency improvement and resilience 
building/adaptation as possible.


It seems to me that then the question is one of evaluating comparative 
impacts and uncertainties as best possible--and weighing the risks of 
waiting versus acting, so thinking in a precautionary way (an evaluation 
framing called for in the UNFCCC. When I go to this framing, what I see 
in terms of the significance of not preparing for and even not 
undertaking early climate intervention is an increasing risk of 
essentially or wholly irreversible consequences. Such impacts include 
the increasing risks to species and biodiversity, increasing loss of 
mass from the ice sheets and consequent sea level rise--and long-term 
destabilization of the ice sheets, increasing likelihood of extremes 
that put excessive stress on global agricultural production and to 
ecosystems that seem likely to force larger and larger numbers of 
environmental refugees and the social disruption that will involve.


Yes, climate intervention has risks as well, not only relating to 
exactly how to optimally do that can be reduced by research, but also 
issues that are harder to evaluate like reducing pressure for mitigation 
and other actions that could lead the world to get more and more 
dependent on intervention and so more and more into a situation where 
there is the risk of an interruption or failure of the intervention.


So, lots to be weighed--I'd just suggest from experiences during the 
first national assessment when there was extensive involvement of a 
range of stakeholders that one of their important messages was that they 
deal with uncertainties and risks all the time and that the scientific 
community does not have the right to impose its decision-making paradigm 
(i.e., wanting high confidence before coming to conclusions rather than 
stating what is known and unknown and what uncertainties are) on others, 
and once that happens, we scientists need to particularly explaining the 
full situation and the basis for our findings, making sure that those 
who will have to be living the range of possible outcomes are fully 
informed so they can offer their view and decide what the degree of 
scientific understanding means to them and the risks they are willing to 
take.


I'm thus only suggesting that there are risks with both courses, 
uncertainties on both, etc. and that going ahead without climate 
intervention aimed at peak shaving is a very major risk--so large that 
the world has (aspirationally, it is seeming) committed to go to zero 
emissions.


With that said, as I noted in my 2016 paper, I think the precautionary 
approach would may well be to be doing the applied research needed to 
initiate climate intervention beginning in the near-term in that the 
path the world is on now seems inevitably to be taking the world to well 
over 1.5 C, much less already being well above something like 0.5 C that 
was the warming when significant impacts seem to have begun to appear.


Mike



On 4/10/20 12:47 PM, Alan Robock ☮ wrote:

Dear Mike,

That's what many of us are spending years trying to assess.  Each 
potential benefit and risk has to be evaluated, and the answers depend 
on the specific scenarios of global warming and SRM implementation, as 
well as many assumptions that are made.   Since the answer to your 
question is not yet, and maybe never, I think it is prudent to not 
implement SRM at this time.  And it is prudent to mitigate as much as 
we can.

Alan

On 4/10/2020 12:43 PM, Michael MacCracken wrote:


Hi Alan--Is there a comparative and comprehensive assessment that 
indicates that the risks from injecting sulfates into the 
stratosphere that you raise are greater than the alleviated risks 
from global warming that is cancelled out, and how this evaluation 
changes with amounts of warming and cooling and how the evaluation 
might vary as one considers near-term to long-term aspects (and 
including related aspects like sea level rise and ocean acidification 
impacts)?


Mike

On 4/10/20 12:31 PM, Alan Robock ☮ wrote:

Dear Andrew,

I'm not sure I understand.  How do you propose to put the sulfate 
into the stratosphere?  And will you be personally responsible for 
your share of the risks associated with the impacts?

Alan

Alan Robock, Distinguished Professor
   Associate Editor, Reviews of Geophysics
Department of Environmental Sciences Phone: +1-848-932-5751
Rutgers UniversityE-mail:rob...@envsci.rutgers.edu
14 College Farm Roadhttp://people.envsci.rutgers.edu/robock
New Brunswick, NJ 08901-8551  USA  ☮http://twitter.com/AlanRobock
On 4/10/2020 12:13 PM, Andrew Lockley wrote:
I've just run some numbers on what my 'personal sulfate budget' 
might be. By the calculations below, if a typical person put 10kg 
sulphate in the stratosphere for every year of their life, they'd 
net out

Re: [geo] Personal sulfate budget

[Michael MacCracken]

Hi Alan--Is there a comparative and comprehensive assessment that 
indicates that the risks from injecting sulfates into the stratosphere 
that you raise are greater than the alleviated risks from global warming 
that is cancelled out, and how this evaluation changes with amounts of 
warming and cooling and how the evaluation might vary as one considers 
near-term to long-term aspects (and including related aspects like sea 
level rise and ocean acidification impacts)?


Mike

On 4/10/20 12:31 PM, Alan Robock ☮ wrote:

Dear Andrew,

I'm not sure I understand.  How do you propose to put the sulfate into 
the stratosphere?  And will you be personally responsible for your 
share of the risks associated with the impacts?

Alan

Alan Robock, Distinguished Professor
   Associate Editor, Reviews of Geophysics
Department of Environmental Sciences Phone: +1-848-932-5751
Rutgers UniversityE-mail:rob...@envsci.rutgers.edu
14 College Farm Roadhttp://people.envsci.rutgers.edu/robock
New Brunswick, NJ 08901-8551  USA  ☮http://twitter.com/AlanRobock
On 4/10/2020 12:13 PM, Andrew Lockley wrote:
I've just run some numbers on what my 'personal sulfate budget' might 
be. By the calculations below, if a typical person put 10kg sulphate 
in the stratosphere for every year of their life, they'd net out 
their entire RF carbon footprint for a century.


Obviously, this has a whole pile of caveats and flaws, but is it 
vaguely right? Is it a useful concept?


Here's the obvious caveats:
Need temporally and spatially even distribution
Doesn't work once CO2 forcing very high
Assumes full offset of future emissions, nil of historic
Termination shock, ocean acidification, Etc.

Andrew


-0.25 (W m-2)/ (Tg-S yr-1) from Wake
1.5 trillion tonnes CO2 historic 2017 
https://ourworldindata.org/co2-and-other-greenhouse-gas-emissions#cumulative-co2-emissions

1.6 w/m2 Current RF 2010 (bit out of date)
Approx 1 Tt/W (calculated)
10t/capita/Yr CO2 only (UK), nearly 14 Co2e 
https://www.carbonindependent.org/23.html

To Offset everything all historic CO2 6Tg/yr
1 persons annual emissions is 1.5 x 100 billionths of the total ever 
emitted


Personal sulfate injection is therefore 6Tg x 1.5   / 100bn = about 
100g per year for 1y emissions only
If each person wants to offset a year's emissions for a century 
(negating 100y GWP), it's 100x More — ie 10kg per year

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Re: [geo] Axios: Trump suggested dropping nuclear bombs into hurricanes to stop them from hitting the U.S.

[Michael MacCracken]

Just a couple of follow-ups based on hopefully not too foggy a memory:

1. If one calculates the latent heat release rate from a large hurricane 
(so take an area of the rainfall, and a rainfall rate of say 6 inches in 
a day over that area), one can then compare to the energy of a nuclear 
weapon, just to get a sense of relative magnitudes. When I did so 
several decades ago, as I recall that the rate of latent heat release 
(as one metric of the energy a hurricane is processing) was equivalent 
to a few megatons per minute (now this energy is not all dissipated as 
most is transformed into rising motion that returns as heat when air 
elsewhere is pushed down, but even if a few percent goes to friction 
loss with the surface, one gets a sense of why the destructive path can 
look like a war zone). The size of most nuclear weapons in current 
arsenals is perhaps at most a couple of hundred kilotons, and in any 
case, a megaton explosion would take its energy well up into the 
stratosphere. So it is really hard to see how using even a dozen nuclear 
explosions could do much of anything, even as a storm was forming, 
especially as it is heat that is driving the intensification of the 
storm. And one would have no idea what the outcome would be, if anything 
at all--and since pretty much each storm system is unique, there really 
is no good baseline. Basically, the idea is ridiculous.


2. I once got invited to Teller's office to answer whether nuclear 
explosives could be used to break the California drought in the 
mid-1970s or so. I rough estimated the energy involved in the drought 
(foregone latent heat release), ocean temperature anomaly said to be 
diverting the storm track, and month-long effect of the excess albedo 
due to midwestern snow cover that was also suggested to be a cause--each 
came out at something 10**21 calories. A megaton is 10**15 calories. So 
even if one could imagine a 1% trigger to change things, it was still 4 
order of magnitude. Teller was said to be an order of magnitude 
thinker--I put these numbers on his blackboard and that was the end of 
that idea (not his, but one of his proteges--and not Lowell Wood, but ET 
did want an analysis).


3. On the Alaska harbor idea, the book about it is "The Firecracker 
Boys", and the idea was to make a good harbor as the basis for economic 
development. Environmental analysis pretty quickly showed the risks to 
the food chain and health as radionuclides got taken up in moss and then 
the reindeer ate the moss and then the people ate the reindeer, etc. It 
was study of this and a few other such ideas that led, as I understand 
it, to formation of the Office of Biological and Environmental Research 
(or some similar name) within the AEC. That office later became the 
Office of Health and Environmental Research in DOE and got started on 
climate change research back around 1978. Also, much of the research 
done on radionuclide paths to people, etc. turned out to be really 
useful (in addition to making clear the risks of using nuclear 
explosions to make a harbor) for figuring the heavy metal dose to people 
from such pollutants as mercury emissions from coal-fired power plants. 
So, not in vain.


Mike MacCracken


On 8/27/19 4:20 PM, David Appell wrote:
Didn't Edward Teller go to Alaska to try to convince a small town to 
let him enlarge their harbor using nuclear bombs?


On Tue, Aug 27, 2019 at 1:17 PM Jim Fleming > wrote:


Fixing the Sky, p. 194: "In 1945 Julian Huxley, then head of
UNESCO, spoke at Madison Square Garden about the possibilities of
using nuclear weapons as “atomic dynamite” for “landscaping the
Earth” or perhaps using them to change the climate by dissolving
the polar ice cap."

On Tue, Aug 27, 2019 at 3:09 PM Jessica Gurevitch
mailto:jessica.gurevi...@stonybrook.edu>> wrote:

Hadn't heard this.yes, this would indeed be geoengineering
(of weather, with unintended climate consequences).it just
gets crazier and crazier.




Virus-free. www.avast.com





On Mon, Aug 26, 2019 at 1:35 AM Andrew Lockley
mailto:andrew.lock...@gmail.com>>
wrote:

Poster's note: obliquely relevant as MCB is potentially
able to influence hurricanes

Axios: Trump suggested dropping nuclear bombs into
hurricanes to stop them from hitting the U.S..

https://www.axios.com/trump-nuclear-bombs-hurricanes-97231f38-2394-4120-a3fa-8c9cf0e3f51c.html



  Scoop: Trump suggested nuking hurricanes to stop them
  from hitting U.S.

Illustration of Trump pressing nuclear button
Illustration: Lazaro 

Re: [geo] Costs of climate change by US region

[Michael MacCracken]

Dear Tobias--I need to go back and re-address the first point, having 
responded too quickly--I better see what you were trying to get at, but 
am still concerned not only about uncertainties and issues relating to 
the terms, but also the concept that the way to calculate the return for 
US investment is to consider just presently quantifiable impacts on the 
US divided by US investment. Were every country to calculate only the 
effects of its emissions reduction on itself, then adding up the impacts 
in all countries would not come close to being an estimate of all the 
impacts from the emissions, for the sum would not include the effects of 
one's emissions on anyone else, and so one would get a very incomplete 
estimate. There is then the issue of linkages of what happens elsewhere 
and how that affects us (which I did mention), but there are also the 
synergistic impacts involving what the combined emissions of the world 
cause, but that the emissions of one nation alone would not cause (so it 
is taking all of our emissions to really put Antarctica in trouble), so 
there are nonlinear aspects. And then there are issues of how the US 
responding might help and encourage other nations to respond (the 
situation is clearly working in reverse, with others saying if the US 
does not respond, why should they). And then a key issue that the 
monetary estimates are based only on what can be quantified, and there 
are a lot of impacts where this is at the least very controversial (what 
is the value of the culture of a low lying island nation being totally 
lost with inundation, biodiversity loss, etc.). So, while I do see that 
you were trying to get to a return on investment (so assuming everything 
can be expressed that way), in addition to lots of contention about 
whether that is the appropriate way to be doing the evaluation, and lots 
of issues about the numbers being used, and hence the reaction to what 
seemed to me a problematic way of doing the evaluation.


Mike

On 2/9/19 12:10 PM, Michael MacCracken wrote:


Dear Tobias--I'll take you on--and this is just quickly.

1. Most obviously, you divided a per year estimate of indicated 
benefits by an integrated estimate of cost over time, so it is apples 
and oranges calculation.


2. Next is the question of whether the numbers are anywhere close to 
being right. On the issue of the cost, aside from accepting an 
estimate from the Heritage Foundation itself or even others, a very 
interesting study of about two decades ago by economist Robert Repetto 
(now at Yale, I think) on why the estimates of the potential cost of 
the Kyoto agreement made very clear that the range then, from 
something like -2 to +2% of GDP, or something like that, had to do 
with what the assumptions were in the calculation, so about how money 
from say a tax was used (which could slow or increase economic 
growth), whether or not one counted co-benefits like reduced pollution 
and waste and extensive health benefits (foregone black lung, etc.), 
what one assumed about the potential for technological improvement, 
and so on. Doing thing in a smart way can lead to many benefits and 
improvements to the economy, jobs, and so on. Allowing for 
transforming technologies like solid state batteries, etc. makes a 
huge difference (already renewable electricity is less expensive than 
fossil energy--all we need is a better electric network (say HV/DC) to 
move the electricity around, and at least one estimate has its cost 
comparable to its savings on electricity bills; so on that, yes there 
will be a lot of overall investment in new technologies but you have 
to subtract off the cost of the investment that would be required in 
old technologies. For three decades, the estimates (by National 
Academy and McKinsey) have been that the US could reduce its emissions 
by roughly 30% with then existing technologies that had an economic 
payback of 3 years or less--so the low hanging fruit,  and there are 
studies out there talking about how innovation leads to ongoing 
regrowth of low hanging fruit (LED lights, and so on). So, on the cost 
side, I'd suggest the number you are taking needs a lot, lot more 
consideration.


3. On the impacts side, first you assume the only benefits to the US 
are those internal to the country; that makes no sense at all given 
the global footprint of the US, importing food, having investments 
everywhere, potential for spread of infectious diseases, and lots 
more. What happens around the world matters to us, and what we do will 
have effects around the world. Second, you only count the current 
year's benefits and do not give any benefit from actions now 
moderating what happens in the future to us, so by taking action now, 
we avoid a lot of future impacts (a key issue is keeping the 
temperature down to moderate sea level rise--though do see below). I'd 
also suggest that the economic estimates that you draw from leave off 
a lot of aspects

Re: [geo] Costs of climate change by US region

[Michael MacCracken]

Dear Tobias--I'll take you on--and this is just quickly.

1. Most obviously, you divided a per year estimate of indicated benefits 
by an integrated estimate of cost over time, so it is apples and oranges 
calculation.


2. Next is the question of whether the numbers are anywhere close to 
being right. On the issue of the cost, aside from accepting an estimate 
from the Heritage Foundation itself or even others, a very interesting 
study of about two decades ago by economist Robert Repetto (now at Yale, 
I think) on why the estimates of the potential cost of the Kyoto 
agreement made very clear that the range then, from something like -2 to 
+2% of GDP, or something like that, had to do with what the assumptions 
were in the calculation, so about how money from say a tax was used 
(which could slow or increase economic growth), whether or not one 
counted co-benefits like reduced pollution and waste and extensive 
health benefits (foregone black lung, etc.), what one assumed about the 
potential for technological improvement, and so on. Doing thing in a 
smart way can lead to many benefits and improvements to the economy, 
jobs, and so on. Allowing for transforming technologies like solid state 
batteries, etc. makes a huge difference (already renewable electricity 
is less expensive than fossil energy--all we need is a better electric 
network (say HV/DC) to move the electricity around, and at least one 
estimate has its cost comparable to its savings on electricity bills; so 
on that, yes there will be a lot of overall investment in new 
technologies but you have to subtract off the cost of the investment 
that would be required in old technologies. For three decades, the 
estimates (by National Academy and McKinsey) have been that the US could 
reduce its emissions by roughly 30% with then existing technologies that 
had an economic payback of 3 years or less--so the low hanging fruit,  
and there are studies out there talking about how innovation leads to 
ongoing regrowth of low hanging fruit (LED lights, and so on). So, on 
the cost side, I'd suggest the number you are taking needs a lot, lot 
more consideration.


3. On the impacts side, first you assume the only benefits to the US are 
those internal to the country; that makes no sense at all given the 
global footprint of the US, importing food, having investments 
everywhere, potential for spread of infectious diseases, and lots more. 
What happens around the world matters to us, and what we do will have 
effects around the world. Second, you only count the current year's 
benefits and do not give any benefit from actions now moderating what 
happens in the future to us, so by taking action now, we avoid a lot of 
future impacts (a key issue is keeping the temperature down to moderate 
sea level rise--though do see below). I'd also suggest that the economic 
estimates that you draw from leave off a lot of aspects that are not 
easily quantifiable, so the reduced ocean acidification and impacts on 
the system, biodiversity loss that is impacted, etc. And then do realize 
the US is considerably more than the 48 contiguous states, or even the 
50 states, and Puerto Rico (avoiding even one severe hurricane over 5 
years gives $20B a year) and even add the Virgin Islands. The US has 
responsibility for Trust territories in the Pacific that may well get 
inundated by sea level rise, and how do you account for those--just the 
airfare to evacuate the people? So, this estimate of reduced impact you 
give I think is way low.


Now, I do agree with you that the commitments to get to Paris won't get 
us there, and I would argue that the "there" of Paris is not nearly 
enough--in my opinion, we need to get the CO2 concentration back toward 
300 ppm and get overall global warming back under 0.5 C and not be 
heading over 2.5-3 C, returning to 1.5-2C as Paris seems to be leading 
to. So, yes, lots more to do.


I also agree that in addition to all the work needed to cut CO2 
emissions to address the long-term warming that it is essential (and 
very cost effective) to be working to cut the emissions of CH4, black 
carbon, tropospheric ozone, HFCs, and other short-lived species to slow 
the rate of warming in the near-term, and if all we cared about were 
limiting the warming by 2030 or 2040 that is all that we would do (and 
since that may be as long as some of us live, that might well be most 
cost effective for us personally), but if we care about the planet we 
leave our children and grandchildren, etc., we also have to care about 
what the climate will be in 2100, and that means we also have to be 
aggressively cutting CO2 emissions--and, as just cutting emissions will 
not be enough, we have to be moving to remove large amounts of CO2 from 
the atmosphere.


While massive CO2 removal could presumably eventually get us back to 
conditions that would get the global average temperature back to the 
level of mid-20th century or earlier, given we are already 

Re: [geo] climateanalytics_srm_brief_dec_2018.pdf

[Michael MacCracken]

Once again, in my view, a total failure to really address the situation 
being faced. The issue we face is human-induced warming and the question 
is if we add to this SRM (in a thoughtful and intelligent way) or just 
allow warming to continue to about 3 C above preindustrial, as is 
seeming more and more likely. And even if limited to 1.5 to 2 C, this 
would lead to very serious impacts, especially from sea level rise as 
the ice sheets seem likely to deteriorate rapidly (recall, glacial 
maxima deteriorate much, much faster than buildup). No question it would 
be terrific not to need SRM, but asserting it would be worse than 
unconstrained GHG warming seems to my quite implausible.


Basically, the analysis here seems to me to be saying don't use a 
tourniquet because it does not perfectly cure all injuries, it might 
come loose, etc. Of course there are potential problems, but not 
stemming the worst problem from worsening everything else seems to me to 
not facing up to the situation we are now facing.


Mike MacCracken

PS--And the title is really poorly phrased as SRM is not claimed as a 
solution, but a contributor to one, with mitigation, efficiency, 
limiting emission of short-lived species, and CDR  (and more) also 
components).



On 12/9/18 10:45 AM, Andrew Lockley wrote:

Why geoengineering is not a solution to
the climate problem

This briefing addresses grave scientific concerns in relation to proposed
geoengineering techniques such as solar radiation management (SRM).
“Geoengineering” as used here does not refer to negative emissions 
technologies that
remove CO2 from the atmosphere (carbon dioxide removal or CDR) as part 
of the
energy system or through ecosystem restoration and afforestation or 
reforestation.

Here we specifically address the risks posed by SRM.
Fahad Saeed, Carl-Friedrich Schleussner, William Hare
Summary
Solar radiation management is not a solution to the climate problem
Solar radiation management does not address the drivers of 
human-induced climate
change, nor does it address the full range of climate and other 
impacts of

anthropogenic greenhouse gas and air pollutant emissions. Solar radiation
management aims at limiting temperature increase by deflecting 
sunlight, mostly
through injection of particles into the atmosphere. At best, SRM would 
mask warming
temporarily, but more fundamentally is itself a potentially dangerous 
interference

with the climate system.
Solar radiation management would alter the global hydrological cycle 
as well as
fundamentally affect global circulation patterns such as monsoons. 
Substantial
monsoon disruptions induced by SRM cannot be ruled out. SRM may not 
halt ocean
warming around Antarctica and would fail to counteract the increasing 
contribution

of Antarctic melt to sea level rise.
Solar radiation management does not halt, reverse or address in any 
other way the
profound and dangerous problem of ocean acidification which threatens 
coral reefs
and marine life as it does not reduce CO2 emissions and hence 
influence atmospheric

CO2 concentration. SRM does not counter other effects of increased CO2
concentration adversely affecting the terrestrial and marine biosphere.
SRM is unlikely to attenuate the effects of global warming on global 
agricultural
production. Its potentially positive effect due to cooling is 
projected to be counterbalanced by negative effects on crop production 
of reducing solar radiation at

the earth’s surface.
There is very high scientific uncertainty on the potential impacts of 
solar radiation
management, and these cannot be resolved by field experiments. Most 
studies of
solar radiation management are based on highly idealised scenarios and 
assumptions
that differ substantially from discussed, real-world applications of 
solar radiation

management. Results of idealised experiments should not be conflated with
discussions around solar radiation management ‘solutions’ based on 
very different

techniques.
Solar radiation management would undermine renewable energy potentials.
As it reduces the amount of solar radiation reaching the earth’s 
surface, solar radiation
management would greatly diminish the potential one of the biggest 
alternatives to

fossil fuel electricity generation: solar energy.
Solar radiation management poses fundamental risks to global
governance and cooperation
Solar radiation management could be undertaken unilaterally, creating 
massive
climate risks for many others. SRM would strongly alter the climate 
system producing
‘winners’ and ‘losers’ in different regions and with different levels 
of deployment. It
would therefore most likely become a source of massive conflict 
between nations. If
not banned completely, it would put the power of triggering a climate 
shock into the

hands of single actors.
Solar radiation management is in contradiction with the ultimate 
objective of the
UNFCCC which is to prevent dangerous interference with the climate 
system.
Geoengineering 

Re: [geo] Now is the time to answer questions about climate engineering disease impacts | EurekAlert! Science News

[Michael MacCracken]

I would hope the question they will be looking at is the relative 
disease impacts of global warming with and without climate engineering, 
as that is the choice that lies ahead. Consideration of whether climate 
intervention causes disease or other impacts relative to the present 
climate is informative, but any incremental disease in such a comparison 
is really a consequence of inadequately offset global warming, not due 
to climate engineering.


Mike MacCracken


On 9/28/18 3:33 PM, Andrew Lockley wrote:

https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2018-09/uom-nit092818.php


  Now is the time to answer questions about climate engineering
  disease impacts

UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND

 
 
 




Radical solutions to climate change might save lives, but a commentary 
in the October 2018 issue of the journal /Nature Climate Change/ calls 
for caution because geoengineering still lacks a "clean bill of health."


With global fossil-fuel emissions reaching an all-time high and the 
United States' withdrawal from the Paris Agreement, climate experts 
have become increasingly interested in "climate engineering," a set of 
ambitious and largely undeveloped technologies that could artificially 
counteract global warming. One proposed approach, called solar 
radiation management (SRM), would reduce incoming sunlight by 
injecting tiny aerosol particles into the stratosphere or by 
brightening clouds. Other approaches would directly remove carbon 
dioxide from the atmosphere.


Even if some combination of these worked, scientists warn that the 
climate wouldn't be the same as it was before climate change. And 
those differences might make a big difference for global health, 
ecologists Colin Carlson and Christopher Trisos argue in the /Nature 
Climate Change/article. The article was written while both were 
postdoctoral fellows at the National Socio-Environmental Synthesis 
Center (SESYNC), a unique University of Maryland center funded by the 
National Science Foundation that brings together science of the 
natural world with science of human behavior and decision-making.


So far, Carlson and Trisos say, almost nothing is known about the 
potential health consequences of such geoengineered "solutions."


"We're a step before saying these technologies will probably save 
lives or saying they're too dangerous to use," says Carlson. "Right 
now, what we know is climate and disease are already closely linked, 
and that raises basic questions about climate engineering. Now, we 
need answers."


Carlson gives the example of malaria, a disease mostly confined to the 
tropics today, but was once widespread in Europe and North America. 
Recently, scientists found that malaria transmits best at cooler 
temperatures. In some projections, SRM would disproportionately cool 
off the tropics--and that might make malaria worse.


"But it's all guesswork--we can qualitatively talk through possible 
risks, and that's what we do here. But we can't make any judgements 
without solid, quantitative evidence. And no one's run those models 
yet. There's no data to go off."


Carlson and Trisos hope to shed some light on these issues over the 
next two years. They are part of an international, interdisciplinary 
team that has been recommended for a $50,000 grant from the DECIMALS 
Fund (Developing Country Impact Modelling Analysis for SRM), which was 
launched by the Solar Radiation Management Governance Initiative to 
help scientists understand how SRM could affect the "global south"--a 
term that refers to less developed countries. Eight projects will 
receive DECIMALS grants that will be announced in October. The fund is 
administered by The World Academy of Sciences.


"Links between climate change and health are often complex, so climate 
engineering may impact health in unexpected ways," says Trisos, now a 
research affiliate at the African Climate and Development Initiative. 
"Governments have pledged to prevent 'dangerous anthropogenic 
interference' with the climate system, so it's critical that we can 
compare public health risks from climate change to those from climate 
engineering, in order to decide if climate engineering should even be 
considered."


Carlson and Trisos' DECIMALS research proposal was put together in 
collaboration with lead researchers Shafiul Alam and Mofizur Rahman 
(International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research in Bangladesh) 
and includes epidemiologist Shweta Bansal (Georgetown University), 
climatologist Alan Robock (Rutgers University), and world-renowned 
microbiologist and cholera expert Rita Colwell (University of 
Maryland, formerly the ninth director of the 

Re: [geo] Stopping the Flood: Could We Use Targeted Geoengineering to Mitigate Sea Level Rise?

[Michael MacCracken]

In that we are already in an overshoot situation given the objective of 
the UNFCCC and we want to be in overshoot the least amount of time 
possible given the acceleration of loss of ice sheet mass and increase 
in extreme weather and precipitation, I would hope all would also agree 
that it is essential to be working toward early, gradual deployment of 
climate intervention approaches  to push warming back down toward less 
than 0.5 C as soon as possible, with DAC, in addition to aggressive 
mitigation, being a vital component of an envisioned exit strategy to be 
scaled up as quickly as practicable.


"The fact is that all that is needed is the decision to do itI [too] 
would hope all the very talented and positively motivated geoengineering 
community will throw their support behind a strong global effort .."


Peter E--In my view, there is also the need to avoid very serious 
impacts that are building now, so very early forcing down of the 
temperature as well as dealing with the higher CO2 concentration over 
the time it will take to build up and do this in the manner that you 
focus on.


Mike



On 8/5/18 4:30 PM, Peter Eisenberger wrote:
I can tell you that there is a major change going on with reapect to 
negative emissions and DAC in particular,. After years of neglect all 
the major players
are showing alot of interest in negative emissions and DAC in 
particular. This spans the large petro chemical companies , the 
goovernments and international efforts - I do not have the time to 
document this for you so
you can ignore the input but neverthe less it is happening and the 
change is dramatic. I think as the world takes NETs more seriously a 
quesion will emerge for the SRM supporters. Again for the record I 
support research on SRM but
oppose using the possible failure of NETS as the basis for the effort. 
The fact is that all that is needed is the decsion to do it,  do NET 
with DAC playing a big role. I am optimisitic that the academy study 
that is coming out will
provide an additional strong impetus for getting together and doing 
NET. I hope all the very talented and positively motivated 
geoengineering community will throw their support behind
a strong global effort for NET and adopt the factually correct 
perspective that if we develop a global consencus and work together we 
can get this done, eg limit the time we spend in the overshoot CO2 
condition.


On Fri, Jul 27, 2018 at 2:08 AM, Andrew Lockley 
mailto:andrew.lock...@gmail.com>> wrote:


Stopping the Flood: Could We Use Targeted Geoengineering to
Mitigate Sea Level Rise?
Michael J. Wolovick1
and John C. Moore2,3
1Atmosphere and Ocean Sciences Program, Department of Geosciences,
Princeton University, GFDL, 201 Forrestal Road,
Princeton, NJ 08540, USA
2College of Global Change and Earth System Science, Beijing Normal
University, Beijing, China
3Arctic Centre, University of Lapland, Finland
Correspondence: M.J. Wolovick (wolov...@princeton.edu
)
Abstract. The Marine Ice Sheet Instability (MISI) is a dynamic
feedback that can cause an ice sheet to enter a runaway collapse.
Thwaites Glacier, West Antarctica, is the largest individual
source of future sea level rise and may have already entered the
MISI. Here, we use a suite of coupled ice–ocean flowband
simulations to explore whether targeted geoengineering using an
artificial sill or artificial ice rises could counter a collapse.
Successful interventions occur when the floating ice shelf regrounds
5 on the pinning points, increasing buttressing and reducing ice
flux across the grounding line. Regrounding is more likely with a
continuous sill that is able to block warm water transport to the
grounding line. The smallest design we consider is comparable
in scale to existing civil engineering projects but has only a 30%
success rate, while larger designs are more effective. There
are multiple possible routes forward to improve upon the designs
that we considered, and with decades or more to research
designs it is plausible that the scientific community could come
up with a plan that was both effective and achievable. While
10 reducing emissions remains the short-term priority for
minimizing the effects of climate change, in the long run humanity may
need to develop contingency plans to deal with an ice sheet collapse.
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Re: [geo] paywalls

[Michael MacCracken]

I'd just add on behalf of openness that much of the research is already 
being paid for by the taxpayer and that those in the public, especially 
on issues that are of significant public concern and interest, argue 
that they should have free access to the results and not have to pay 
further. Given the scientific community is seeking to inform the public 
and continue to want research funds from taxpayers, its hiding of the 
results behind ridiculously priced paywalls is really an obstruction 
(the journals really need to greatly lower their prices for reprints and 
I'd venture they'd get more participation). And as Ron notes there are 
all sorts of journals and if everyone has to pay for everything, they'd 
be broke--and it would be very inefficient to be getting so much in 
really wanting access to so few articles of real interest to those 
focused on looking at specific topics.


I'd be interested to know how much journals actually take in based on 
their very high paywall rates, and where that money is coming from 
(probably mainly from overhead put on the research money awarded to 
scientists--are many members of the public actually paying the quite 
high rates?). In my view, if the scientific community wants ongoing 
support, then there needs to be another way found than high paywall 
rates that inhibit the public actually getting to read the articles 
instead of just seeing the possible media coverage of the articles. 
Indeed, as Alan notes, most editors and reviewers work for free, so a 
good question is where all the money is going, especially with articles 
mostly now being provided to journals online. Across the community there 
are discussions on such issues, even on quite remote subjects--for 
things related to climate change science to be behind paywalls I just do 
not think is the optimal approach and alternatives need to be found.


Mike


On 8/4/18 2:39 PM, Ronal W. Larson wrote:

Alan:

I agree with all you wrote - but I think it great also that we have 
more papers all the time that are NOT behind a paywall.  I am not 
taking this personally - and am glad you responded below.


I have been a AAAS member for possibly 40 years and I get great value 
from that annual expenditure for *Science*.  I also this year found a 
sweet deal for two subcategories of *Nature. * And I receive a dozen 
other magazines - a few where I am a life member, and a surprising 
number that are free.  I don't subscribe to AMS and AGU because too 
little there that fits my background.


But in my small part of Geoengineering (biochar), I could be reading 
four or five articles a day from perhaps up to 100 different journals 
- maybe only one a month from AMS, AGU, and AAAS re biochar.  No way 
anyone working in biochar can cover all that (the IBI website has 
started showing the 10-20% of unlocked papers every month - which I 
find helpful - and tend to read).


Re "/Why are there so many complaints about "paywalls?" "/   I make a 
point of mentioning paywalls only because it is such a joy when 
someone has found a free-to-me way to help get their message out - and 
I presume readers find that useful as well.  Finding a long version in 
a thesis always pleases me - and they are mostly free.


Re "/Who do you expect to pay for the publication of scientific 
papers?" / - I agree with everything you say about the need for 
someone to pay.   In many cases, that should be the group that paid 
for the research to be performed.  That leaves many who can't - in 
particular in this case the University of Alberta.  So delighted they 
have a library.


I repeat that this particular thesis looks quite well done, and 
presume the paper will also demonstrate that.  I repeat that I agree 
with all you wrote below.


Ron



On Aug 4, 2018, at 11:44 AM, Alan Robock > wrote:


Dear Ron,

Don't take this personally, but your email was a tipping point for 
me, and I have to respond.  Why are there so many complaints about 
"paywalls?"  Who do you expect to pay for the publication of 
scientific papers?  The American Meteorological Society, American 
Geophysical Union, and American Association for the Advancement of 
Science are non-profits.  Part of the cost of publication is paid by 
authors, and reviewers and most editors work for free.  If you want 
them to give you the papers for free, the authors will have to pay 
even more.  If you want the papers, join the AMS, AGU, and AAAS, and 
support our science.  Pay for subscriptions to the journals.  I have 
been a member of all three for my entire career.

Alan

Alan Robock, Distinguished Professor
   Editor, Reviews of Geophysics
Department of Environmental Sciences Phone: +1-848-932-5751
Rutgers UniversityE-mail:rob...@envsci.rutgers.edu
14 College Farm Roadhttp://people.envsci.rutgers.edu/robock
New Brunswick, NJ 08901-8551  USA
☮http://twitter.com/AlanRobock  2017 Nobel Peace Prize to ICAN!
Watch my 18 min 

Re: [geo] Constructing Legitimacy in Geoengineering Discourse: The Politics of Representation in Science Policy Literature: Science as Culture: Vol 0, No 0

[Michael MacCracken]

Does the article do a comparative analysis of the risks of not pursuing 
SRM with the supposed risks of doing it--or just assert there are risks 
irrespective of the adverse impacts of GHG-induced climate change?


Mike MacCracken


On 6/6/18 8:43 AM, Andrew Lockley wrote:
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09505431.2018.1465910?journalCode=csac20 




  The Politics of Representation in Science Policy Literature

Brynna Jacobson 
Published online: 25 Apr 2018

  * Download citation


  * https://doi.org/10.1080/09505431.2018.1465910
  * ABSTRACT
  * Geoengineering, the idea of addressing climate change through
large-scale technological projects, is a unique example of a
contested emerging technology. It stands out in the degree to
which both its scope of possibilities and its premise are
characterized by global existential risks. Despite controversy due
to inherent and perceived risks, this field has been shifting
toward mainstream consideration. Geoengineering science policy
reports reflect this shift and influence the subsequent trajectory
of research and potential deployment. The two most notable
geoengineering policy reports are those by the Royal Society in
2009 and the National Research Council (NRC) in 2015. Discursive
strategies recurrent in these reports construct notions of
legitimacy and normalcy in regard to geoengineering. These
strategies include relative legitimation of actors and approaches,
differentiating research from deployment, elevating particular
geoengineering methods through comparative evaluation, and
normalizing novel geoengineering proposals through analogy. These
strategies are present in both the benchmark geoengineering policy
reports, with a deepening and entrenchment evident in the later
NRC report. Together, these discursive strategies promote the
legitimization of geoengineering research.

KEYWORDS: Geoengineering 
, climate change 
, science policy 
discourse 
, 
National Academy of Sciences 
, 
Royal Society , 
solar radiation management 


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Re: [geo] Pew research on solar geoengineering

[Michael MacCracken]

I wonder if they included that the magnitude of solar interruption that 
would be required if emission reduction programs start with Paris and 
work up more aggressively (as should be possible with the declining 
costs of solar and wind energy), would be about 1%, so less than a major 
volcanic eruption (though persistent)?  In addition to reduced global 
average temperature, what people would likely mainly notice (if they 
noticed anything at all) would be sunsets and sunrises that would be 
more colorful (there being a switch of about 2% from direct beam to 
diffuse beam).


Also did they mention that the particles would be in the stratosphere 
and so not affecting their health?


Surveys such as highlighted here that do not explain the nature of the 
problem in some sort of context seem to me to be worse than useless in 
that they deliver an implicit message that such intervention might be 
much larger and more noticeable than would be the case.


Mike MacCracken


On 5/18/18 12:08 AM, Andrew Lockley wrote:


http://www.pewinternet.org/2018/05/14/majorities-see-government-efforts-to-protect-the-environment-as-insufficient/ 



Extract


  Public opinion about solar geoengineering approaches to
  climate change is closely divided

Researchers and policymakers are also considering the possibility of 
altering aspects of the environment to reduce the effects of climate 
change, a technique called geoengineering. Solar geoengineering 
, 
for instance, would spread particles in the atmosphere to reflect some 
incoming sunlight, decreasing the amount absorbed by the Earth and 
thereby cooling the planet.


Americans are closely divided over whether solar geoengineering would 
help reduce climate change 
The 
Pew Research Center survey asked Americans whether they think solar 
geoengineering would make a difference in reducing the effects of 
climate change and what effects they believe these techniques will 
have on the environment overall. In contrast to public views on other 
specific policy proposals, opinion is closely divided – 45% to 52% – 
over whether solar geoengineering would make a difference in reducing 
the effects of climate change.


Opinion on this issue is closely aligned with political affiliation. 
About two-thirds of liberal Democrats (64%) say these techniques would 
make a difference, while a large majority of conservative Republicans 
(78%) think they would not.


A majority of conservative Republicans think solar geoengineering 
would do more harm than good for the environment 
Some 
45% of the public believes solar geoengineering would bring net harm 
to the environment, however. Three-in-ten U.S. adults think these 
techniques would bring net benefits to the environment and 22% say 
they would have little effect on the environment.


Compared with other climate and energy issues, there are relatively 
modest political differences in views about solar geoengineering’s 
impact on the environment.


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Re: [geo] Fwd: DECIMALS Fund – call for proposals opens today

[Michael MacCracken]

One would hope that the DECIMALS researchers would also look at whether 
1.5 to 2 C is a workable target temperature to be aiming at. Given that 
sea level rose 120 meters as the global average temperature rose 
something like 6 C coming out of the Last Glacial Maximum and there was 
very little polar ice (which now totals about 70 m of sea level 
equivalent) in the past when Earth was perhaps 4-6 C higher, the idea 
that 1.5 to 2 C is somehow being considered a long term acceptable level 
(see IPCC 1.5 C draft report), it seems to me the global community (and 
certainly the developing and island nations) needs to give some serious 
consideration to what level will avoid "dangerous anthropogenic 
interference with the climate" (including sea level) and what the 
ultimate goal should be through combined policies of efficiency, 
mitigation, adaptation, CDR and SRM. Just because the negotiators chose 
to aim for 1.5 to 2 C is no reason for the scientific community not to 
be speaking up about the implications of this. Hansen et al. a few years 
ago suggested less than 0.5 C (a level I also favor), others have 
suggested a similar level of warming by urging the target be 300 or 350 
ppm, etc.


Commitments to date will be lucky to keep warming below 3 C (and a very 
large sea level commitment). In considering what combination of policies 
to have we need to know both where we are headed and to where we really 
want to be. 1.5 to 2 C sounds like a nice compromise, but its 
consequences would be quite severe in near-term and getting much worse 
over time as SL continued to rise. All nations need to be facing the 
very dire situation we are in much more forthrightly than has been going 
on, so hooray for having the developing nations be very active in the 
discussion.


Mike MacCracken


On 4/3/18 10:55 PM, Alan Robock wrote:

FYI.

Alan

Alan Robock, Distinguished Professor
   Editor, /Reviews of Geophysics/
Department of Environmental Sciences  Phone: +1-848-932-5751
Rutgers University                   Fax: +1-732-932-8644
14 College Farm Road                                E-mail: 
rob...@envsci.rutgers.edu 
New Brunswick, NJ 08901-8551  USA http://envsci.rutgers.edu/~robock 


☮ http://twitter.com/AlanRobock 2017 Nobel Peace Prize to ICAN!
Watch my 18 min TEDx talk at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qsrEk1oZ-54
Sent from my iPad

Begin forwarded message:


*From:* SRMGI >
*Date:* April 3, 2018 at 7:59:34 PM MDT
*To:* >
*Subject:* *DECIMALS Fund – call for proposals opens today*
*Reply-To:* SRMGI >

DECIMALS Fund – call for proposals opens today

DECIMALS Fund

Call for proposals opens today


The SRM Governance Initiative is proud to announce the opening of the 
call for proposals for a major new SRM modelling fund for developing 
country scientists: the DECIMALS Fund (Developing Country Impacts 
Modelling Analysis for SRM). DECIMALS will support scientists from 
the Global South who want to analyse how SRM geoengineering might 
affect their regions.


DECIMALS is the first fund of its kind and it features in a Comment 
 
that’s published today in Nature, where a group of eminent Southern 
scholars and NGO leaders call for developing countries to play a 
central role in SRM research and discussion.


Grants of up to USD$70k will support scientists as they explore the 
climate impacts that matter most locally, from droughts to cyclones 
to extreme temperatures to precipitation changes. The DECIMALS Fund 
aims to go beyond research: its wider goals include 
capacity-building, community-building, and expanding the conversation 
around SRM. DECIMALS research teams will therefore receive financial 
support to attend conferences, to collaborate with each other and 
with SRM modelling experts, and to discuss their findings with their 
local communities at the end of their projects.


Note that applicants do not need to be experts in SRM at the time of 
application, as there has been little research on this across the 
Global South to date. See here 
 
for full information about the grants, applicant eligibility, and the 
application process. The call is open from now until *29 May 2018.*


Please do pass this along contacts and colleagues who might be 
interested in applying, and feel free to circulate it on departmental 
or professional email groups.


The SRMGI team

This email was sent to *rob...@envsci.rutgers.edu 
*. Want to change how you receive 
these emails? You can update 
 
your 

Re: [geo] We need laws on geoengineering, ASAP

[Michael MacCracken]

It would certainly be nice if such analyses provided context for the 
types of impacts by comparing them and matching them over time to the 
impacts of ongoing warming. Using Pinatubo as an example is considering 
a large potential intervention outside the context of the situation that 
such interventions are being considered to offset. The intent with a 
sensible type of intervention would likely be something like trying to 
keep the climate roughly as it is now (or take it a bit cooler) as 
compared to what would be happening with ongoing emissions of CO2 being 
likely (given the slow response of nations on mitigation) to take global 
warming up from its present level of 1 C to over 3 C before starting to 
bring the temperature back down--using Pinatubo as an analog to this and 
basing one's conclusions in the absence of considering the impacts of 
GHG warming seems not particularly informative or relevant (much as I 
agree that having a responsible governance structure would be helpful).


Mike MacCracken


On 3/21/18 2:45 PM, Andrew Lockley wrote:

https://phys.org/news/2018-03-laws-geoengineering-asap.html

 *



  * 
  * 


  We need laws on geoengineering, ASAP


  March 21, 2018
  by Sarah Fecht, Columbia University

We need laws on geoengineering, ASAP 

As the world warms to dangerous levels, some countries may be tempted 
to try controversial geoengineering techniques. We need to be ready 
with laws and regulation procedures, says Columbia’s Mike Gerrard. 
Credit: Clouds, from edward stojakovic via Flickr CC


Humans have been accidentally altering the planet's climate for 
thousands of years. Soon, it may be possible alter it intentionally.


The deliberate, large-scale manipulation of climate is called 
geoengineering. The term encompasses a variety of proposals, from 
pulling carbon dioxide  out of 
the atmosphere to reflecting sunlight back into space in an attempt to 
slow the earth's warming. Global geoengineering tactics haven't yet 
been deployed, but as climate change 
 starts to spin out of control, 
support for some forms of geoengineering seems to be growing.


However, there's a lot that can go wrong when it comes to modifying 
the complex global climate system, and the world is not prepared for 
the problems that might result. A new book coming out April 21 points 
out the major holes in national and international geoengineering 
regulation, and lays out a framework for improvement. The book, titled 
Climate Engineering and the Law, was co-edited by Michael Gerrard from 
Columbia's Sabin Center for Climate Change Law and Tracy Hester, a 
graduate of Columbia Law School who now teaches at the University of 
Houston Law Center. Gerrard is also chair of the faculty of the Earth 
Institute.


The book draws a distinction between different types of climate 
engineering  strategies. 
Techniques that simply pull carbon dioxide from the air are unlikely 
to have global side effects, so they don't need to be regulated 
internationally, Gerrard says.


However, solar radiation management projects, which would block some 
sunlight from reaching the earth—for instance, by dumping tiny 
reflective particles into the upper atmosphere—could have harmful 
consequences around the globe. Famously, the 1991 Mount Pinatubo 
volcanic eruption spewed so much ash into the air that it temporarily 
cooled the global thermostat by one degree Fahrenheit. However, the 
eruption is also thought to have shifted precipitation patterns, 
causing floods along the Mississippi River and droughts in the African 
Sahel. Deploying solar radiation management techniques could have 
similar side effects. Such proposals don't receive much support from 
the scientific community.


Who decides whether a geoengineering project should go forward, and 
what approvals should be required? What happens if something does go 
wrong—who is at fault, and what compensation should be provided? These 
are just some of the questions addressed in the book. State of the 
Planet interviewed Gerrard to find out more.


*State of the Planet: Why did you decide to explore climate 
engineering, and why now?*


Michael Gerrard: We perceived that both carbon dioxide removal and 
solar radiation management would, in time, become important parts of 
the climate change dialogue. Given the current political environment, 
it has taken place much sooner than we expected.


All of the projections for how the Paris temperature goals can be 
achieved assume CO2 removal from the atmosphere at a massive scale. 
But there has been 

Re: [geo] Re: [CDR] SRM and CDR - The risk of termination shock from solar geoengineering

[Michael MacCracken]

Dear Wil--A couple more things:

1. Pinatubo is not the only volcanic situation we have. Santer et al 
suggest that a series of small volcanic eruptions contributed to the 
slowdown in warming in the first decade of the century--and no one 
noticed the effects of the small volcanic eruptions, they just kept the 
temperature from going up as fast as it might have. In some sense these 
were like continuous injections. These kinds of things can be studied 
with models available today to get a real sense of how this all might work.


2. I don't understand where this 6-7 C potential termination shock 
occurs (especially in a couple of decades). If we let the GHG forcing to 
grow to a level that would lead to 6-7 C warming without SRM, we'll be 
headed to an equilibrium SL rise of order 50+ meters.


3. On this issue of the temperature to aim for, we are currently up 
about 1 C, and pretty clearly we don't want to go back to the 19th 
century in that adaptation has to occurred to somewhere in between, so 
perhaps 0.5 C or a bit below was in the mid-20th century, so before 
major impacts were evident. Now, natural variability (including 
volcanoes and solar) has a range of several tenths of a degree, so we'd 
be varying around mid 20-th century or so, and we don't have to really 
be refining to some exact value--getting the temperature back into the 
range is what is wanted, so I just don't see what this big argument is 
going to be about what level to go to. And we can iterate as we go along 
as the time constant for our injections will likely be a couple of years 
at most for stratospheric injection, not the millennial scale of CO2.


It sure seems as if you are painting the worst possible situation for 
SRM and the rosiest possible ones for not doing it--my personal view is 
that the situation is really the other way around. What lies ahead 
without SRM is likely to be worse than we think (in some sense this 
would just continue what has been happening with a wide range of changes 
occurring sooner than projected) and I just don't think the situation 
with SRM is near as bad as you suggest.


We all agree to do as much efficiency, mitigation, and carbon removal as 
can be done, but the present temperature path projects global average 
temperature headed to over 3 C before being slowly pulled back to 1.5-2 
C or so. But we really need to shave off that peak and get back to 
roughly 0.5 C relatively quickly to keep impacts to a minimum.


Best, Mike M


On 3/12/18 4:59 PM, Andy Parker wrote:

​

Wil, there were a number of inaccuracies in your post so we have 
responded to them point by point – see below.


Andy

1.It should be emphasized at the outset that that the potentially 
catastrophic implications of the termination/rebound effect (which I 
think were actually underplayed in the EF article) places an extremely 
high burden of proof on anyone who supports deployment of SAI if the 
precautionary principle/approach is to mean anything in the context of 
international environmental law, and it should. I don’t think this 
piece comes near to meeting that burden;


This point is made as if it contradicts our analysis, but in the paper 
we explicitly state that management of the risks of termination shock 
should be a central concern of anyone who is seriously considering SRM 
deployment.


Also I’ve not heard a convincing explanation of how the precautionary 
principle is a guide in a risk/risk scenario. It’s a useful concept 
when there are no costs to inaction, but not so useful when inaction 
would result in harms, as is the case with committed climate change.


2.Parker, et al. argue that peak shaving, i.e. limited deployment of 
SRM technologies, might obviate the threats associated with the 
termination effect.


"al" is Pete Irvine, in this case. We come to the same conclusions as 
Kosugi et al, that if SRM cooling were restricted to less than a few 
tenths of a degree Celsius, the impacts of termination would be very 
limited.We do this as we think it’s useful to define a lower boundary 
of SRM cooling below which termination shock would not be a concern. 
We don’t say anything about a peak shaving strategy.


Beyond the fact that this assertion is based on what remains extremely 
speculative modeling,


I don’t understand – why do you trust model output when it tells you 
that turning off a large amount of SRM cooling would result in 
damaging warming, but find it an ‘extremely speculative assertion’ 
when models tell you that turning off a low amount of SRM cooling 
would not result in damaging warming?This seems a curious asymmetry, 
to borrow from the language of Heyward and Rayner


it presumes two things: 1. The world community as a whole, without 
unilateral dissent, agrees as to what the “optimal” temperature should 
be over the course of the next 50-100 years, which is not likely to be 
true (Russia and Canada, for example, in less guarded moments, will 
admit that they believe that 

Re: [geo] Solar Minimum might buy more time?

[Michael MacCracken]

With respect to potential climate effects, do note that UV radiation is 
about 3% of total solar radiation and virtually all of it is absorbed by 
stratospheric ozone. Because this radiation is thus absorbed above the 
troposphere, and so above virtually all of the gases creating the 
greenhouse effect, the temperature effect of the grand minimum that they 
discuss I would think would be pretty small, especially compared to the 
increasing forcings caused by human activities. In no way is this an 
excuse for sharply cutting greenhouse gas emissions. And, regarding the 
subject line, in that the world is already very overdue in cutting 
emissions to meet the 1.5 C goal, much less the more appropriate 0.5 C 
goal, there is not more time to linger.


Mike MacCracken


On 2/6/18 5:55 PM, E Durbrow wrote:



Although this might seem tangental I’m posting it because it was 
published in a non-climate journal and it is relevant to the 
timetables of schemes to modify the climate this century. Gist: 
Mid-century the sun’s output might decrease slightly and make a 
temporary dent in the warming trend.


http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/2041-8213/aaa124/meta

More here: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/02/180206105858.htm

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Re: [geo] Re: [CDR] Going natural

[Michael MacCracken]

I would just note that it is not really just temperature that 
matters--when at relatively high temperatures what matters is heat 
index, so that if you reduce peak temperature a bit but significantly up 
the humidity, this does not necessarily help on the health side.


What it would be really interesting to have plots of is, I think it is, 
the equivalent potential temperature and changes in this (the equivalent 
getting everything to 1 atmosphere pressure; and the potential part 
accounting for the amount of energy in the water vapor). Or perhaps 
there is some other measure of the temperature and water vapor content 
that is used in determining the heat index or discomfort index, etc.


One reason that the temperature increase is smaller at low as compared 
to middle and high latitudes is that at warmer latitudes (which are 
mostly ocean), more energy goes into increasing the moisture than at 
cooler latitudes (that is, the Bowen ratio--the ratio of sensible to 
latent heat transfer--is smaller).


So, while there are lots of considerations as noted in the explanation, 
if one creates a warm, moist forest (think the Amazon) where the 
condition used to be an arid desert (think the Sahara), it may be that 
the energy content of the air is roughly the same, one having 
transformed some of the thermal energy to latent energy.


Mike



On 1/20/18 8:54 PM, Brian Cartwright wrote:


To save some the time of listening to Walter’s 45-minute exposition, 
here is a synopsis of some main points.


His overall argument is that changes in land management can create 
physical and hydrological conditions that have an overall cooling 
effect. He advocates creating a “soil carbon sponge” by increasing 
vegetation, soil fungal and microbial activity which sequesters 
carbon. Retaining more water and slowing its passage through 
landscapes facilitates plant evapotranspiration which absorbs heat 
energy. The albedo effect of hot bare ground results in markedly 
greater infrared radiation than vegetated ground.


He says that the natural greenhouse effect has gotten more intense 
because we put up 3 billion tons/year of dust from burning grasslands 
and crop stubbles, which add to the 8 billion tons from fossil 
fuels.The fine particles of this dust create heat-retaining hazes such 
as the “Asian brown haze” that extends from the Mediterranean to 
China. Particles are too fine to act as precipitation nuclei, so there 
is persistent overheating. To address this he prescribes increasing 
fungal breakdown of such litter, or increased grazing activity, the 
cow being an ideal compost producer.


Healthy precipitation clouds feature larger particles of three types: 
ice crystals, salt crystals and certain bacteria generated from 
forests. This type of clouds can reflect up to 120 W/m2 of incoming 
solar radiation.


Another cooling effect of healthy precipitation patterns and reducing 
heat retention is opening nighttime radiation windows as with the 
cooling observed in tropics after typical afternoon rain.



I'd recommend watching the video to get the benefit of Walter's 
colorful delivery.



Brian

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Re: [geo] Leaked policy draft of SR15 - what do you think?

[Michael MacCracken]

It seems to me over-stated to say the report was "leaked". At this 
stage, a review copy was sent to:


(1) every nation in the world for review--and the US has since the 
mid-1990s made a copy available to anyone who wants to review it through 
a Federal Register notice (we could never figure out how to defend the 
draft against a Freedom of Information request, so decided to make it 
available to all (and there is no check that those requesting to 
contribute to the review are US citizens, so anyone in the world can 
request it);


(2) the couple of hundred expert reviewers--and virtually everyone can 
sign up for that if they are at all interested.


(3) several hundred professional, including industry, and NGO 
organizations around the world.


In actuality, the report was not leaked--what happened was that a media 
organization violated the notice on the report that it should not be 
quoted. The media organizations get to see it just like others, but are 
not supposed to quote from it--but to show they actually have a copy, 
they tend to violate this by including a quote and sometimes making the 
report available. [I recall on first US National Assessment said he got 
a leaked copy of a draft of the report and wrote a column on it; in 
actuality, the committee authoring the report was a Federal Advisory 
Committee and all their materials are public, so there was a copy 
available to the public at the host agency for the committee--but saying 
"leaked" generates more interest.


So, take a look and offer comments--focusing most on what you might be 
an expert on--and don't quote as the actual wording will in mnay places 
change in response to the overall review process, etc.


Best, Mike


On 1/14/18 7:53 PM, Douglas MacMartin wrote:


I don’t see this as “secretive”.  Peer review has its problems, but on 
the whole I’d rather see stuff peer reviewed before being made public, 
at least when there is likely to be public attention.


The first order draft had no shortage of factual errors; wouldn’t you 
rather make sure that things are correct before being released to the 
public and media (who don’t necessarily have the perspective to judge 
for themselves)?


I think it is generally the norm in science that you wait for the peer 
review before you publicly declare results (remember cold fusion 
anyone?)  I’ve never heard anyone accuse that process of secrecy before.


doug

*From:*geoengineering@googlegroups.com 
[mailto:geoengineering@googlegroups.com] *On Behalf Of *lou del bello

*Sent:* Friday, January 12, 2018 10:38 AM
*To:* geoengineering 
*Subject:* [geo] Leaked policy draft of SR15 - what do you think?

Dear all

As some of you may have seen, the policy draft, circulated among a 
selected group of scientists and policymakers, has been leaked to the 
press .


I was wondering what you make of the story: I am writing an article 
about it and looking for an expert take.


Mainly from a media point of view I think it would be interesting to 
explain why the IPCC is quite secretive about this report, which is an 
opportunity to introduce its political relevance, as well as scientific.


Best,

Lou

--

*Lou Del Bello*

*Mobile UK +44 (0)7900632250*

Multimedia journalist *
*
@loudelbello




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[geo] Fwd: Request for Feedback on Federal Climate Policy

[Michael MacCracken]

I thought this might be of interest--suggesting the need for research on 
SRM and CDR, etc.


Mike MacCracken
-- Forwarded message --
From: *Rep. Paul Tonko* >

Date: Thu, Jan 4, 2018 at 11:35 AM
Subject: Request for Feedback on Federal Climate Policy
To: "Larkin, Brendan" >



Good morning,

I am writing to seek your assistance.

During my time in Congress, whether I was working to reform how we 
regulate toxic chemicals or hosting monthly policy roundtable 
discussions, I have found that reaching out to experts and key 
stakeholders early and often is critical to developing meaningful and 
constructive policies. I am reaching out to you as one of those leaders 
to request your thoughts and expertise as my staff and I work to tackle 
a truly enormous challenge: climate change.


Since 2009 when the House passed the American Clean Energy and Security 
(ACES) Act, authored by Representatives Waxman and Markey, Congress has 
failed to produce an updated, comprehensive climate policy that accounts 
for the major changes occurring in the energy sector and the increasing 
effects of climate change that we are experiencing.


As Ranking Member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee 
Subcommittee on Environment, I am launching this effort to develop new 
federal climate legislation that builds on everything that has happened 
since the ACES Act was introduced and that incorporates lessons learned 
from the development of the Clean Power Plan and through the numerous 
actions taken by states.


We must undertake this effort because climate change is real, it is 
primarily driven by human activity, and it requires coordinated federal 
action in order to make the emissions reductions needed.


I believe that EPA has clear existing authority under the Clean Air Act 
to regulate greenhouse gas emissions; however, legislation to address 
adaptation and the transition to low- and zero-carbon energy would 
provide certainty to put our society on a more sustainable path and to 
achieve the emissions reductions needed to stabilize the climate. That 
is why I am seeking feedback from a wide range of stakeholders to inform 
this effort. To that end, I have included a set of questions in this 
email. I would appreciate feedback on any of these, or other relevant, 
issues.


If you are interested in providing comments, please email your 
responses, along with any other information or white papers that you 
would like to be reviewed, to clim...@mail.house.gov 
*by February 28 *or visit 
tonko.house.gov/climate. In an effort to produce candid responses, this 
information will not be released publicly. It may be summarized but 
without specific attribution.


Please feel free to share this message with anyone that you think might 
be interested in participating in a meaningful and constructive dialogue 
on the future of our country’s climate policy. If you have any 
questions, please reach out to Brendan Larkin in my DC office 
(brendan.lar...@mail.house.gov or 
202-225-5076 ).


Sincerely,


Paul D. Tonko
Ranking Member, Subcommittee on Environment
House Energy and Commerce Committee

***

We seek feedback on policies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions based on 
the principles of environmental effectiveness, cost effectiveness, 
fairness, transparency, and simplicity.


We welcome thoughts on any effective climate solution, but are 
particularly interested in issues related to designing a cost-effective, 
market-based cap and trade program to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. 
We specifically ask for views on the following topics:


1. *Covered Entities*

·What entities should be covered and at what thresholds?

2. *Emissions Budget*

·What is an appropriate cap on emissions in the near-term (relative to 
the 2005 CO2e baseline)?


·How much should it decrease over time and how quickly?

·Should there be a single, federal emissions budget or individual state 
or regional budgets?


3. *Compliance Periods*

·How long should compliance periods be?

·How regularly should information be submitted by covered entities?

·Are all relevant emissions data already submitted to EPA? If not, which 
additional data would be necessary?


4. *Allowance Allocation*

·How should allowances be distributed?

·If not completely or primarily auctioned, how should any free 
allowances be distributed?


·Should any allowances be set aside for purchase outside of the auction 
for specific types of entities, such as small businesses?


5. *Auction Rules*

·Should an auction include a reserve price? If so, what should it be and 
by how much should it increase over time?


·Should future vintages be sold at each auction? If so, how many future 
years?


·What should be done with unsold allowances?

6. *Cost Controls*

Re: [geo] Scientists Look to Bali Volcano for Clues to Curb Climate Change - Scientific American

[Michael MacCracken]

t, the “best” solution quite possibly involves
both of them, along with aggressive mitigation, and maybe along
with other methods for CDR.  That is quite a different statement
from stating that one particular approach is the best, and that
one particular approach should be prioritized.

Two other comments:

Right now the sum total US federal research on SRM is, within a
rounding error, zero.  So no, it is not only DAC that is receiving
no funding.  Funding right now for DAC I suspect outweighs funding
for SRM if you include philanthropic.

Also note that you attribute to me “So the only reason I am
writing about this is because I do not think we should delay
investing in DAC till as you say Once we have demonstrated DAC
with permanent storage at Gt scale and proven it to be low cost
with no side effects”.  I don’t think it is possible to
demonstrate DAC at Gt scale without investing in it, so I don’t
know how you could read my email and conclude that I believe we
should delay investing in DAC.

doug

*From:*geoengineering@googlegroups.com
<mailto:geoengineering@googlegroups.com>
[mailto:geoengineering@googlegroups.com
<mailto:geoengineering@googlegroups.com>] *On Behalf Of *Michael
MacCracken
*Sent:* Sunday, December 03, 2017 4:07 PM
*To:* Peter Eisenberger <peter.eisenber...@gmail.com
<mailto:peter.eisenber...@gmail.com>>
*Cc:* Douglas MacMartin <macma...@cds.caltech.edu
<mailto:macma...@cds.caltech.edu>>; Michael Hayes
<voglerl...@gmail.com <mailto:voglerl...@gmail.com>>;
geoengineering <geoengineering@googlegroups.com
<mailto:geoengineering@googlegroups.com>>; David Keith
<david_ke...@harvard.edu <mailto:david_ke...@harvard.edu>>


*Subject:* Re: [geo] Scientists Look to Bali Volcano for Clues to
Curb Climate Change - Scientific American

Dear Peter--The IPCC FOD (first order draft) of the 1.5 C special
report is what is really concerning me.

First, they label their emissions pathways by the end point
temperature that they are aiming for a century or so in the
future; thus a 1.5 C pathway is aiming at 1.5 C, but there is wide
recognition and apparent acceptance that the temperature path will
overshoot not just 1.5 or 2 C, but could well go a good bit over 3
C before the forcings are brought back down enough (via negative
emissions, etc.) to get back to 1.5 C. Well, right now,
simulations by Climate Interactive etc. have the world exceeding 2
C by 2050 and headed up a good bit further. So, we'll be having
all this talk about being on 1.5 pathways when in reality the
impacts will be primarily determined by the peak temperature, say
3 or 3.5 C, and some, like biodiversity loss and acceleration of
ice sheet loss (and perhaps ocean acidification effects) are not
really going to be reversible. Well, I just don't see emissions as
likely to be cut fast enough or DAC as being phased up fast enough
to prevent this, and I think the temperature/climate induced
impacts are only likely to be able to be avoided with SRM, so it
is needed in the near-term, and until emissions cuts and DAC can
take over.

My second problem with the IPCC FOD 1.5 report is that it
basically accepts (based on no scientific evidence--only that
negotiators chose that value as an aspirational goal) as the
agreed upon long-term equilibrium temperature for society. In my
view (not to mention the views of others), that is just too high a
value. As Hansen et al. have argued, some long-term impacts like
accelerating glacial ice loss and intensifying climate extremes,
for example, started once we passed 0.5 C, so what we really need
to do is get to below this value for the long-term (and some argue
0.5 C would be too high if one wants to really freeze stop the
glacial loss (if that is possible). Well, while SRM could get us
that cool, we really have to be working to phase out SRM, and so
DAC is critical and is, as you suggest, the way to really not be
creating other impacts in the long-term. But, it is going to take
time to get there, and during this time, SRM has the potential to,
with I think what might well be pretty modest negative impacts, to
be holding down the climate change impacts until DAC is adequately
phased up.

What I think about your response that might rub those of us
responding to you is the implication that DAC can do everything
needed--well, with really tremendous cost, it could (starting now,
to keep the temperature from not going up further, it would need
to be removing enough CO2 to keep the atmospheric concentration
from rising, so something like 40 GtCO2/yr--plus more to account
for increases in methane, etc.--and while this could perhaps, on a
  

Re: [geo] Scientists Look to Bali Volcano for Clues to Curb Climate Change - Scientific American

[Michael MacCracken]

 written I am 
convinced that in this century we will be harvesting our carbon from 
the sky (where it is excess) rather than mining it from the ground. 
$50 per tonne CO2 in terms of carbon content is about $40 per barrel. 
Yes I do assert that DAC that is used to provide our liquid fuels, 
hydrocarbions and our building materials will not be a burden on 
society but an asset. By the way if one is concerned about wasting 
capital than join me in appposing electric vehicles and instead suport 
renewable gasoline made for CO2 from the air and hydrogen from water 
powereed by the sun. That will save trillions in new infrastructure 
that could indeed be better spent on education or health or other 
infrastructure .


Peter

On Sun, Dec 3, 2017 at 11:39 AM, Michael MacCracken 
<mmacc...@comcast.net <mailto:mmacc...@comcast.net>> wrote:


Dear Peter--I don't really think you can say that your approach is
without the risk of adverse impacts in that it will take much
longer to pull down the temperature than will DAC. Yes, DAC gets
you to the lower temperature over time, but in the interim a lot
is going on. Now, yes, if a very great more were invested to
implement DAC, one could have a nearer-term impact, but then one
is taking money from society for other purposes, etc. It seems to
me, the metric to be used for comparison might be the net
reduction in impacts (I do agree SRM would not uniquely lead to
less impacts everywhere and of every type) per unit of money of
some amount invested.

This is not in any way to be saying we should not be investing in
DAC but I don't think your argument makes the case for not also
doing research on SRM of various types (and SRM is getting very
little research money as well). Given the seriousness and
imminence of the predicament that we are in, in my opinion, a
broad-based and aggressive research effort is needed that
recognizes the advantages and shortcomings of each type of
approach and ultimately aims for a program that draws on multiple
approaches to deal with the rapidly worsening situation.

Best, Mike MacCracken


On 12/3/17 2:24 PM, Peter Eisenberger wrote:

Dear Doug ,

I am sorry for the misunderstanding : I am clearly for doing
efforts on other approaches including SRM

But the situation as it stands is that the only solution
conceptually that can address the threat of climate change
without the risk of adverse impacts is DAC with permanent
storage. Yet it is the only approach to this date that has
effectively zero public funding support and until very recently
policy support. So my argument is that we all should support
public funding of DAC efforts that can be published and shared
that will test the premise that it can be done at low cost at a
gigatonne scale. What I have further shared is that our
commercial efforts involving experts in  industrail gas
technology  ( eg separating gases from air) have determined that
$50 per tonne DAC is achievable and that we are having great
commercial success -so much so that I have committed us not to
seek public funding if it were approved.

So the only reason I am writing about this is because I do not
think we should delay investing in DAC till as you say

Once we have demonstrated DAC with permanent storage at Gt scale
and proven it to be low cost with no side effects,

When I read that I think that every year we delay starting a
serious effort on DAC is a year longer of risking catastrophic
climate change -the overshoot will be more and the time will be
greater. So I literally believe that I need to surpress my
interests in the company where others delaying is better(less
competition) and instead as a scientist try to get people to
understand that DAC will be low cost -all we have to do is do it
. Furthermore I argue that our patents that are public enable an
indpendent person like Ellen Stechl to understand why DAC can be
low cost and why others are mistaken in asserting otherwse .
Peter

On Sun, Dec 3, 2017 at 4:30 AM, Douglas MacMartin
<macma...@cds.caltech.edu <mailto:macma...@cds.caltech.edu>> wrote:

Peter,

Once we have demonstrated DAC with permanent storage at Gt
scale and proven it to be low cost with no side effects, then
I would agree that we can stop researching other options.
Until then I think it is premature to declare that we have
found the solution and can ignore every other option.  I know
you disagree with me, but I do not think that we know what
the costs of a technology are going to be when we haven’t
implemented it at even a tiny fraction of a meaningful
scale.  I’m not convinced that it will be as cheap as you
believe it to be, but furthermore, it is not possible for yo

Re: [geo] Scientists Look to Bali Volcano for Clues to Curb Climate Change - Scientific American

[Michael MacCracken]

Dear Peter--I don't really think you can say that your approach is 
without the risk of adverse impacts in that it will take much longer to 
pull down the temperature than will DAC. Yes, DAC gets you to the lower 
temperature over time, but in the interim a lot is going on. Now, yes, 
if a very great more were invested to implement DAC, one could have a 
nearer-term impact, but then one is taking money from society for other 
purposes, etc. It seems to me, the metric to be used for comparison 
might be the net reduction in impacts (I do agree SRM would not uniquely 
lead to less impacts everywhere and of every type) per unit of money of 
some amount invested.


This is not in any way to be saying we should not be investing in DAC 
but I don't think your argument makes the case for not also doing 
research on SRM of various types (and SRM is getting very little 
research money as well). Given the seriousness and imminence of the 
predicament that we are in, in my opinion, a broad-based and aggressive 
research effort is needed that recognizes the advantages and 
shortcomings of each type of approach and ultimately aims for a program 
that draws on multiple approaches to deal with the rapidly worsening 
situation.


Best, Mike MacCracken


On 12/3/17 2:24 PM, Peter Eisenberger wrote:

Dear Doug ,

I am sorry for the misunderstanding : I am clearly for doing efforts 
on other approaches including SRM


But the situation as it stands is that the only solution conceptually 
that can address the threat of climate change without the risk of 
adverse impacts is DAC with permanent storage. Yet it is the only 
approach to this date that has effectively zero public funding support 
and until very recently policy support. So my argument is that we all 
should support public funding of DAC efforts that can be published and 
shared that will test the premise that it can be done at low cost at a 
gigatonne scale. What I have further shared is that our commercial 
efforts involving experts in  industrail gas technology  ( eg 
separating gases from air) have determined that $50 per tonne DAC is 
achievable and that we are having great commercial success -so much so 
that I have committed us not to seek public funding if it were approved.


So the only reason I am writing about this is because I do not think 
we should delay investing in DAC till as you say


Once we have demonstrated DAC with permanent storage at Gt scale and 
proven it to be low cost with no side effects,


When I read that I think that every year we delay starting a serious 
effort on DAC is a year longer of risking catastrophic climate change 
-the overshoot will be more and the time will be greater. So I 
literally believe that I need to surpress my interests in the company 
where others delaying is better(less competition) and instead as a 
scientist try to get people to understand that DAC will be low cost 
-all we have to do is do it . Furthermore I argue that our patents 
that are public enable an indpendent person like Ellen Stechl to 
understand why DAC can be low cost and why others are mistaken in 
asserting otherwse .

Peter

On Sun, Dec 3, 2017 at 4:30 AM, Douglas MacMartin 
> wrote:


Peter,

Once we have demonstrated DAC with permanent storage at Gt scale
and proven it to be low cost with no side effects, then I would
agree that we can stop researching other options.  Until then I
think it is premature to declare that we have found the solution
and can ignore every other option.  I know you disagree with me,
but I do not think that we know what the costs of a technology are
going to be when we haven’t implemented it at even a tiny fraction
of a meaningful scale.  I’m not convinced that it will be as cheap
as you believe it to be, but furthermore, it is not possible for
you to convince me without demonstrating both removal and storage
at Gt scale; sorry, but I’ve been an engineer all my life and have
seen my share of overconfident predictions (and probably safe to
say zero accurate predictions at this stage of technology
development), and I simply don’t believe that it is theoretically
possible to accurately predict costs and issues to sufficient
accuracy without actually doing something.

Therefore I don’t understand why you insist on picking the right
solution today and stopping all research on all other solutions. 
I don’t view this as a competition.

At any rate, if you have any concern about nonlinearities and
tipping points, you should strongly support research into SRM, as
that’s a pretty strong argument in favour of it.  We don’t know
what would happen if we allowed the planet to keep warming, but
we’re a lot less likely to pass major earth system tipping points
if we keep the system “closer” to the current state.  That is, of
course it is almost trivially true that a 

Re: [geo] Re: Ice Apocalypse | Grist

[Michael MacCracken]

Hi Russell--Have you watched the documentary "Chasing Ice"? You can see 
the type of collapse being talked about at 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hC3VTgIPoGU


Best, Mike


On 11/25/17 7:04 PM, Russell Seitz wrote:
Just how fast would the Pine Island and Thwaite glaciers  have to 
advance to reify Grist's fear that :


" Minute-by-minute, huge skyscraper-sized shards of ice cliffs would 
crumble into the sea, " ?


As huge skyscrapers tend to be tens of meters wide,  the article 
 implies that the rate of Antarctic glacial  advance is about to 
accelerate  to  the  un-glacial  pace  of   > 10  x  60 x 24 =   ~ 1.4 
 kilometers a day or more.


Some explicit dimensional analysis  would seem  in order if  the 
 authors expect to change the minds of those who have seen far steeper 
 bergschrunds  ( Like the  Nanga Parbat massif's Raikot glacier ) 
clanking along  at far lower speeds and higher temperatures






On Tuesday, November 21, 2017 at 7:01:59 PM UTC-5, Andrew Lockley wrote:


https://grist.org/article/antarctica-doomsday-glaciers-could-flood-coastal-cities/




I very rarely share something that's aimed at the lay reader, or
off topic. The above link is both - but it's a particularly good
piece of writing about ice instability tipping points.

Very good for shaking people out of their complacency!

Andrew

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Re: [geo] Re: [CDR] The International Conference on Negative CO2 Emissions » 22-24 May 2018

[Michael MacCracken]

Hi Peter E--

Is there any chance that APS might redo its study and this might lead to 
a statement that brings the various views together on the projected cost 
of CDR (so capture and storage) at large scale? Is the current NAS study 
being considered as a path for this to occur?


Mike MacCracken

On 11/24/17 2:35 PM, Peter Eisenberger wrote:

David ,
First and foremost not only are we on the same side but I consider you 
a leader generally and specifically in the issue of  SRM  and CDR  
issues.  No one
has more experience than you in those two technologies. Frankly it is 
for that reason I have been surprised that you shifted your focus to 
SRM , which whether intended or not is a statement itself
given the leadership position you had in CDR/DAC. It is not just my 
opinion but also of your DAC colleagues that intentional or not you 
convey , consistent with your email response , that you are 
pessimistic about the potential of low cost DAC. The irony I find in 
this is that from my perspective the impact of that perception on  DAC 
today is what the APS did ten years ago to you- making assertions that 
DAC is costly with no real scientific basis . You seem willing to put 
enormous effort into SRM  yet have not made the effort to find out for 
yourself whether my claims are plausible or not. In fact to be candid 
as a physicist I believe you can easily determine for your self by 
reading our published patents why GT represents a cost breakthrough in 
DAC technology. I invite you to visit me at a time of your convenience 
or I believe we can go quite far over the phone. I hope that you will 
not say in the future that you have not seen the evidence but make the 
more accurate statement that you have not yet sought to get the 
evidence with anywhere the same vigor that you have pursued SRM . As I 
said I do not understand why you switched your focus before doing so.


In that regard the most experienced companies in processing gases from 
the air all have looked at our technology and validated its low cost 
potential. In one case they observed us for over five years and 
operated our plants. The person leading  that effort for one of the 
companies  quit his job to join us . He is scientist of high 
reputation but also arose to a high management  level in his company . 
I believe you know him and I know he would be glad to talk with you 
and tell you as he did  others at meeting at ASU and the Virgin Earth 
Prize Judges that GT technology can capture CO2  for under $50 /tonne. 
He looked at all DAC technologies as did all the other companies and 
all have expressed a desire to work with GT.


In addition I think there is a difference between emissions 
reductions  of the CCS kind (not replacing fossil with solar ) and CDR 
even though as you say the CO2 math in the short term seems unaffected.
This is because of the power of learning by doing and that all the 
costs come at the end when ones doubling of capacity involve massive 
amounts of new plants. Thus for fixed dollar allocation if one invests 
it all in DAC/CDR and none in CCS one will get to an ambient  co2 
concentration sooner and for less money than than doing CCS first and 
then CDR. Some people use the cost differential  to argue against this 
but fail to analyze  the learning by doing positive feedback . But 
most important  at $50 DAC retrofits of CCS plants produce more costly 
CO2 and have high costs to get it to where it can be sequestered. The 
leading gas companies are coming to this same conclusion.


I argue that the misconception about the cost of DAC, started by the 
APS , is causing us to make bad strategic choices for how to address 
the threat of climate change -this is not some small academic debate 
we are having. I strongly believe future generations will judge us 
harshly from us not having the discipline to at least base our actions 
on what is knowable if we made the  effort to know it.  I have told 
others I wish i was not associated with a DAC technology so i would 
have greater credibility for this important issue. I have pledged not 
to take any public money if the call for a strong effort in DAC is 
responded to . That and trying to reach out to experts like you is my 
attempt to be responsible . My investors have no interest in having 
others know that low cost DAC CO2 is achievable.


David , we are on the same side, I greatly respect your capabilities 
,and you are  playing a very important role in the climate challenge 
we face. Let us find a way to get you what you need so you can add 
your voice that low cost DAC -say under $50 per tonne is feasible. As 
you know I support research on SRM but I am sure you agree with me 
that if low cost DAC  is achievable it deserves a high priority of 
efforts to develop it for large scale deployment and we can ill afford 
any further delay .


With best regards,
Peter

On Fri, Nov 24, 2017 at 12:09 PM, David Keith > 

Re: [geo] Mitigation terminology

[Michael MacCracken]

Hi Robert--First, when I refer to mitigation, I mean reducing CO2 (GHG) 
emissions toward zero, not slowing their growth. To stop climate change, 
we need to go to zero emissions. At the present rate of emissions, so no 
growth, the CO2 concentration is going up something like 3 ppm per year 
and the temperature is increasing at order 0.2 C/decade. So, again, 
stopping growth is not nearly enough.


I separate CDR from mitigation because to get back to an acceptable 
temperature increase (say 0.5 C so hopefully starting to freeze up the 
ice sheet ice stream flows, etc.), we not only have to go to zero 
emissions, we have to ALSO pull a lot of CO2 out of the atmosphere and 
offsetting the warming influence via SRM until we accomplish this.


I wholeheartedly agree that Paris is not enough--not nearly enough--and 
the IPCC FOD of their 1.5 C report (and IPCC Chair Lee said the same at 
the RFF interview) does not show any plausible pathways that do not 
overshoot not only 1.5 C, but, I think 2 C, and by a good bit.


Given the Manhattan/Apollo project level you propose, that seems far 
short of what I am talking about.


Mike



On 11/13/17 12:40 AM, 'Robert Tulip' via geoengineering wrote:

Dear Mike

On terminology, your use of "mitigation" may reflect common usage but 
has a problem. Mitigation 
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_change_mitigation> means 
slowing climate change, so includes carbon removal. Restricting 
mitigation to slowing emission growth wrongly leaves out the main 
agenda required for climate stability.


Full implementation of Paris by 2030 would only remove 1% of the 6000 
GT of carbon the world must get out of the air this century to achieve 
the 2° target, according to Bjorn Lomborg 
<http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/global-paris-climate-failure-article-1.3591807>.  
I have not seen any refutation of his calculation, although he is 
comparing the 14 years of Paris to the 83 years of the century, so a 
like for like comparison might be more like 6%, but still effectively 
nothing, and risking a Permian Great Dying repeat.


By contrast, my calculation is that a Manhattan/Apollo type project to 
remove carbon could remove 200% of emission growth by 2030, putting us 
back on a path to retain the stable Holocene climate, addressing the 
top security threat facing our planet.


Robert Tulip

--------
*From:* Michael MacCracken <mmacc...@comcast.net>
*To:* peter.eisenber...@gmail.com
*Cc:* Douglas MacMartin <macma...@cds.caltech.edu>; Greg Rau 
<gh...@sbcglobal.net>; geoengineering <geoengineering@googlegroups.com>

*Sent:* Monday, 13 November 2017, 5:42
*Subject:* Re: [geo] Climate science foe Lamar Smith - geoengineering 
is ‘worth exploring.’


Hi Peter--Interesting--a couple of questions that might be covered in 
the type of assessment that you suggest (and I agree) is worth doing:
1. Were the world to get serious enough to be taking on the issue in 
the way you suggest, what are the relative costs and benefits of 
investing the same amount of money and effort on mitigation, so not 
putting the materials into the atmosphere in the first place? Would it 
make more sense to just be investing in CDR research until the 
cost-benefit leans to CDR versus mitigation (and considering other 
effects, such as job creation, etc. (this point/plateau might vary a 
great deal by location, etc.)?
2. Once one captures the C, what does one do with it all? Where does 
one put all the captured CO2? What is the cost of 
disposal/storage/sequestration, etc. and what are the implications and 
risks of the various approaches?

Best, Mike

On 11/12/17 6:15 AM, Peter Eisenberger wrote:

Hi Mike ,

The key issue is your sentence  "While CDR can get started now, 
scaling up seems likely to take a bit of time, though this depends 
mainly on level of commitment." .
A serious Manhatten Project Level Project or Going to the moon effort 
would make an assessment of the time versus commitment level for the 
only known solution at this time  that can scale  -DAC where the 
carbon is either stored in a material (carbon fiber or cement and 
sequestered or sequestered directly
The number of units needed are comparable and less  than many things 
we already mass produce by sigificant ratios - a shipping container 
sized unit of GT technology captures 2000 tpy and is amenable to mass 
production .
:For 40 giga tonnes pyr capacity one would need 20 million units 
-there are currently  17 million shipping containers used in the 
world . Today GT has made two such units in a year say which is 
conservative estimate for installed capacity  for the industry as a 
whole .To make the 20 million  one would need would take 22 doublings 
of capacity. If one had a conservative  2 yr doubling time this would 
take  44 years and if it was a global emergency so one had a high 
doubling time of 1 year it would 

Re: [geo] Climate science foe Lamar Smith - geoengineering is ‘worth exploring.’

[Michael MacCracken]

Hi Peter--Interesting--a couple of questions that might be covered in 
the type of assessment that you suggest (and I agree) is worth doing:


1. Were the world to get serious enough to be taking on the issue in the 
way you suggest, what are the relative costs and benefits of investing 
the same amount of money and effort on mitigation, so not putting the 
materials into the atmosphere in the first place? Would it make more 
sense to just be investing in CDR research until the cost-benefit leans 
to CDR versus mitigation (and considering other effects, such as job 
creation, etc. (this point/plateau might vary a great deal by location, 
etc.)?


2. Once one captures the C, what does one do with it all? Where does one 
put all the captured CO2? What is the cost of 
disposal/storage/sequestration, etc. and what are the implications and 
risks of the various approaches?


Best, Mike


On 11/12/17 6:15 AM, Peter Eisenberger wrote:

Hi Mike ,

The key issue is your sentence  "While CDR can get started now, 
scaling up seems likely to take a bit of time, though this depends 
mainly on level of commitment." .
A serious Manhatten Project Level Project or Going to the moon effort 
would make an assessment of the time versus commitment level for the 
only known solution at this time  that can scale -DAC where the carbon 
is either stored in a material (carbon fiber or cement and sequestered 
or sequestered directly
The number of units needed are comparable and less  than many things 
we already mass produce by sigificant ratios - a shipping container 
sized unit of GT technology captures 2000 tpy and is amenable to mass 
production .
:For 40 giga tonnes pyr capacity one would need 20 million units 
-there are currently  17 million shipping containers used in the world 
. Today GT has made two such units in a year say which is conservative 
estimate for installed capacity  for the industry as a whole .To make 
the 20 million one would need would take 22 doublings of capacity. If 
one had a conservative  2 yr doubling time this would take  44 years 
and if it was a global emergency so one had a high doubling time of 1 
year it would take us only 22 years to install 40 gigatonnes per year 
capacity with us making  4 million units per year at the end - we 
currently make 60 million new cars per year . The capital cost to make 
a DAC 2000 tpy unit is about $500,000 which in the end would cost 2 
trillion dollars or close to 1 % of GGDP at that time and like solar 
it would create jobs.  My only point is that these are not 
unreasonable numbers and most importantly no one has tried to do a 
serious assessment , yet many make statements as if it is obvious that 
the needed capacity cannot be reached in a timely fashion . But even 
more significant is that we seem content with a research effort rather 
than an implementation effort yet we claim we are in an emergency .
As I am prone to say - the only barrier to CDR to remove the needed 
capacity (we know how to do it and that it is affordable) is to decide 
to do it.


Peter

On Sat, Nov 11, 2017 at 4:27 PM, Michael MacCracken 
<mmacc...@comcast.net <mailto:mmacc...@comcast.net>> wrote:


Hi Peter--You might be interested that at the hearing Rep. Veasey
(ranking Democratic member on one of the subcommittees at the
hearing--see https://veasey.house.gov) indicated that he would
soon be putting forward a bill pursuing CDR research/efforts. He
has a Subcommittee on Energy minority staffer, Joe Flarida,
working on this issue who sounds both quite well-informed and also
interested in getting input (joe.flar...@mail.house.gov
<mailto:joe.flar...@mail.house.gov>). While there was discussion
about might be done on SRM, I did not get the impression that a
bill on that was as far along.

On SRM & CDR issue, both are certainly needed. While CDR can get
started now, scaling up seems likely to take a bit of time, though
this depends mainly on level of commitment. SRM is indeed not a
long-term approach, but it can be an approach that I think could
be applied early in low deployment levels while mitigation and CDR
are building up and getting emissions toward zero. I think this
notion of waiting decades to get started makes little sense,
because of the climate change and impacts that will occur in the
interim, the shock that sudden and significant SRM deployment
would induce, and that by that time it would be nice to have
mitigation and CDR phased up a good bit (so CO2 emissions down, or
at least no longer rising). Ultimately, we of course prefer having
CDR be the dominant approach--for me the question is having a
comprehensive effort that recognizes what needs to get done and
what the capabilities are and deployments can be over time.

Mike


On 11/11/17 2:24 PM, Peter Eisenberger wrote:

Hi Doug,
I wish your statement was factually true b

Re: [geo] Re: ?Micro-climate engineering? green roofs in cities

[Michael MacCracken]

Thank you very much. The article is right to the point.

Mike


On 11/11/17 8:12 PM, hakb...@encs.concordia.ca wrote:


Mike,

Please look at the following. It may have answered your question.
Hosseini, M. and H. Akbari. “Heating Energy Penalties of Cool Roofs: 
The Effect of Snow Accumulation on Roof.” Advances in Building Energy 
Research, 8:1, 1-13, 2014. 
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17512549.2014.890541.



Hashem

Quoting Michael MacCracken <mmacc...@comcast.net>:


Also, it can make a difference if you are in a climate zone that gets
cold in the winter as the darker roof can help with warming in the
winter. I wonder if a good question might be whether having snow on the
roof provides an insulating effect in winter that would make up for
having a while instead of a black roof?

Mike


On 11/11/17 7:03 PM, Andrew Lockley wrote:
Being a pedant, it's important to consider the thermal mass of the  
roof, as this makes a big difference to temperature variation.  
Variations, in turn, greatly increase perception of discomfort - a  
draft is cold, a cave is merely cool.


On 11 Nov 2017 23:27, "John Harte" <jha...@berkeley.edu 
<mailto:jha...@berkeley.edu>> wrote:


   I assigned that problem as a homework assignment in a course I 
teach.



   2.  Consider a house in a relatively hot, sunny location such as
   Southern California.

   a. To keep the house cool without air conditioning, and thereby
   reduce energy demand, its inhabitants decide to do one of two 
things:


     i.  They can paint the roof white, increasing its albedo from
   0.1 to 0.8, or

     ii.  They can grow a green roof, using a productive species of
   grass that will increase the albedo of the roof from 0.1 to 0.2
   and that, if watered and fertilized adequately, will cool the
   house by transpiration.  The rate of transpiration can be
   estimated from the following: for every kg of grass produced, 300
   kg of water are transpired, and the grass grows with an overall
   photosynthetic efficiency of 1%.

   a. Ignoring the issue of water supply, which of these strategies
   (i. or ii.) will result in a cooler house?  (20 pts.)

   Solution: 2. a.  First, let?s examine the effect of painting the
   roof white. We?ll assume an average solar flux on the roof of 250
   watts/m^2 (if you assumed anything between 170 and 300 we will
   accept it.).  By changing the albedo from 0.1 to 0.8, the home is
   avoiding the absorption of 0.7 (250) = *175 watts/m^2 *, *which is
   the benefit of plan i.*  For plan ii., we need to estimate NPP on
   the roof first. At 1% of available energy, the plants are
   converting 2.5 watts/m^2 to biomass. Over a year, this is (2.5
   joules/sec-m^2 ) x (3.1 x 107 sec) = 77.5 x megajoules/m^2
   incorporated into biomass.  Using the conversion: of 16
   megajoules(dry biomass) per kg, we find that biomass is produced
   at an annual rate of  77.5/16 = 4.8 kg (dry biomass0/m^2 . Now
   using the 300:1 ratio of transpired water to photosynthesized
   biomass, we get 4.8 x 300 = 1450 kg(transpired water)/year.
   Transpiring a kilogram of water requires about 2.4 x 10^6 joules
   (see COW Appendix) and so each year about 2.4 x 10^6 x 1450 = 3.5
   x 10^9 joules/m^2 annually are causing transpiration rather than
   heating the house.  Expressed in power units, this is 3.5 x 10^9
   (joules/m^2 )/3.1 x 10^7 sec= *113 watts/m^2 , which is the
   transpiration benefit of plan ii. *But there is also a small
   albedo benefit of grass versus dark shingle, so we get an
   additional benefit which is 1/7 of the plan i. benefit (due to an
   albedo increase of 0.1 rather than 0.7), so now we have 113 +
   (1/7) 175 = *138 watts/m^2 , which is the albedo benefit of plan
   ii.* *So plan i. wins by a little. *


   The problem went on to evaluate the added benefit if you burn the
   grass on the roof for fuel.

   I actually replaced my dark shingle roof this autumn with
   light-colored composition shingle.  It makes a huge difference!



   John Harte
   Professor of Ecosystem Sciences
   ERG/ESPM
   310 Barrows Hall
   University of California
   Berkeley, CA 94720  USA
   jha...@berkeley.edu <mailto:jha...@berkeley.edu>




   On Nov 11, 2017, at 2:22 PM, Russell Seitz
   <russellse...@gmail.com <mailto:russellse...@gmail.com>> wrote:

   How do green roofs, which cool by evapotransportation  ( rooftop
   lawns require water much as those on the ground do) compare in
   cooling efficiency  with higher albedo white roofs combined with
    an equal volume of water spraying when the sun is high?

   On Saturday, November 11, 2017 at 12:16:10 AM UTC-5, E Durbrow
   wrote:


   Perhaps, tangental. Seville planners think they can cool
   their city despite significant temperature increase with
   204-700 hectares of green roofs.

   Summary:

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/11/171110113938.htm
<https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/11/1

Re: [geo] Re: “Micro-climate engineering” green roofs in cities

[Michael MacCracken]

Also, it can make a difference if you are in a climate zone that gets 
cold in the winter as the darker roof can help with warming in the 
winter. I wonder if a good question might be whether having snow on the 
roof provides an insulating effect in winter that would make up for 
having a while instead of a black roof?


Mike


On 11/11/17 7:03 PM, Andrew Lockley wrote:
Being a pedant, it's important to consider the thermal mass of the 
roof, as this makes a big difference to temperature variation. 
Variations, in turn, greatly increase perception of discomfort - a 
draft is cold, a cave is merely cool.


On 11 Nov 2017 23:27, "John Harte" > wrote:


I assigned that problem as a homework assignment in a course I teach.


2.  Consider a house in a relatively hot, sunny location such as
Southern California.

a. To keep the house cool without air conditioning, and thereby
reduce energy demand, its inhabitants decide to do one of two things:

  i.  They can paint the roof white, increasing its albedo from
0.1 to 0.8, or

  ii.  They can grow a green roof, using a productive species of
grass that will increase the albedo of the roof from 0.1 to 0.2
and that, if watered and fertilized adequately, will cool the
house by transpiration.  The rate of transpiration can be
estimated from the following: for every kg of grass produced, 300
kg of water are transpired, and the grass grows with an overall
photosynthetic efficiency of 1%.

a. Ignoring the issue of water supply, which of these strategies
(i. or ii.) will result in a cooler house?  (20 pts.)

Solution: 2. a.  First, let’s examine the effect of painting the
roof white. We’ll assume an average solar flux on the roof of 250
watts/m^2 (if you assumed anything between 170 and 300 we will
accept it.).  By changing the albedo from 0.1 to 0.8, the home is
avoiding the absorption of 0.7 (250) = *175 watts/m^2 *, *which is
the benefit of plan i.*  For plan ii., we need to estimate NPP on
the roof first. At 1% of available energy, the plants are
converting 2.5 watts/m^2 to biomass. Over a year, this is (2.5
joules/sec-m^2 ) x (3.1 x 107 sec) = 77.5 x megajoules/m^2
incorporated into biomass.  Using the conversion: of 16
megajoules(dry biomass) per kg, we find that biomass is produced
at an annual rate of  77.5/16 = 4.8 kg (dry biomass0/m^2 .  Now
using the 300:1 ratio of transpired water to photosynthesized
biomass, we get 4.8 x 300 = 1450 kg(transpired water)/year. 
Transpiring a kilogram of water requires about 2.4 x 10^6 joules
(see COW Appendix) and so each year about 2.4 x 10^6 x 1450 = 3.5
x 10^9 joules/m^2 annually are causing transpiration rather than
heating the house.  Expressed in power units, this is 3.5 x 10^9
(joules/m^2 )/3.1 x 10^7 sec= *113 watts/m^2 , which is the
transpiration benefit of plan ii. *But there is also a small
albedo benefit of grass versus dark shingle, so we get an
additional benefit which is 1/7 of the plan i. benefit (due to an
albedo increase of 0.1 rather than 0.7), so now we have 113 +
(1/7) 175 = *138 watts/m^2 , which is the albedo benefit of plan
ii.* *So plan i. wins by a little. *


The problem went on to evaluate the added benefit if you burn the
grass on the roof for fuel.

I actually replaced my dark shingle roof this autumn with
light-colored composition shingle.  It makes a huge difference!



John Harte
Professor of Ecosystem Sciences
ERG/ESPM
310 Barrows Hall
University of California
Berkeley, CA 94720  USA
jha...@berkeley.edu 




On Nov 11, 2017, at 2:22 PM, Russell Seitz
> wrote:

How do green roofs, which cool by evapotransportation  ( rooftop
lawns require water much as those on the ground do) compare in
cooling efficiency  with higher albedo white roofs combined with
 an equal volume of water spraying when the sun is high?

On Saturday, November 11, 2017 at 12:16:10 AM UTC-5, E Durbrow
wrote:


Perhaps, tangental. Seville planners think they can cool
their city despite significant temperature increase with
204-700 hectares of green roofs.

Summary:

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/11/171110113938.htm



Comment: My layperson’s understanding is that it is very
difficult to predict and simulate city-wide changes in
temperature when a modification (e.g. reflective roofs, green
space, etc) occurs. I though I remember that reading that
reflective roofs might have no effect on local temperature
(city’s micro-climate). Modelers, is this the case?


-- 
You received this message 

Re: [geo] Climate science foe Lamar Smith - geoengineering is ‘worth exploring.’

[Michael MacCracken]

Hi Peter--You might be interested that at the hearing Rep. Veasey 
(ranking Democratic member on one of the subcommittees at the 
hearing--see https://veasey.house.gov) indicated that he would soon be 
putting forward a bill pursuing CDR research/efforts. He has a 
Subcommittee on Energy minority staffer, Joe Flarida, working on this 
issue who sounds both quite well-informed and also interested in getting 
input (joe.flar...@mail.house.gov). While there was discussion about 
might be done on SRM, I did not get the impression that a bill on that 
was as far along.


On SRM & CDR issue, both are certainly needed. While CDR can get started 
now, scaling up seems likely to take a bit of time, though this depends 
mainly on level of commitment. SRM is indeed not a long-term approach, 
but it can be an approach that I think could be applied early in low 
deployment levels while mitigation and CDR are building up and getting 
emissions toward zero. I think this notion of waiting decades to get 
started makes little sense, because of the climate change and impacts 
that will occur in the interim, the shock that sudden and significant 
SRM deployment would induce, and that by that time it would be nice to 
have mitigation and CDR phased up a good bit (so CO2 emissions down, or 
at least no longer rising). Ultimately, we of course prefer having CDR 
be the dominant approach--for me the question is having a comprehensive 
effort that recognizes what needs to get done and what the capabilities 
are and deployments can be over time.


Mike


On 11/11/17 2:24 PM, Peter Eisenberger wrote:

Hi Doug,
I wish your statement was factually true but I can provide if you want 
many examples of people adovcating SRM  using the status of CDR to 
justify its need . Furthermore with all respect
even your statement that CDR is in the same state -eg need for 
research as CDR is just factually incorrect . CDR is ready to be 
implemented , it does not carry the risk of unintended consequences , 
and as opposed to SRM it can
address the climate challenge whereas the best SRM can do is provide 
more time to address it. This is why I wrote that I too support 
research on SRM but do so making clear that CDR is both a higher 
priority and more advanced by far than SRM
If we were as we should be all on the same team focussed on addressing 
the threat we all agree exists than all who support research on SRM 
would also make clear that it is a lower priority than CDR .
Furthermore as i wrote the failure to do that will result in a 
diffusion of effort so that we will make incremental progress on many 
fronts without a commtted response on any single effort thus unwittingly
delaying the critical large scale effort needed while we do research 
and thus losing precious time we can ill afford to do . Unfortunately 
this is not an academic issue and in the future experts will look at 
what we have done and what was really known at the time and come to 
their own conclusion. I hope we do not have to wait for that judgment 
and somehow develop the internal capability to develop a consensus on 
a prioritized plan to address the threat we face. At this time we need 
to go beyond letting a thousand flowers bloom which in itself is 
paradoxical with the argument that we have no time to waste .


I of course am willing to be shown that my logic is flawed and engage 
in respecful dialogue with you or anyone that would argue against 1 
that CDR is higher priority than SRM , and 2 we need to have an 
internal effort to develop a prioritized program for addressing the 
threat we face.

Peter

On Sat, Nov 11, 2017 at 10:02 AM, Douglas MacMartin 
> wrote:


Peter - I think that the risks of future climate change are
sufficiently concerning that it would be premature to stop all
research on some options on the assumption that other options are
100% guaranteed to suffice.   I think that pretty much everyone
who thinks we need to research SRM also thinks we need to research
CDR quite aggressively. So when you try to set things up as an “us
vs them” framing, I don’t think you are doing justice to anyone’s
perspective that I know (and I think I can safely say that I know
pretty much everyone who works on SRM).  Relax; we’re all on the
same team, and this isn’t a competition.

Doug

*From:*geoengineering@googlegroups.com

[mailto:geoengineering@googlegroups.com
] *On Behalf Of *Peter
Eisenberger
*Sent:* Saturday, November 11, 2017 12:46 PM
*To:* Greg Rau >
*Cc:* geoengineering@googlegroups.com

*Subject:* Re: [geo] Climate science foe Lamar Smith -
geoengineering is ‘worth exploring.’

The sophisticated opposition to climate change initiated by George
 

Re: [geo] Re: On when it might make sense for intervention to begin

[Michael MacCracken]

 much time and, fankly, is not needed.

As a side note on SAI, the same equipment can be used to test out
wetted C as an air dehydrator/electrical bridge to the GEC (GEC+)
and the Hydroxyl Cryogenesis Geotherapy (HCG) approach.

All of the methods need to be tested in the most informative, and
thus challenging, set of conditions.

I propose an Arctic high altitude field campaign involving SAI,
HCG, and GEC+ be immediately ramped up for and deployed this
Arctic Winter.

The balloon station and tether components are all off the shelf. I
propose a $3M budget. The law HR 353 peovides the budget.

The aviation tech development during this Arctic build and deploy
exercise will be valuable to the weather forecasting field for
many decades. $3M is cheap for this amount of immediate science as
well as new tool development.

https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/house-bill/353
<https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/house-bill/353>


Michael Hayes

    On Nov 5, 2017 7:45 PM, "Michael MacCracken" <mmacc...@comcast.net
<mailto:mmacc...@comcast.net>> wrote:

Hi Doug--In response to your Nov 4 post below, I am all for
learning, but the problem with waiting and waiting is that the
Earth will keep warming and warming and impacts will keep
growing and growing--including especially ones that are or
near irreversible, such as to biodiversity and commitment to
sea level rise.

If the goal were, during this 20-year learning time, only to
reduce or offset year-by-year warming as might be done, based
on our understanding of volcanic effects, using quite small
annual increments to the stratospheric sulfur loading, and
basically iterating as we go on something like 5-year running
averages, we would very likely be in a much more favorable
situation to evaluate how to proceed, both having better model
analyses and having some experience to work with. If we find
the 20-year accumulation is worse than ongoing global warming
with GHGs or that mitigation is working particularly well, the
stratospheric injection level could be gradually reduced
instead of continuing with ongoing augmentation. While there
would of course be uncertainties, it is not really clear that
they would be more serious than the increasing changes and
impacts that are occurring. It just seems to me that to do
nothing while continuing with research just lets the situation
get worse and then the cure having to be so much stronger than
deployment itself could be problematic.

If, as Santer et al suggest, early 21st century rate of
warming was slowed by the cooling influences of small volcanic
eruptions that injected amounts that were barely noticeable
even with advanced instruments and really not at all
noticeable by the general public, I'd suggest that we actually
have a natural analog of the type of influence that I am
suggesting be pursued. And, in that we will be learning along
the way through the 20-year research program (let's assume
that the research is funded), so it just seems, as noted
above, that the uncertainties associated with such an approach
would not be less than the impacts and uncertainties of
deferring all intervention efforts until some probably pretty
arbitrary level of understanding in the future.

Regarding my favoring of regionally focused alterations, I
would make that a research priority, but I'd suggest that the
earlier one started injecting enough sulfur to offset each
year's forcing increment or so, the better--just thinking
that, in the type of relative risk framing that I view as
appropriate to the situation given where we are, that, with
mitigation ramping up virtually everywhere (and the US doing
somewhat well despite the Administration's mistaken actions),
starting very modestly with stratospheric aerosol climate
intervention could really help in making sure that the
situation is not so bad by the time we learn enough to "make
reasonably informed decisions" (whatever that means) that we
will be unable to avoid significant overshoot of the global
average temperature without such aggressive intervention that
we'll be suffering from both the growing impacts and then the
supposed cure.

At the very least, I would think a good case could be made for
such an effort.

Best regards, Mike MacCracken




On 11/4/17 11:43 AM, Douglas MacMartin wrote:

Both SAI and MCB probably need of order of 20 years of
research before we could make reasonably infor

[geo] Re: On when it might make sense for intervention to begin

[Michael MacCracken]

Hi Michael--I am all for doing all the CDR one can do as well--and if it 
can be enough to keep the temperature near constant so SRM can be 
avoided, that would be fine. I am just not convinced there will be 
enough of a commitment to accomplish this, and so think that need SRM, 
and that we just don't know enough to rely  on marine cloud brightening 
to rely on it--fine to phase in as learn more, but right now we just 
know a lot more about stratospheric aerosol injection at low intensities 
and so I'd lean to that first. And with the new simulations, I think 
that these results are starting to provide the capabilities for 
evaluating the very low levels of SRM that I am talking about to just 
hold the global average temp at the low end of being between 1.0 and 1.5 
before deciding what more might be desirable, needed, etc.


Best, Mike


On 11/6/17 1:51 PM, Michael Hayes wrote:

Mike,

Well said and reasonable. Yet we seem to be drawn to a winner takes 
all type of strategy. If stratospheric injection presents unknowns, as 
all large scale actions will, and time is of the essence, why not 
field as many a plausible to filter out, and or adjust, as many as 
possible.


There was once concern that one method would somehow contaminate 
another. Frankly I don't see that happening. Will SAI trouble MCB? 
Will AWL sink Biochar or BlueBiochar. How would SAI, MCB, or even OIF 
negate Olivine?


Lets approach this as it is, a critical deployment phase which must 
reach for the best basket of tech coming on line and do so as soon as 
plausible. Table top neatness in experimentation eats far too much 
time and, fankly, is not needed.


As a side note on SAI, the same equipment can be used to test out 
wetted C as an air dehydrator/electrical bridge to the GEC (GEC+) and 
the Hydroxyl Cryogenesis Geotherapy (HCG) approach.


All of the methods need to be tested in the most informative, and thus 
challenging, set of conditions.


I propose an Arctic high altitude field campaign involving SAI, HCG, 
and GEC+ be immediately ramped up for and deployed this Arctic Winter.


The balloon station and tether components are all off the shelf. I 
propose a $3M budget. The law HR 353 peovides the budget.


The aviation tech development during this Arctic build and deploy 
exercise will be valuable to the weather forecasting field for many 
decades. $3M is cheap for this amount of immediate science as well as 
new tool development.


https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/house-bill/353


Michael Hayes

On Nov 5, 2017 7:45 PM, "Michael MacCracken" <mmacc...@comcast.net 
<mailto:mmacc...@comcast.net>> wrote:


Hi Doug--In response to your Nov 4 post below, I am all for
learning, but the problem with waiting and waiting is that the
Earth will keep warming and warming and impacts will keep growing
and growing--including especially ones that are or near
irreversible, such as to biodiversity and commitment to sea level
rise.

If the goal were, during this 20-year learning time, only to
reduce or offset year-by-year warming as might be done, based on
our understanding of volcanic effects, using quite small annual
increments to the stratospheric sulfur loading, and basically
iterating as we go on something like 5-year running averages, we
would very likely be in a much more favorable situation to
evaluate how to proceed, both having better model analyses and
having some experience to work with. If we find the 20-year
accumulation is worse than ongoing global warming with GHGs or
that mitigation is working particularly well, the stratospheric
injection level could be gradually reduced instead of continuing
with ongoing augmentation. While there would of course be
uncertainties, it is not really clear that they would be more
serious than the increasing changes and impacts that are
occurring. It just seems to me that to do nothing while continuing
with research just lets the situation get worse and then the cure
having to be so much stronger than deployment itself could be
problematic.

If, as Santer et al suggest, early 21st century rate of warming
was slowed by the cooling influences of small volcanic eruptions
that injected amounts that were barely noticeable even with
advanced instruments and really not at all noticeable by the
general public, I'd suggest that we actually have a natural analog
of the type of influence that I am suggesting be pursued. And, in
that we will be learning along the way through the 20-year
research program (let's assume that the research is funded), so it
just seems, as noted above, that the uncertainties associated with
such an approach would not be less than the impacts and
uncertainties of deferring all intervention efforts until some
probably pretty arbitrary level of understanding in the future.

Regarding my favoring of regional

[geo] Re: On when it might make sense for intervention to begin

[Michael MacCracken]

Hi Doug--On the issue of seeking US Govt funding for research, I've also 
been concerned about pushing SRM research before the US Govt (including 
Congress) has committed to real emissions cutbacks. We were at least 
close to that point with Obama Admin, but not with the current 
situation, so I do agree with your concern. That Europe seems to have 
made the pledge to cut GHG emissions to zero--perhaps not fast enough, 
but at least on that path, so supporting research by those nations seems 
much less likely to encounter the slippery slope issue--gives me some hope.


As for proceeding, while the Federal Government is embarrassingly 
lagging, many states and cities are pushing hard and the pace of 
technology development may even be accelerating, so it seems to me  that 
the international community pushing for as much efficiency, mitigation 
and CDR as feasible and then enough SRM to keep things from getting 
worse is a reasonable approach during the period when SRM research goes 
on, quite likely funded by other nations as it is in their interest as well.


Best, Mike


On 11/6/17 9:22 AM, Douglas MacMartin wrote:


Hi Mike,

I agree that the situation is far from black and white.  Ultimately it's a bit of a judgment call, weighing 
the risks of what we don't know about solar geo against what we don't know about climate change, and more 
importantly perhaps, what we don't know about how people will behave differently.  I admit that my "20 
years" might have more to do with my perceived timeframe for when (a) the impacts of climate change will 
be much more obvious and (b) where we're headed in terms of stabilizing the climate through mitigation will 
be much more obvious, and less to do with what we actually learn about solar geoengineering - but given that 
I think (a) and (b) could easily push "us" (who "us" is is a separate conversation) into 
wanting to do it in ~20 years, I'd rather be prepared.  We'd better make a lot more progress over the next 10 
years than we have over the last 10 (that isn't a dig against the research, but against the funding levels).

My hesitation with telling the House Science Committee on Wednesday that they 
should urgently fund a goal-oriented strategic research program is primarily 
that I don't trust them not to use this as an excuse not to mitigate, and IMHO 
not mitigating is even worse than not pursuing research urgently.  (And a fair 
argument to make would be that nothing I say is likely to influence how much 
mitigation the US does, but might influence how much research is done.)

doug

-----Original Message-
From: Michael MacCracken [mailto:mmacc...@comcast.net]
Sent: Sunday, November 05, 2017 10:46 PM
To: macma...@cds.caltech.edu; voglerl...@gmail.com; 'geoengineering' 
<geoengineering@googlegroups.com>
Subject: On when it might make sense for intervention to begin

Hi Doug--In response to your Nov 4 post below, I am all for learning, but the 
problem with waiting and waiting is that the Earth will keep warming and 
warming and impacts will keep growing and growing--including especially ones 
that are or near irreversible, such as to biodiversity and commitment to sea 
level rise.

If the goal were, during this 20-year learning time, only to reduce or offset 
year-by-year warming as might be done, based on our understanding of volcanic 
effects, using quite small annual increments to the stratospheric sulfur 
loading, and basically iterating as we go on something like 5-year running 
averages, we would very likely be in a much more favorable situation to 
evaluate how to proceed, both having better model analyses and having some 
experience to work with. If we find the 20-year accumulation is worse than 
ongoing global warming with GHGs or that mitigation is working particularly 
well, the stratospheric injection level could be gradually reduced instead of 
continuing with ongoing augmentation. While there would of course be 
uncertainties, it is not really clear that they would be more serious than the 
increasing changes and impacts that are occurring. It just seems to me that to 
do nothing while continuing with research just lets the situation get worse and 
then the cure having to be so much stronger than deployment itself could be 
problematic.

If, as Santer et al suggest, early 21st century rate of warming was slowed by 
the cooling influences of small volcanic eruptions that injected amounts that 
were barely noticeable even with advanced instruments and really not at all 
noticeable by the general public, I'd suggest that we actually have a natural 
analog of the type of influence that I am suggesting be pursued. And, in that 
we will be learning along the way through the 20-year research program (let's 
assume that the research is funded), so it just seems, as noted above, that the 
uncertainties associated with such an approach would not be less than the 
impacts and uncertainties of deferring all inter

[geo] On when it might make sense for intervention to begin

[Michael MacCracken]

Hi Doug--In response to your Nov 4 post below, I am all for learning, 
but the problem with waiting and waiting is that the Earth will keep 
warming and warming and impacts will keep growing and growing--including 
especially ones that are or near irreversible, such as to biodiversity 
and commitment to sea level rise.


If the goal were, during this 20-year learning time, only to reduce or 
offset year-by-year warming as might be done, based on our understanding 
of volcanic effects, using quite small annual increments to the 
stratospheric sulfur loading, and basically iterating as we go on 
something like 5-year running averages, we would very likely be in a 
much more favorable situation to evaluate how to proceed, both having 
better model analyses and having some experience to work with. If we 
find the 20-year accumulation is worse than ongoing global warming with 
GHGs or that mitigation is working particularly well, the stratospheric 
injection level could be gradually reduced instead of continuing with 
ongoing augmentation. While there would of course be uncertainties, it 
is not really clear that they would be more serious than the increasing 
changes and impacts that are occurring. It just seems to me that to do 
nothing while continuing with research just lets the situation get worse 
and then the cure having to be so much stronger than deployment itself 
could be problematic.


If, as Santer et al suggest, early 21st century rate of warming was 
slowed by the cooling influences of small volcanic eruptions that 
injected amounts that were barely noticeable even with advanced 
instruments and really not at all noticeable by the general public, I'd 
suggest that we actually have a natural analog of the type of influence 
that I am suggesting be pursued. And, in that we will be learning along 
the way through the 20-year research program (let's assume that the 
research is funded), so it just seems, as noted above, that the 
uncertainties associated with such an approach would not be less than 
the impacts and uncertainties of deferring all intervention efforts 
until some probably pretty arbitrary level of understanding in the future.


Regarding my favoring of regionally focused alterations, I would make 
that a research priority, but I'd suggest that the earlier one started 
injecting enough sulfur to offset each year's forcing increment or so, 
the better--just thinking that, in the type of relative risk framing 
that I view as appropriate to the situation given where we are, that, 
with mitigation ramping up virtually everywhere (and the US doing 
somewhat well despite the Administration's mistaken actions), starting 
very modestly with stratospheric aerosol climate intervention could 
really help in making sure that the situation is not so bad by the time 
we learn enough to "make reasonably informed decisions" (whatever that 
means) that we will be unable to avoid significant overshoot of the 
global average temperature without such aggressive intervention that 
we'll be suffering from both the growing impacts and then the supposed cure.


At the very least, I would think a good case could be made for such an 
effort.


Best regards, Mike MacCracken




On 11/4/17 11:43 AM, Douglas MacMartin wrote:

Both SAI and MCB probably need of order of 20 years of research before we could make 
reasonably informed decisions; both have a long list of unknowns.  (In the case of MCB, 
we don't even really know if it "works" in any meaningful sense of the word, 
because cloud-aerosol interactions are too uncertain today, so we really don't know 
whether there is a useful fraction of cloud meteorological conditions in which the albedo 
is significantly enhanced.  We should all really really hope that it doesn't work very 
well, because if it doesn't, that means the indirect aerosol effect is smaller than 
current best guess and climate sensitivity will be on the low end...)

(And, of course, at the current level of worldwide funding, that "20" above is 
probably off by a few orders of magnitude.)

-Original Message-
From: geoengineering@googlegroups.com [mailto:geoengineering@googlegroups.com] 
On Behalf Of Michael Hayes
Sent: Saturday, November 04, 2017 10:00 AM
To: geoengineering 
Subject: Re: [geo] Can anyone offer a CE perspective on this SLR article?

Holly and List,

The use of sulfur needs proper polar field level testing. Testing is planned 
yet may not be done in areas prone to Polar Stratospheric Cloud formation. Time 
of the season is also of the essence for testing.

Until that is done, SAI has a large question to answer; in general terms.

MCB, used in key areas, is a critical first step. There should be no deflection 
at that engineering level. Once MCB paves the way, other marine capable systems 
can gain traction.

What marine engineering minded person or institution would not give Steven's 
word heavy weight? This is a marine issue.



--
You 

Re: [geo] Geostorm

[Michael MacCracken]

rm/helps prepare for a more serious political debate on the 
need for SRM trials as a climate band-aid.  Its real value could then 
be in helping shift popular attitudes on the primary need for the only 
long-term escape route, finding profitable ways to remove excess 
carbon from the air.
Noting your comments about the failure and spin of the IPCC makes me 
feel that Trump’s withdrawal from Paris could perversely have the good 
effect of shaking up the debate to make it more realistic, perhaps 
even lifting the appalling UN informal ‘fatwa’ on geoengineering.
I think you misread the politics of /Geostorm/. The big takeaway is 
that the world community in the very near future will decide that 
climate change is so bad and dangerous that drastic steps are needed, 
with real practical change rather than the failed political spin 
agreed at Paris.  And the next message from this movie is that we 
should start now, since waiting to respond to a crisis carries too 
many risks.

Robert Tulip


----
*From:* Michael MacCracken <mmacc...@comcast.net>
*To:* rtulip2...@yahoo.com.au; "rob...@envsci.rutgers.edu" 
<rob...@envsci.rutgers.edu>; "geoengineering@googlegroups.com" 
<geoengineering@googlegroups.com>

*Sent:* Thursday, 26 October 2017, 14:28
*Subject:* Re: [geo] Geostorm

Dear Robert--Personally, I'd rather there were a movie focusing on the 
how the world could accomplish aggressive mitigation and necessary 
adaptation to avoid the very serious projected impacts of business as 
usual (including the limited reduction with the present Paris 
commitments), and then showing how modest climate engineering could be 
used to shave the peak warming and impacts down further, with SRM 
being phased back out as further mitigation and CDR pull the GHG 
loading back down to less than 350 ppm CO2e or so. Without some good 
indication of where we need to go, it will be hard for the public and 
decision-makers to have a sense of the closing escape route from the 
path we are on.
The draft IPCC 1.5 report really fails to make all of this clear. They 
label their pathways by its eventual stabilization level, so a 1.5 
pathway can allow the temperature to go up to 4 C or so if it 
eventually comes back to 1.5 C. And then, without really talking about 
the seriousness of a prolonged 1.5 C world, there is an acceptance of 
long-term stabilization at 1.5 C because that will be a less bad world 
than a 2 C world. In a 1.5 C world, there will be real damage to 
species and landscape  and also to many, many of the most vulnerable 
in the world given what they experience will likely be more than the 
global average. Those most at risk should be clamoring far more than 
the leaders of the island nations who got the Paris Accord expressing 
a goal of 1.5 C as the resulting pace of sea level rise and then also 
ocean acidification at the associated CO2 concentration level will 
likely be quite serious.
I really don't see how an absurd fantasy movie based on misusing and 
misrepresenting the tourniquet the would needs to deal with the true 
situation that we face can really help in advancing the discussion of 
how to work through the delicate and combined application of the range 
of approaches that need to be applied to avoid the rapidly worsening 
situation that we are in. Somehow suggesting that climate engineering 
is at all likely to lead to much, much  worse consequences than not 
using it just seems not helpful at all.

Mike MacCracken


On 10/25/17 8:40 AM, 'Robert Tulip' via geoengineering wrote:

*Geostorm deserves to be a smash hit.*

In watching an action fantasy world apocalypse movie like Geostorm 
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EuOlYPSEzSc>, a temptation for the 
cynical can be to just see the surface appearance.  First a village 
mysteriously freezes solid in an instant in Afghanistan, then the 
streets of Hong Kong erupt in flaming explosions sending skyscrapers 
collapsing like dominoes while a driver miraculously escapes through 
the rippling volcanic chasms opening around him.  And next the bikini 
babes on Copacabana turn to blocks of ice as a super cold front 
somehow pushes a tsunami onto the Rio beachfront.


The cause of the disasters is problems with geoengineering satellites 
deployed in 2019. But is this just a programming malfunction? If not, 
who are the baddies who have sabotaged the world weather management 
system run by the USA? Why and how did they do it, and how can they 
be stopped?  Who is the rogue on board the geoengineering space 
station? Will the clock that he started tick down to zero, causing a 
geostorm, a fiery end to life on earth?  Will the US President die in 
the robot car chase through massive lightning bolts hitting every 
second? Will the hero return from exile, and will he survive on the 
space station? Will his brother get the girl?  Which city is next?


Such plot details

Re: [geo] Geostorm

[Michael MacCracken]

Dear Robert--Personally, I'd rather there were a movie focusing on the 
how the world could accomplish aggressive mitigation and necessary 
adaptation to avoid the very serious projected impacts of business as 
usual (including the limited reduction with the present Paris 
commitments), and then showing how modest climate engineering could be 
used to shave the peak warming and impacts down further, with SRM being 
phased back out as further mitigation and CDR pull the GHG loading back 
down to less than 350 ppm CO2e or so. Without some good indication of 
where we need to go, it will be hard for the public and decision-makers 
to have a sense of the closing escape route from the path we are on.


The draft IPCC 1.5 report really fails to make all of this clear. They 
label their pathways by its eventual stabilization level, so a 1.5 
pathway can allow the temperature to go up to 4 C or so if it eventually 
comes back to 1.5 C. And then, without really talking about the 
seriousness of a prolonged 1.5 C world, there is an acceptance of 
long-term stabilization at 1.5 C because that will be a less bad world 
than a 2 C world. In a 1.5 C world, there will be real damage to species 
and landscape  and also to many, many of the most vulnerable in the 
world given what they experience will likely be more than the global 
average. Those most at risk should be clamoring far more than the 
leaders of the island nations who got the Paris Accord expressing a goal 
of 1.5 C as the resulting pace of sea level rise and then also ocean 
acidification at the associated CO2 concentration level will likely be 
quite serious.


I really don't see how an absurd fantasy movie based on misusing and 
misrepresenting the tourniquet the would needs to deal with the true 
situation that we face can really help in advancing the discussion of 
how to work through the delicate and combined application of the range 
of approaches that need to be applied to avoid the rapidly worsening 
situation that we are in. Somehow suggesting that climate engineering is 
at all likely to lead to much, much  worse consequences than not using 
it just seems not helpful at all.


Mike MacCracken



On 10/25/17 8:40 AM, 'Robert Tulip' via geoengineering wrote:

*Geostorm deserves to be a smash hit.*

In watching an action fantasy world apocalypse movie like Geostorm 
, a temptation for the 
cynical can be to just see the surface appearance.  First a village 
mysteriously freezes solid in an instant in Afghanistan, then the 
streets of Hong Kong erupt in flaming explosions sending skyscrapers 
collapsing like dominoes while a driver miraculously escapes through 
the rippling volcanic chasms opening around him.  And next the bikini 
babes on Copacabana turn to blocks of ice as a super cold front 
somehow pushes a tsunami onto the Rio beachfront.


The cause of the disasters is problems with geoengineering satellites 
deployed in 2019.  But is this just a programming malfunction? If not, 
who are the baddies who have sabotaged the world weather management 
system run by the USA? Why and how did they do it, and how can they be 
stopped?  Who is the rogue on board the geoengineering space station? 
Will the clock that he started tick down to zero, causing a geostorm, 
a fiery end to life on earth?  Will the US President die in the robot 
car chase through massive lightning bolts hitting every second? Will 
the hero return from exile, and will he survive on the space station? 
Will his brother get the girl?  Which city is next?


Such plot details are classic Hollywood formula.  This movie combines 
amazing disaster scenes, excellent visuals and production, a strong 
simple plot, a vivid range of characters and great acting into a 
gripping thriller. Geostorm is full of tension and drama and surprise 
and new ideas down to the wire. It is a worthy popular successor to 
Independence Day and Godzilla, which were both also produced by the 
Geostorm producer/director Dean Devlin.


Geostorm deserves to be a smash hit for a serious reason though.  This 
movie makes an important and well considered contribution to advancing 
policy debate on response to climate change.  The question raised at 
the start is how to address the threat that global warming could 
destroy the world economy. This explicitly raises the need for urgent 
concerted technological response to avert catastrophe, since previous 
methods focused on emission reduction have failed.


The movie deliberately chooses an impossible geoengineering 
technology, aiming to blend the topical ideas of weather management 
and space travel to create a science fiction fantasy. But the risk 
parable is equally applicable to realistic geoengineering proposals, 
ranging from solar radiation management to large scale ocean based 
algae production for carbon mining.  Any large scale climate 
intervention needs proper risk management if it is to help forestall 
the 

Re: [geo] Swanson's law

[Michael MacCracken]

A problem at present is that present high-voltage/alternating current 
distribution lines mean that low-cost transmission of electricity is 
limited to a few hundred miles, so one would have to disperse DAC. If 
instead there were large-scale high-voltage/direct current distribution 
lines (see MacDonald et al., Nature, January 2016), then there could be 
long distance, low-cost transmission over large distances and one would 
have a much better likelihood of having access to any stranded energy 
(from wind, solar, geothermal, nuclear, etc.), all while having DAC 
located where it would be optimally able to store the captured carbon. 
Just another reason, among many, for having large-scale HV/DC networks 
across the world's continents.


Mike MacCracken


On 9/17/17 10:50 AM, Hawkins, Dave wrote:
Using stranded renewable energy for DAC is an interesting idea. 
 Question is what energy resource will be used during periods when 
there is no surplus RE? If DAC does not run 24/7 its costs go up. If 
DAC uses RE to run 24/7, that requires a larger RE system with 
associated stranding. If DAC uses something other than RE, what is it? 
Ideally, we would have an economically dispatchable zero-carbon resource.
This is not an argument against DAC, just an observation on system 
complexity.


Sent from my iPad

On Sep 17, 2017, at 3:58 AM, Andrew Lockley > wrote:


Does anyone have a breakdown of projected input costs for Direct Air 
Capture? I'm interested in quantifying the energy component.


Swanson's law predicts reliable falls in the cost of solar. Without 
storage, much peak-time solar could be wasted, unless it's used for 
time-insensitive applications like DAC or desalination.


(I understand Keith's process needs electricity, but Lackner's 
instead needs heat.)


My hypothesis is that DAC could become vastly cheaper, if energy 
costs trended down as expected due to Swanson's law, and cheaper 
still if it became a way to use this stranded energy.


I'd welcome thoughts, data, projections and comments.

Thanks

Andrew Lockley

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Re: [geo] SRM / Death by volcano?

[Michael MacCracken]

At least for the Cretaceous extinction, there is good evidence that an 
asteroid impact played at least some, if not the major, role. In that an 
asteroid impact creates quite a massive shock wave, that there might be 
enough geological disruption at the antipode (or near to it) to have 
resulted in the unusual burst of volcanic eruptions that occurred in the 
Indian subcontinent seems to me a plausible hypothesis for connection of 
the two suggested causes of the sharp extinction that occurred, and this 
linkages seems to me to be a more reasonable hypothesis than assuming a 
chance coincidence in timing of the two very massive and unusual events.


With the land surface and ocean depths being recreated over time as the 
tectonic plates shift, evidence for such linkages for older extinctions 
may well be very hard to pin down, but, while I am not an expert in the 
field or well read in it, I've not read or heard of a good explanation 
for why there might from time to time be such massive volcanic eruptions 
suddenly starting absent some triggering cause like a massive asteroid 
impact.


Thus, might it be that the extinction events are really being caused by 
the joint actions of an asteroid impact and a subsequent extensive 
massive volcanic event? If so, then the potential for considering the 
Ordivician extinction (or other extinctions) as a possible analog for 
stratospheric climate intervention would seem to require a good deal 
more research into the extinction events to get a much better sense of 
what caused what and how.


Mike MacCracken


On 5/31/17 10:51 AM, Renaud de_Richter wrote:
*Anyone concerned by the idea that people might try to combat global 
warming by injecting tons of sulfate aerosols*
*into Earth's atmosphere may want to read an article in the May 1, 
2017 issue of the journal Geology.*


https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/05/170530082345.htm
http://geology.gsapubs.org/content/early/2017/05/01/G38940.1.full.pdf

In the article, a Washington University scientist and his colleagues 
describe what happened when pulses of
atmospheric carbon dioxide and sulfate aerosols were intermixed at the 
end of the Ordivician geological period more than 440 million years ago.
The counterpart of the tumult in the skies was death in the seas. At a 
time when most of the planet north of the
tropics was covered by an ocean and most complex multicellular 
organisms lived in the sea, 85 percent of marine
animal species disappeared forever. The end Ordivician extinction, as 
this event was called, was one of the five

largest mass extinctions in Earth's history.
Although the gases were injected into the atmosphere by massive 
volcanism rather than prodigious burning of fossil
fuels and under circumstances that will never be exactly repeated, 
they provide a worrying case history that reveals

the potential instability of planetaryscale climate dynamics.
Figuring out what caused the end Ordivician extinction or any of the 
other mass extinctions in Earth's history is
notoriously difficult, said David Fike, associate professor of earth 
and planetary sciences in Arts & Sciences and a coauthor on the paper.
Because the ancient atmospheres and oceans have long since been 
altered beyond recognition, scientists have to
work from proxies, such as variations in oxygen isotopes in ancient 
rock, to learn about climates long past. The
trouble with most proxies, said Fike, who specializes in interpreting 
the chemical signatures of biological and
geological activity in the rock record, is that most elements in rock 
participate in so many chemical reactions that a

signal can often be interpreted in more than one way.
But a team led by David Jones, an earth scientist at Amherst College, 
was able to bypass this problem by
measuring the abundance of mercury. Today, the primary sources of 
mercury are coalburning power plants and
other anthropocentric activities; during the Ordivician, however, the 
main source was volcanism.
Volcanism coincides with mass extinctions with suspicious frequency, 
Fike said. He is speaking not about an
isolated volcano but rather about massive eruptions that covered 
thousands of square kilometers with thick lava
flows, creating large igneous provinces (LIPs). The most famous U.S. 
example of a LIP is the Columbia River Basalt
province, which covers most of the southeastern part of the state of 
Washington and extends to the Pacific and into Oregon.
Volcanoes are plausible climate forcers, or change agents, because 
they release both carbon dioxide that can produce longterm
greenhouse warming and sulfur dioxide that can cause shortterm 
reflective cooling. In addition,
the weathering of vast plains of newly exposed rock can draw down 
atmospheric carbon dioxide and bury it as

limestone minerals in the oceans, also causing cooling.
When Jones analyzed samples of rock of Ordivician age from south China 
and the Monitor Range in Nevada, he
found anomalously high mercury 

Re: [geo] This factory will be the first to suck up carbon dioxide and feed it to vegetables

[Michael MacCracken]

How is this geoengineering? Basically they up the ambient CO2 
concentration to grow food crops that are eaten and the CO2 is 
released--and presumably the benefit of having a higher CO2 
concentration in the greenhouse pays for the extraction from normal air. 
If they used the crops they grow to replace fossil fuel burning, I would 
understand, but growing food crops would not seem to me to involve any 
net effect on the atmospheric concentration. So, if this is the case, 
leakage does not really matter.


Mike


On 5/2/17 3:55 PM, Steve Rayner wrote:
Does anyone know how much of the CO2 fed to the greenhouses will 
escape back to the atmosphere? To a layperson such as myself, it seems 
unlikely that all of it will be taken up by the crops.


Steve

Steve Rayner
James Martin Professor of Science & Civilization
Director, Institute for Science, Innovation & Society
Professorial Fellow, Keble College
University of Oxford
64 Banbury Road
Oxford OX2 6PN
T: +44 (0)1865 288938
E: steve.ray...@insis.ox.ac.uk


From: > on behalf of Andrew Lockley 
>
Reply-To: "andrew.lock...@gmail.com " 
>

Date: Tuesday, 2 May 2017 at 19:09
To: geoengineering >
Subject: [geo] This factory will be the first to suck up carbon 
dioxide and feed it to vegetables


https://news.vice.com/story/this-factory-will-suck-carbon-out-of-the-air-and-feed-it-to-plants 



Watch VICE on HBO Friday at 7:30 and 11.

CLIMATE 
 




Going negative

This factory will be the first to suck up carbon dioxide and feed it 
to vegetables 




  This factory will be the first to suck up carbon dioxide and feed it
  to vegetables

By Tien Nguyen  on May 
1, 2017



On May 31, the Swiss company Climeworks will turn on the first 
commercial plant to suck carbon dioxide out of the air and feed it to 
vegetables in a neighboring greenhouse. Located in the tiny, 
agricultural municipality of Hinwil, Switzerland, the plant stands 40 
feet tall and looks like a rectangular wall of oversized dryers 
stacked three-high.


It will be the first business to sell carbon dioxide drawn right out 
of its surroundings, using a technology called direct air capture. To 
date, carbon capture technologies have been restricted to areas where 
there are high concentrations — like the smokestacks of coal-fired 
plants. But the promise of direct air capture is to grab the kind of 
ambient carbon emitted by cars, aircraft, and trains.


ADVERTISEMENT

Since it’s not happening at the source, direct air capture must be 
able to deal with lower concentrations (0.04 percent of air), making 
the technology inherently more difficult, and expensive. That’s why 
until now, it has been demonstrated only in small, experimental pilot 
plants.


What Climeworks is hoping to show in Hinwil isn’t just that the 
technology works but that captured carbon can then be resold as plant 
fertilizer, fuel, or even for carbonated beverages.



  How this could help the environment

But climate scientists say so-called negative-emissions technologies — 
which remove pollutants from air — will be crucial to meet the goal of 
the Paris Agreement, the landmark 2015 deal co-signed by 196 nations, 
to hold the increase in global temperature to no more than 2 degrees 
Celsius.


“Climeworks is the first to scale up to substantive level,” said Julio 
Friedmann, a former principal deputy assistant for fossil energy for 
the U.S. Department of Energy and senior adviser at the Lawrence 
Livermore National Lab. “There’s almost no way to hit those targets 
without using negative emissions, and in some cases, quite soon.”


The plant is projected to capture 900 metric tons of the greenhouse 
gas, or about the emissions from 200 cars a year. It traps ambient 
carbon dioxide with absorbent filters inside the plant’s air 
collector. To release the carbon dioxide, the filters are heated to 
212 °F with waste heat from a neighboring partner waste incinerator 
plant owned by the company Kezo. The freed carbon dioxide is then 
pumped over to the greenhouse operated by Gebrüder Meier to “enhance 
the growth of vegetables and lettuce by up to 20 percent,” according 
to a press release.


One study 
 estimates that 
to avoid 

Re: [geo] Former UN climate advisor leads initiative to regulate geo-engineering

[Michael MacCracken]

On what basis is one suggesting that the side effects could be 
"potentially devastating"? Even with there possibly being unusual or 
negative consequences along with, for most regions, the return toward 
conditions that are more like, for example, late 20th century 
conditions, the comparison needs to be to what the consequences are 
projected to be without climate intervention, and those are tremendous, 
and one might suggest, the ones that should be referred to as 
"devastating." There may well be strong reasons not to intervene to 
alter the climate, but I don't think that suggesting that the 
consequences will be worse than those without climate intervention is 
anywhere near the top reason and coming into the analysis with that bias 
seems to me quite unjustified.


Mike MacCracken


On 3/31/17 5:10 AM, Andrew Lockley wrote:


http://cicero.uio.no/no/posts/klima/former-un-climate-advisor-leads-initiative-to-regulate-geo-engineering 




  Former UN climate advisor leads initiative to regulate geo-engineering


KLIMA  - Et magasin om
klimaforskning fra CICERO


  Key scientists

Christian BjørnæsCOMMUNICATION DIRECTOR


Publisert 23.03.2017


  Geo-engineering can be a cheap way of instantly lowering the
  Earth’s temperature - with potentially devastating side effects.
  The technology is here but international regulation is lacking.

The desire to control the weather is as old as humanity but only over 
the last decade have we started to develop technologies to alter the 
climate. A few are already developed, some exists only as models, and 
most are still at the level of academic research.


On 16 February the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International 
Affairs launched the Carnegie Climate Geoengineering Governance 
Initiative , 
a four year initiative to advance the governance of geo-engineering. 
The project is bankrolled by the Carnegie Foundation and lead by Janos 
Pasztor. Most recently, Pasztor was the United Nations assistant 
secretary-general for climate change under Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.


“There is very little, practically no discussion about geo-engineering 
at the policy level. Our job is to move the debate from academia into 
intergovernmental policy space and to develop governance”, said 
Pasztor when KLIMA met him at COP22 in Marrakech.


Climate geoengineering is deliberate, intentional planetary-scale
interventions in the Earth system to counteract climate change

The long-term objective of the C2G2 Initiative is to encourage policy 
dialogues on and to contribute to the development of governance 
frameworks for climate geoengineering, which is defined as deliberate, 
intentional planetary-scale interventions in the Earth system to 
counteract climate change.



Two main technologies

Geo-engineering technologies can be divided in two categories. The 
technologies that absorb CO2 from the atmosphere are called carbon 
dioxide removal. Those that reduce the amount of sunlight that reaches 
the earth’s surface are called solar radiation management.


Solar radiation management, where for instance particles are spewed 
into the stratosphere to block sunlight from reaching the earth’s 
surface, can work fast and are relatively cheap.


The low cost of some of these technologies could tempt countries and 
even some large companies to deploy solar radiation management to 
protect their interests.


“The problem with solar radiation management is that it doesn’t solve 
the problem. Unless you simultaneously reduce emissions, you must 
manage the incoming solar radiation for hundreds of years.


“Carbon dioxide removal on the other hand is relatively expensive and 
it takes time, but it also solves the problem. You have two completely 
different techniques and many researchers believe that we are most 
likely to use them in combination”, said Pasztor.



Bio energy with CCS

Bio energy with carbon capture and storage, known as BECCS, is a 
carbon dioxide removal technology. It is often referred to as negative 
emissions and built into most of the IPCCs 2C scenarios. Although 
considered mostly harmless, widespread use of BECCS to compensate for 
high emissions will have side effects too.


“It has huge impact on land use, on water use, it affects 
precipitation and therefore can threaten food security”, said Pasztor.


The Initiative will neither promote nor be necessarily against the 
potential use of climate geoengineering, but will advocate for the 
development of governance frameworks necessary for expanded research 
on such techniques, including their environmental, social, and 
economic impacts, as well as for their potential deployment.


“There is a plausible scenario in the next five, ten, fifteen years 
that some governments may turn to geo-engineering. The IPCCs latest 

Re: [geo] Record Increase in Air CO2

[Michael MacCracken]

I'd only add that in your way of thinking, the drain can also get 
clogged (e.g., if the rate of ocean overturning is slowed by the 
warming, which would also reduce the amount of nutrients coming to the 
surface, so also slow the biological pump). This is how one would 
presumably represent the increasing atmospheric fraction.


Mike


On 3/19/17 2:43 PM, Klaus Lackner wrote:


This is therefore a good time to educate people.  Emissions did not 
increase, but the annual rise in CO2 increased.  It allows you to 
explain that CO2, once put into the air, sticks to it.


I find it amazing that this far more intuitive way of thinking, has 
been wiped out by a conceptually much more complex flow model, which 
in this case is not even correct. I think you see 30 years of 
education of acid rain misapplied to CO2. It seems much more intuitive 
to consider a bathtub filling up in response to an open faucet than to 
consider the faucet being in equilibrium with a drain, and that the 
drain rate increases with increased fill, and that therefore a 
particular filling rate from the faucet is associated with a 
particular level in the tub.  Note that having a drain is not enough. 
If the drain rate is independent of the fill rate, raising the flow 
rate from the faucet will lead to a continuous and unabated rise.


A sudden increase in the CO2 level in the atmosphere, will increase 
the drain rate, but the drain rate slows down as the layer in 
equilibrium gets thicker.  One way of looking at it is to consider the 
CO2 emission rate that holds CO2 in the air constant.  It drops 
rapidly over time, even if instantly it might be 50% of current emissions.


Once this is understood, we can begin to worry why the fraction of CO2 
that goes out of the atmosphere seems to shrink.


Klaus

*From: *<geoengineering@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Michael 
MacCracken <mmacc...@comcast.net>

*Reply-To: *"mmacc...@comcast.net" <mmacc...@comcast.net>
*Date: *Sunday, March 19, 2017 at 9:30 AM
*To: *"s.sal...@ed.ac.uk" <s.sal...@ed.ac.uk>, 
"geoengineering@googlegroups.com" <geoengineering@googlegroups.com>

*Subject: *Re: [geo] Record Increase in Air CO2

I'd guess what they meant was that global emissions were about the 
same (I think the Global Carbon Project report has indicated this). 
There is this serious misperception that if emissions don't go up, 
concentrations won't go up, and so all we have to do is stop growth in 
emissions.


Mike

On 3/19/17 6:39 AM, Stephen Salter wrote:

Hi All

The Financial Times story was about reported emissions and the
NOAA report was about atmospheric measurements.

Perhaps reports have been tweeked or CO2 sinks have become less
effective.

Stephen

On 19/03/2017 09:16, 'Robert Tulip' via geoengineering wrote:

The International Energy Agency and Financial Times are
claiming the opposite.

mage removed by
sender.https://www.ft.com/content/540ebb0c-0a60-11e7-ac5a-903b21361b43

<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__www.ft.com_content_540ebb0c-2D0a60-2D11e7-2Dac5a-2D903b21361b43=DQMFaQ=AGbYxfJbXK67KfXyGqyv2Ejiz41FqQuZFk4A-1IxfAU=WGnYI4fX8RG4vRYEgQ58RGqZxcDNS0ar5UCuy0zW9_A=1XTqe1Tj9N1WDBwpI1xrET0_dSN1aGigUbf-P2HBlKA=voxC__g9yDWN1GEoQFBwJhy7RzJDOuKk6fbD1xxT5Qk=>
 makes
the false claim of "global CO2 levels in 2016 virtually
unchanged from the two previous years, the International
Energy Agency said."

Robert Tulip



*From:*Greg Rau <gh...@sbcglobal.net> <mailto:gh...@sbcglobal.net>
*To:* Geoengineering <geoengineering@googlegroups.com>
<mailto:geoengineering@googlegroups.com>
*Cc:* Arctic Methane Google Group
<arcticmeth...@googlegroups.com>
<mailto:arcticmeth...@googlegroups.com>
*Sent:* Wednesday, 15 March 2017, 5:41
*Subject:* [geo] Record Increase in Air CO2

mage removed by
sender.https://phys.org/news/2017-03-carbon-dioxide-rose-pace-2nd.html

<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__phys.org_news_2017-2D03-2Dcarbon-2Ddioxide-2Drose-2Dpace-2D2nd.html=DQMFaQ=AGbYxfJbXK67KfXyGqyv2Ejiz41FqQuZFk4A-1IxfAU=WGnYI4fX8RG4vRYEgQ58RGqZxcDNS0ar5UCuy0zW9_A=1XTqe1Tj9N1WDBwpI1xrET0_dSN1aGigUbf-P2HBlKA=56Uwd9giBhr2nR874l_BTRPgGwYyaldo16YgoMS3WFI=>

"The two-year, 6-ppm surge in the mage removed by
sender.greenhouse gas

<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__phys.org_tags_greenhouse-2Bgas_=DQMFaQ=AGbYxfJbXK67KfXyGqyv2Ejiz41FqQuZFk4A-1IxfAU=WGnYI4fX8RG4vRYEgQ58RGqZxcDNS0ar5UCuy0zW9_A=1XTqe1Tj9N1WDBwpI1xrET0_dSN1aGigUbf-P2HBlKA=p17Mhe5V35B8Fwaocrle0YjCrtc2BAW3qaw51yOGojI=>
 between
2015 and 2017 is unprecedented in the observatory's 59-ye

Re: [geo] Record Increase in Air CO2

[Michael MacCracken]

I'd guess what they meant was that global emissions were about the same 
(I think the Global Carbon Project report has indicated this). There is 
this serious misperception that if emissions don't go up, concentrations 
won't go up, and so all we have to do is stop growth in emissions.


Mike


On 3/19/17 6:39 AM, Stephen Salter wrote:


Hi All

The Financial Times story was about reported emissions and the NOAA 
report was about atmospheric measurements.


Perhaps reports have been tweeked or CO2 sinks have become less effective.

Stephen


On 19/03/2017 09:16, 'Robert Tulip' via geoengineering wrote:
The International Energy Agency and Financial Times are claiming the 
opposite.


https://www.ft.com/content/540ebb0c-0a60-11e7-ac5a-903b21361b43 makes 
the false claim of "global CO2 levels in 2016 virtually unchanged 
from the two previous years, the International Energy Agency said."


Robert Tulip



*From:* Greg Rau 
*To:* Geoengineering 
*Cc:* Arctic Methane Google Group 
*Sent:* Wednesday, 15 March 2017, 5:41
*Subject:* [geo] Record Increase in Air CO2

https://phys.org/news/2017-03-carbon-dioxide-rose-pace-2nd.html

"The two-year, 6-ppm surge in the greenhouse gas 
 between 2015 and 2017 is 
unprecedented in the observatory's 59-year record. And, it was a 
record fifth consecutive year that carbon dioxide 
 (CO2) rose by 2 ppm or 
greater, said Pieter Tans, lead scientist of NOAA's Global Greenhouse 
Gas Reference Network."


GR - If anthro emissions have plateaued, 
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/nov/14/fossil-fuel-co2-emissions-nearly-stable-for-third-year-in-row why 
the dramatic increase in CO2? A runaway GH is upon us? Anyway, is it 
time yet to admit that anthro emissions reduction is failing and to 
find out if CDR is more than a figment of IPCC's imagination?


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--
Emeritus Professor of Engineering Design.
School of Engineering,
University of Edinburgh, Mayfield Road, Edinburgh EH9 3JL, Scotland
s.sal...@ed.ac.uk, Tel +44 (0)131 650 5704, Cell 07795 203 195,
WWW.homepages.ed.ac.uk/shs,
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Re: [geo] Re: Social Cost of Carbon - new NAS report (on methodology - not values of)

[Michael MacCracken]

Hi Adrian--Agreed, not much consolation to EPA or NOAA given Trump's 
choices, although the court will hopefully go through and put out its 
decision, hopefully supporting the plan and basically refuting the 
arguments of Pruitt et al. One has to go after the dumb arguments 
wherever they occur.


Mike


On 3/4/17 1:36 PM, Adrian Tuck wrote:
That’ll come as a very small consolation to NOAA, see the link below. 
They’re politicians, look at what they do, not what they say.

https://wpo.st/nM3f2
On 4 Mar 2017, at 18:27, Michael MacCracken <mmacc...@comcast.net 
<mailto:mmacc...@comcast.net>> wrote:


On the Chairman's statement about likely effects, these are the 
claims of those suing EPA and are based on impacts in 2050 of a 
regulation that does not would not come into full effect until 2030, 
so these were arguably the impacts after only 20 years (so not 
equilibrium). I prepared a legal declaration for the environmental 
groups that intervened in the legal case on behalf of EPA (see 
https://www.nrdc.org/sites/default/files/leg_15120902a.pdf, starting 
on page B440). I'd note that, in addition, the changes were with 
respect, as I recall to a relatively low emission scenario. With 
respect to sea level, if one calculated the sea level sensitivity 
from paleoclimate studies (so, say, 120 meters for 6 C temperature 
change), it is something like 500 times as large as the sensitivity 
the states claimed and Smith referred to. Similarly, on the emissions 
reductions it carries out over time--so choosing 2050, is just very 
misleading.


Mike MacCracken


On 2/28/17 2:27 PM, Greg Rau wrote:

Thanks, Robot.

Missed the hearing, but found the website:
https://science.house.gov/legislation/hearings/subcommittee-environment-and-subcommittee-oversight-hearing-what-cost-examining

Interesting opening statement by Chair L. Smith:
"Rushing to use unreliable calculations, such as the social cost of 
carbon, to justify a regulation is irresponsible and misleading.
For instance, the EPA’s Clean Power Plan would cost billions of 
dollars every year in return for a minimal benefit on the 
environment. In fact, the regulation would reduce global 
temperatures by only 0.03 degrees Celsius and limit sea level rise 
by only the width of three sheets of paper."


So he's admitting that CO2 does cause GW and SLR, and implies that 
we need to spend way more than "billions" to have a significant 
mitigating effect. - it's a start ;-)


Greg






*From:* "ro...@ultimax.com" <ro...@ultimax.com>
*To:* geoengineering <geoengineering@googlegroups.com>
*Cc:* Geoengineering@googlegroups.com
*Sent:* Tuesday, February 28, 2017 10:21 AM
*Subject:* [geo] Re: Social Cost of Carbon - new NAS report (on 
methodology - not values of)


over the transom from my fellow AAAS Fellows [Fellows Energy Climate 
digest] (which is also a Google Group) -- there's a hearing today in 
the House Science Committee about this subject:


Social Cost of CO2 hearing 
<http://groups.google.com/group/fellows_energy_climate/t/e68f758ec83d97e9?utm_source=digest_medium=email>


*Tuesday, February 28*



*Social Cost of Carbon*

*House Science, Space and Technology — Subcommittee on Oversight*

Subcommittee Hearing

*Add to my calendar* <http://www.cq.com/openeventcalendar/363654>

Environment Subcommittee and Oversight Subcommittee holds a joint 
hearing

on "At What Cost? Examining the Social Cost of Carbon."
--

*Date*

*Tuesday, Feb. 28, 10 a.m.*

*Place*

2318 Rayburn Bldg.

*Witnesses*

Ted Gayer, vice president and director of economic studies at the 
Brookings

Institution

Kevin Dayaratna, senior statistician and research programmer in the
Heritage Foundation Center for Data Analysis

Michael Greenstone, professor in economics in the Harris School of 
Public

Policy, director of the Interdisciplinary Energy Policy Institute and
director of Energy and Environment Lab in the University of 
Chicago's Urban

Labs

Patrick Michaels, director of the Cato Institute's Center for the 
Study of

Science


On Thursday, January 12, 2017 at 6:09:04 PM UTC-5, ro...@ultimax.com 
wrote:


Actually, they did project a range of values on the screen,
strongly dependent on discount rate.
They did "thousands of runs" to develop three asymmetric bell
curves of SCC values per tonne, one for each discount rate,
colored RGB.
Each of those curves had a peak way to the left, and a long tail
to the right, rather like like Wien's Law.
for 5% (green), the reported average was $12.
for 3% (blue), the reported average was $42.
for 2.5% (red), the reported average was $62.
Notable on the far right of the red bell curve was a 95%-ile
"high-impact" value of $123 per tonne.

The values seem to me a tad high for tonnes of CO2, rather
closer

Re: [geo] Re: Social Cost of Carbon - new NAS report (on methodology - not values of)

[Michael MacCracken]

On the Chairman's statement about likely effects, these are the claims 
of those suing EPA and are based on impacts in 2050 of a regulation that 
does not would not come into full effect until 2030, so these were 
arguably the impacts after only 20 years (so not equilibrium). I 
prepared a legal declaration for the environmental groups that 
intervened in the legal case on behalf of EPA (see 
https://www.nrdc.org/sites/default/files/leg_15120902a.pdf, starting on 
page B440). I'd note that, in addition, the changes were with respect, 
as I recall to a relatively low emission scenario. With respect to sea 
level, if one calculated the sea level sensitivity from paleoclimate 
studies (so, say, 120 meters for 6 C temperature change), it is 
something like 500 times as large as the sensitivity the states claimed 
and Smith referred to. Similarly, on the emissions reductions it carries 
out over time--so choosing 2050, is just very misleading.


Mike MacCracken


On 2/28/17 2:27 PM, Greg Rau wrote:

Thanks, Robot.

Missed the hearing, but found the website:
https://science.house.gov/legislation/hearings/subcommittee-environment-and-subcommittee-oversight-hearing-what-cost-examining

Interesting opening statement by Chair L. Smith:
"Rushing to use unreliable calculations, such as the social cost of 
carbon, to justify a regulation is irresponsible and misleading.
For instance, the EPA’s Clean Power Plan would cost billions of 
dollars every year in return for a minimal benefit on the environment. 
In fact, the regulation would reduce global temperatures by only 0.03 
degrees Celsius and limit sea level rise by only the width of three 
sheets of paper."


So he's admitting that CO2 does cause GW and SLR, and implies that we 
need to spend way more than "billions" to have a significant 
mitigating effect. - it's a start ;-)


Greg






*From:* "ro...@ultimax.com" 
*To:* geoengineering 
*Cc:* Geoengineering@googlegroups.com
*Sent:* Tuesday, February 28, 2017 10:21 AM
*Subject:* [geo] Re: Social Cost of Carbon - new NAS report (on 
methodology - not values of)


over the transom from my fellow AAAS Fellows [Fellows Energy Climate 
digest] (which is also a Google Group) -- there's a hearing today in 
the House Science Committee about this subject:


Social Cost of CO2 hearing 



*Tuesday, February 28*



*Social Cost of Carbon*

*House Science, Space and Technology — Subcommittee on Oversight*

Subcommittee Hearing

*Add to my calendar* 

Environment Subcommittee and Oversight Subcommittee holds a joint hearing
on "At What Cost? Examining the Social Cost of Carbon."
--

*Date*

*Tuesday, Feb. 28, 10 a.m.*

*Place*

2318 Rayburn Bldg.

*Witnesses*

Ted Gayer, vice president and director of economic studies at the 
Brookings

Institution

Kevin Dayaratna, senior statistician and research programmer in the
Heritage Foundation Center for Data Analysis

Michael Greenstone, professor in economics in the Harris School of Public
Policy, director of the Interdisciplinary Energy Policy Institute and
director of Energy and Environment Lab in the University of Chicago's 
Urban

Labs

Patrick Michaels, director of the Cato Institute's Center for the Study of
Science


On Thursday, January 12, 2017 at 6:09:04 PM UTC-5, ro...@ultimax.com 
wrote:


Actually, they did project a range of values on the screen,
strongly dependent on discount rate.
They did "thousands of runs" to develop three asymmetric bell
curves of SCC values per tonne, one for each discount rate,
colored RGB.
Each of those curves had a peak way to the left, and a long tail
to the right, rather like like Wien's Law.
for 5% (green), the reported average was $12.
for 3% (blue), the reported average was $42.
for 2.5% (red), the reported average was $62.
Notable on the far right of the red bell curve was a 95%-ile
"high-impact" value of $123 per tonne.

The values seem to me a tad high for tonnes of CO2, rather closer
to what I would expect for tonnes of *carbon*.

They did ask one of the questions I emailed in, so I was happy
about that.
The moderator didn't pose the other one, which was, why not
consider a 1% discount rate? (Since the world is at historically
low rate regime, almost deflationary.)  3% and 2.5% are too close
to each other to get a feel for first-order SCC as f(i).  However,
was interesting to see second-order sensitivity: a half-point
decrease in discount rate (i.e. - 50 basis points) yielded a $20
increase (5000 basis points!!) in SCC!  You'd expect the sign
change, but the magnitude surprised me.  That's why I was so
interested in what the effect of 1% 

Re: [geo] macdonaldwordsworth_nature_submitted.pdf

[Michael MacCracken]

I'd like to suggest that a one-dimensional radiative-convective model is 
not the right model to really be doing this analysis and the resulting 
naming of the situation would seem to be misleading. Snowball-Earth 
outcomes from models started with, as I recall, the energy balance 
models of Sellers and Budyko back in the late 1960s. At the time (so 
almost 50 years ago), I was doing my dissertation, which involved 
developing a 2-D latitude-altitude model with fractional surface types 
at each latitude and then considering a couple of possible hypotheses 
that were then suggested as being the driving factors for 
glacial-interglacial cycling (including, as the causes of the glacial 
phase: dimmer Sun, brighter Sun that hypothesized significant cloud 
cover increases, Ewing-Donn Arctic Ocean hypothesis with open Arctic, 
and spread of Antarctic ice shelves--the ocean core showing Milankovitch 
timing was not yet published). One of the additional simulations I ran 
considered a snow-covered Earth. In that my model was derived from the 
first global atmospheric GCM constructed by Chuck Leith, I retained the 
diurnal solar cycle that he included in his model (GFDL did not add the 
diurnal cycle to its atmospheric for another ten years or so). When one 
does this, and considers effects of solar at each latitude, time of day, 
and season of the year instead of the global average, diurnal average 
solar radiation in a radiative-convective model, my results showed that 
there was simply no way that fresh snow could last in the face of 
low-latitude mid-day solar radiation (I had a multi-layer 
parameterization for layers of snow and ice). Aside from the question of 
how one gets much precipitation and fresh snow if the Earth is covered 
with snow, there was simply no way that fresh snow, with an albedo of 
80% or so, but a low vertical thermal conductivity so no way to 
redistribute the absorbed solar radiation vertically, could keep from 
melting, and once this happens, the surface albedo drops and so there is 
more solar absorbed. In my model, the meltwater could refreeze at night, 
so creating ice, which I assumed had an albedo of something like 30%. 
Now, ice typically has a much higher vertical conductivity, so the solar 
radiation absorbed could be spread better vertically, there was the 
potential to have an ice-covered Earth (at least on elevated land).


The paper circulated postulates very large volcanic activity to get to a 
snowball Earth. It is the case, as shown in the nuclear winter studies, 
that if one absorbs solar radiation above the greenhouse gases, the 
Earth will of course get cold,  and the same would be possible with the 
aerosols reflecting energy back to space. Studies of volcanic effects on 
solar radiation now indicate that a thin layer of sulfate aerosols 
scatters forward about ten times as much solar radiation as reflected 
back to space with a small fraction absorbed--with larger amounts of 
aerosols, more absorption would occur in the layer. With so much aerosol 
and cooling, I'd suggest that it would be hard to be getting much 
precipitation, so fresh snow, and the volcanic emissions would 
eventually be falling on the snow, so it would likely be dark and the 
albedo would drop. If it is thus really the volcanic aerosols causing 
the cooling and not the albedo, I do wonder if naming the situation 
snowball Earth really describes what is assumed to be happening. A more 
informative label might be a volcanically frozen Earth.


Mike MacCracken


On 2/15/17 6:19 PM, Andrew Lockley wrote:
Poster's note : this is the natural analogue of the events depicted in 
the geoengineering movie "snowpiercer"


Initiation of Snowball Earth with volcanic sulfur aerosol emissions
F. A. Macdonald1 & R. Wordsworth2, 1
1 Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Harvard University, 20 
Oxford Street, Cambridge,

Massachusetts 02138, USA
2 Harvard Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Harvard 
University, 29 Oxford

Street, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138, USA
After 1.5 billion years without significant glaciation, during the 
Cryogenian Period (720-
635 Ma), ice extended to the equator at least twice and glacigenic 
sediments were deposited
on every major continent1,2. Although it is generally agreed that 
these Snowball Earth

events occurred via an ice-albedo runaway3
, the drivers of cooling past the critical
bifurcation point are unknown. Geochronological constraints indicate 
that eruptions
associated with the Franklin Large Igneous Province (LIP) coincided 
with the onset of the

first of the Cryogenian Snowball Earth events, the Sturtian glaciation4
. The Franklin LIP
was the largest Neoproterozoic volcanic event5 and was emplaced into a 
sulfur evaporite

basin at the equator
4,6. Geochemical data on sills indicate wall-rock entrainment of sulfur7
,
which would have outgassed as SO2 and H2S and formed radiatively 
active sulfate aerosols.
To constrain the magnitude and 

Re: [geo] Re: RESEARCHERS INVESTIGATING LARGE SUNSHADES TO COMBAT GLOBAL WARMING

[Michael MacCracken]

I should have added that it could be phased down as the CO2/GHG 
concentrations were lowered or over the likely longer term they would 
take than the Dyson dots.


The real problem is not that the dots would be long lasting--they would 
need to be controlled to stay roughly where they are, so easy to let 
them sail off. And their weight (at least their density) would be quite 
low--otherwise just too much work to loft them.


The Lagrange point is 1.5M km up or something like that. Yes, there is a 
satellite near L! taking a full view of Earth. In that it is small and 
so not so subject to solar wind, it would not be where the dots are.


I doubt that there would be any worry about passing spaceships, etc.

Best, Mike


On 12/13/16 5:19 PM, Andrew Lockley wrote:
Such a system may outlast civilisation. How would it self correct or 
self destruct as CO2 levels fell?


Would it endanger observational satellites or passing spaceships?

A


On 13 Dec 2016 22:13, "Michael MacCracken" <mmacc...@comcast.net 
<mailto:mmacc...@comcast.net>> wrote:


Dear Robert--Very interesting. Given the time scale involved,
maybe what to be thinking about, in global climate intervention
sense, is stratospheric aerosols first as this can be done
quickly, but they have a number of disadvantages, including the
problem that backscattering is only about 10% efficient--so about
10 times as much energy is taken out of the direct beam and into
the forward scattering part of the beam, are limited as the need
to reflect more energy rises to counterbalance an ongoing GHG
increase, etc., and then Dyson Dots are the exit strategy, there
problem being that it will take longer than we can wait to get
started, but they do not have the forward scatter problem nor is
there the limit on how large the intervention can be once one
builds such a system--plus their effect can be more easily varied
in time.

And actually, if one wants a really systematic approach, one would
start by limiting regional influences using tropospheric
approaches to gain a better understanding, etc., then work up to
stratospheric aerosols and then to Dyson dots.

Mike MacCracken

On 12/13/16 3:57 PM, ro...@ultimax.com <mailto:ro...@ultimax.com>
wrote:

Hi, there, everybody and greetings from Dar es Salaam.  I'm here
in Tanzania on a geothermal job.

Over a year ago, I posted a PDF of the full paper from JBIS to
this group, but no comment ensued. Look for the keywords "Dyson
Dots".

We (R.G.Kennedy, E.Hughes, K.I. Roy, D.E.Fields) have been
working on this for ~16 years, and published in Acta
Astronautica, JBIS, the Russian Academy of Sciences/Rosgidromet,
Stanford's EE380 lecture series, Asilomar, and many other
venues.  A couple months ago, Mr. Bart Leahy reached out to us to
do a more popular treatment of the subject.

Yes, Dr. McCracken, Jim Early is fully aware of our work and was
in my living room in Oak Ridge TN two years ago in November 2014,
where he got to meet all the authors of that latest version
"Dyson Dots". It was on the 25th anniversary, to the hour, of the
Wall coming down.  Kinda cool evening, that.

A couple important points about orbital dynamics, and one about
cost, that Mr. Leahy didn't have room to cover in a mere
1000-word limit:
(1) a fleet of sunshades is not *at* L1, they go around the Sun
in "radiation-levitated non-Keplerian orbits" significantly
inside of L1, 1-2 million km depending on their specific mass
density [kg/m^2]. The lighter a sunshade-sail is, the further
inside it has to go.  Wherever that point is, four forces in
metastable balance: the two opposing gravitational pulls of the
Earth and the Sun, the centripetal force of the shade's path
around the Sun, and light pressure.
(2) L1, L2, and L3, and the regions of space near them, are
metastable, not truly stable like L4 and L5.  Therefore, the
sunshade must continually monitor and adjust its position, by
modulating light pressure.  The Japanese IKAROS sail of 2010?
showed that that is possible.
(3) Using the space launch methods that we are limited to today,
and building a fleet of shades big enough to do the job
(collective shading area is the size of Texas, mass of a good 100
megatonnes) with only terrestrial resources, would be fabulously
expensive. Multiples of gross world product.  Therefore, either
these things get built in space with offworld materials, or they
don't get built at all.

Most geoengineering schemes are invoked by some kind of fiat. 
The clean-power-from-space facet of Dyson Dots is a way we

proposed for the scheme to organically pay for itself. HELIOS is
just the sunshading part, i.e., Dyson Dots with the space-based
power element removed

Re: [geo] Re: RESEARCHERS INVESTIGATING LARGE SUNSHADES TO COMBAT GLOBAL WARMING

[Michael MacCracken]

Dear Robert--Very interesting. Given the time scale involved, maybe what 
to be thinking about, in global climate intervention sense, is 
stratospheric aerosols first as this can be done quickly, but they have 
a number of disadvantages, including the problem that backscattering is 
only about 10% efficient--so about 10 times as much energy is taken out 
of the direct beam and into the forward scattering part of the beam, are 
limited as the need to reflect more energy rises to counterbalance an 
ongoing GHG increase, etc., and then Dyson Dots are the exit strategy, 
there problem being that it will take longer than we can wait to get 
started, but they do not have the forward scatter problem nor is there 
the limit on how large the intervention can be once one builds such a 
system--plus their effect can be more easily varied in time.


And actually, if one wants a really systematic approach, one would start 
by limiting regional influences using tropospheric approaches to gain a 
better understanding, etc., then work up to stratospheric aerosols and 
then to Dyson dots.


Mike MacCracken

On 12/13/16 3:57 PM, ro...@ultimax.com wrote:
Hi, there, everybody and greetings from Dar es Salaam.  I'm here in 
Tanzania on a geothermal job.


Over a year ago, I posted a PDF of the full paper from JBIS to this 
group, but no comment ensued.  Look for the keywords "Dyson Dots".


We (R.G.Kennedy, E.Hughes, K.I. Roy, D.E.Fields) have been working on 
this for ~16 years, and published in Acta Astronautica, JBIS, the 
Russian Academy of Sciences/Rosgidromet, Stanford's EE380 lecture 
series, Asilomar, and many other venues.  A couple months ago, Mr. 
Bart Leahy reached out to us to do a more popular treatment of the 
subject.


Yes, Dr. McCracken, Jim Early is fully aware of our work and was in my 
living room in Oak Ridge TN two years ago in November 2014, where he 
got to meet all the authors of that latest version "Dyson Dots". It 
was on the 25th anniversary, to the hour, of the Wall coming down. 
 Kinda cool evening, that.


A couple important points about orbital dynamics, and one about cost, 
that Mr. Leahy didn't have room to cover in a mere 1000-word limit:
(1) a fleet of sunshades is not *at* L1, they go around the Sun in 
"radiation-levitated non-Keplerian orbits" significantly inside of L1, 
1-2 million km depending on their specific mass density [kg/m^2].  The 
lighter a sunshade-sail is, the further inside it has to go.  Wherever 
that point is, four forces in metastable balance: the two opposing 
gravitational pulls of the Earth and the Sun, the centripetal force of 
the shade's path around the Sun, and light pressure.
(2) L1, L2, and L3, and the regions of space near them, are 
metastable, not truly stable like L4 and L5.  Therefore, the sunshade 
must continually monitor and adjust its position, by modulating light 
pressure.  The Japanese IKAROS sail of 2010? showed that that is 
possible.
(3) Using the space launch methods that we are limited to today, and 
building a fleet of shades big enough to do the job (collective 
shading area is the size of Texas, mass of a good 100 megatonnes) with 
only terrestrial resources, would be fabulously expensive. Multiples 
of gross world product.  Therefore, either these things get built in 
space with offworld materials, or they don't get built at all.


Most geoengineering schemes are invoked by some kind of fiat.  The 
clean-power-from-space facet of Dyson Dots is a way we proposed for 
the scheme to organically pay for itself. HELIOS is just the 
sunshading part, i.e., Dyson Dots with the space-based power element 
removed.


Robert G. Kennedy III, PE
www.ultimax.com
1994 AAAS/ASME Congressional Fellow
U.S. House Subcommittee on Space

On Monday, December 12, 2016 at 1:58:24 PM UTC-5, Andrew Lockley wrote:


http://www.spaceflightinsider.com/missions/commercial/researchers-investigating-large-sunshades-combat-global-warming/




RESEARCHERS INVESTIGATING LARGE SUNSHADES TO COMBAT GLOBAL WARMING

BART LEAHY
DECEMBER 11TH, 2016

A group of concerned engineers and scientists is investigating a
space-based method to offset global warming. Their concept is called
Heliocentric Earth-Lagrangian Interception of Sunlight (HELIOS), a
flotilla of perhaps many thousands of kilometer-square sun sails
that,
once placed at the Sun-Earth Lagrange (SEL1) point, would reduce the
amount of sunlight striking the Earth.

THINKING BIG



HELIOS was born out of a pair of papers presented at the Tennessee
Valley Interstellar Workshop (TVIW) and later in the Journal of the
British Interplanetary Society (JBIS). Those papers focused on
geoengineering, the deliberate large-scale modification of the
Earth’s
climate through artificial means. Arguably, human 

Re: [geo] RESEARCHERS INVESTIGATING LARGE SUNSHADES TO COMBAT GLOBAL WARMING

[Michael MacCracken]

The idea of a shade or mirror, or Fresnel lens at the L1 point goes back 
at least to James Early of the Livermore Lab--see


Early, J. T., 1989: Space-based solar screen to offset the greenhouse 
effect, /Journal of the British Interplanetary Society/ *42*, 567-569.



Mike MacCracken


On 12/12/16 6:04 PM, Douglas MacMartin wrote:

I think if you can get them there, keeping them there is comparatively easy...

(The advantage of it being an equilibrium point is that the effort required to 
keep it there is in principle small.)

Though I think it would be cheaper to massively transform the world's energy 
system in the next few decades than to build something at meaningful scale at 
L1.  (Not a comment on the ease of the former but on the difficulty of the 
latter.)

-Original Message-
From: geoengineering@googlegroups.com [mailto:geoengineering@googlegroups.com] 
On Behalf Of Olivier Boucher
Sent: Monday, December 12, 2016 11:49 AM
To: geoengineering@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: [geo] RESEARCHERS INVESTIGATING LARGE SUNSHADES TO COMBAT GLOBAL 
WARMING


Hello,

it's not the first time that I read such a thing:

The reflectors would be placed near L1 to ensure a stable orbit.

The L1 Lagrange point is *not* stable. They are quasi-periodic orbits around 
it, but it's not clear to me if they are suitable for geoengineering, if they 
are perfectly stable on long timescales needed for geoengineering or if they 
need a bit of controlling.

Regards,
Olivier

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Re: [geo] Negative Emissions: Arrows in the Quiver, Life Preserver, and/or Moral Hazard?

[Michael MacCracken]

John--I know you don't like it, but scientists and the IPCC are 
pro-science--they summarize what science says, those are their findings 
and communication.


On what SHOULD be done, that gets into policy and into all sorts of 
questions in addition to and beyond science, so scientists have no 
special right to be the decider and tend therefore to refrain making 
claims based on their occupation while perhaps supporting a position as 
a citizen.


The question of what to do is really one before the decision-makers of 
the COP, with input coming from all sorts of groups. Scientists involved 
with IPCC work to keep the statements relating to science to be 
scientifically accurate--it is up to the public (hopefully the 
knowledgeable public) to be influencing the decision-makers, etc.


I really do wish you would be more careful in making clear where the 
responsibility really lies and who should be acting. Trying to make 
scientists into advocates is just running against a long-held tradition 
that makes good sense for our society as a whole. There will be pushback 
against these movements that want to simply ignore science or abuse it, 
and it is key in that regard that science not just be viewed as one 
advocacy group (for other than the scientific tradition and support of 
its findings).


Best, Mike


On 11/28/16 9:54 AM, John Nissen wrote:

Hi Mike and Alan,

I think we are on the same side when it comes to what matters.  Are we 
not all fighting for a better future for humanity on this planet we 
all share?  And doesn't this involve doing something to prevent the 
situation getting a lot worse in the Arctic, even when there is 
disagreement between models and observations over just how bad the 
situation has become and how quickly the situation is deteriorating?  
Surely the international scientific community should pull together and 
agree on action to improve the situation which has a chance of 
success?   Surely some kind of interim intervention to restore Arctic 
albedo is required, even if only on a precautionary principle if you 
think the most optimistic models are correct.  And shouldn't we 
prepare for intervention as quickly as possible to give ourselves the 
greatest chance of successful deployment, while continuing research 
and developing better models to optimise that deployment?  And isn't 
preparation for deployment justified even if it doesn't prove necessary?


Preparation need not take years.  There was a discussion on the Ebola 
outbreak on the radio this morning.  They said how the procedure for 
drug testing which would normally take years had been cut down to six 
weeks - but even that was too long to save many lives.


There has been a huge antagonism to geoengineering built up over the 
years, so that most scientists are now against it. But our job is to 
recommend what is best for humanity.  We need to use some 
geoengineering techniques for a limited period to get the planet back 
on course - reversing climate change and restoring the climate to 
Holocene-like conditions. We must not fail to give good advice just 
because of public sentiment against geoengineering.


Cheers, John



On Sun, Nov 27, 2016 at 7:32 PM, Michael MacCracken 
<mmacc...@comcast.net <mailto:mmacc...@comcast.net>> wrote:


Hi Alan--I don't disagree that there are problems with models,
just there have been with various types of observations that have
to get resolved (e.g., the Microwave Sounding Unit time series,
ocean observations as types of instruments changed, etc.). And the
full set of observations can also be incomplete, not accounting
for all that may matter. What science needs to do is work out
why--not believing either in some absolute sense.

On the Arctic situation, I was just noting the obvious, namely
that if you drive even perfect models while not accounting for
some particular forcing, that could well be a cause of/contributor
to the disagreement between results of model simulations for ice
volume and extent and observations--it is not always the physics
that is the problem.

I'd generalize your statement that history (here meaning of
scientific discovery) has not looked favourable on those who
ignore the observations, however erratic or unreliable, to suggest
that those who carefully seek to understand the differences
between available observations and available models (theory),
accepting neither without question, have been those who have most
advanced the science (and in so doing they must look at everything
skeptically and then also look for what we may not even be
considering).

Best, Mike



On 11/27/16 1:54 PM, Alan Gadian wrote:



Mike,

Sorry for the delay .. in India.

I am afraid I am someone on the "other side" in that I use NWP
and climate models for my living. Thus I can speak as someone
who has used them a lot!

Re: [geo] Negative Emissions: Arrows in the Quiver, Life Preserver, and/or Moral Hazard?

[Michael MacCracken]

Hi Alan--I don't disagree that there are problems with models, just 
there have been with various types of observations that have to get 
resolved (e.g., the Microwave Sounding Unit time series, ocean 
observations as types of instruments changed, etc.). And the full set of 
observations can also be incomplete, not accounting for all that may 
matter. What science needs to do is work out why--not believing either 
in some absolute sense.


On the Arctic situation, I was just noting the obvious, namely that if 
you drive even perfect models while not accounting for some particular 
forcing, that could well be a cause of/contributor to the disagreement 
between results of model simulations for ice volume and extent and 
observations--it is not always the physics that is the problem.


I'd generalize your statement that history (here meaning of scientific 
discovery) has not looked favourable on those who ignore the 
observations, however erratic or unreliable, to suggest that those who 
carefully seek to understand the differences between available 
observations and available models (theory), accepting neither without 
question, have been those who have most advanced the science (and in so 
doing they must look at everything skeptically and then also look for 
what we may not even be considering).


Best, Mike


On 11/27/16 1:54 PM, Alan Gadian wrote:



Mike,

Sorry for the delay .. in India.

I am afraid I am someone on the "other side" in that I use NWP and 
climate models for my living. Thus I can speak as someone who has used 
them a lot!


There are good things about climate models as well as bad things. The 
fear I have is that the whole of the IPCC is based on climate models, 
and that is the issue.  There are huge differences between the poles, 
and these are largely ignored.  There are other processes which are 
not replicated in
climate models.  Why a double ITCZ? Why little Indian monsoon. One can 
explain these features ...


I note the papers, but I am afraid, whether it is 70km mountains on 
Venus (as proposed by NASA) history has not looked favourably on those 
who ignore the observations, however erratic / unreliable.


Thanks for your comments
Alan




On Wed, 23 Nov 2016, Michael MacCracken wrote:



Dear Alan--When observationalists are clear the observations of ice 
thinning and retreat are
right, and the modelers are insisting that the physics is the model 
is properly constructed
and correct, then, if there are inconsistencies between the two, what 
needs to be looked at
very carefully is the forcing, or more specifically, the changes in 
the forcing over time.
Specifically, there have been changes over time in the sulfate and 
black carbon forcing that
affect the solar radiation budget and also cloud albedo, and there 
have been changes in the
tropospheric ozone concentration (as well of the greenhouse gases, 
which need to be treated
specifically and not using CO2e). I'd suggest that all it would take 
are some relatively
modest problems in some of these forcings as the region has gone 
through the issue of Arctic
springtime haze and the its "clean up" as SO2 emissions in Europe and 
North America grew and
then cleaned up much of the SO2 emissions, as the black carbon 
loadings changed as growth of
diesel emissions of black carbon changed and were somewhat reduced, 
and then as China has
grown. Calculations in Navarro et al, 2016 make clear that changes in 
forcing can influence
the Arctic. I'd just suggest that a hypothesis that I think likely 
needs some exploration is
that it is the time history of the forcings that could explain the 
difference between the
observations and the models, and that it might be more productive to 
look at this alternative

hypothesis as a way of explaining their differences.

I'd also note that I suggest this as only one alternative 
hypothesis--there may well be
others. In any case, I'd suggest finding some possible explanation(s) 
for the differences and
to get working on reconciling and understanding the reasons for the 
differences--which is
what science generally aims at doing rather than simply blaming the 
other side.


Best, Mike MacCracken


On 11/23/16 1:50 PM, Alan Gadian wrote:
  Reto and Peter,

ECMWF is the best forecast model in the world.  If you had attended 
the change of
directorship last Spring, you would have heard them say that the ice 
model predictions
( and they have the HIGHEST resolution forecasting model) are 
terrible, do not predict
changes and have little connection with reality.  My climate model 
has taken 250 days
on 12,000 cray cores and I only achieve 20km resolution.   ( I 
estimate I used about 2
million dollars of electricity in the end, as some of the model is at 
2-3km resolution.

 It has possibly been one of the biggest projects on ARCHER.

ECMWF can run globally at 2-4km resolution.  How is it also that 
Martin Miller , who
masterminded much of the ECMWF model said of AR5 , that the c

Re: [geo] Negative Emissions: Arrows in the Quiver, Life Preserver, and/or Moral Hazard?

[Michael MacCracken]

Dear Alan--When observationalists are clear the observations of ice 
thinning and retreat are right, and the modelers are insisting that the 
physics is the model is properly constructed and correct, then, if there 
are inconsistencies between the two, what needs to be looked at very 
carefully is the forcing, or more specifically, the changes in the 
forcing over time. Specifically, there have been changes over time in 
the sulfate and black carbon forcing that affect the solar radiation 
budget and also cloud albedo, and there have been changes in the 
tropospheric ozone concentration (as well of the greenhouse gases, which 
need to be treated specifically and not using CO2e). I'd suggest that 
all it would take are some relatively modest problems in some of these 
forcings as the region has gone through the issue of Arctic springtime 
haze and the its "clean up" as SO2 emissions in Europe and North America 
grew and then cleaned up much of the SO2 emissions, as the black carbon 
loadings changed as growth of diesel emissions of black carbon changed 
and were somewhat reduced, and then as China has grown. Calculations in 
Navarro et al, 2016 make clear that changes in forcing can influence the 
Arctic. I'd just suggest that a hypothesis that I think likely needs 
some exploration is that it is the time history of the forcings that 
could explain the difference between the observations and the models, 
and that it might be more productive to look at this alternative 
hypothesis as a way of explaining their differences.


I'd also note that I suggest this as only one alternative 
hypothesis--there may well be others. In any case, I'd suggest finding 
some possible explanation(s) for the differences and to get working on 
reconciling and understanding the reasons for the differences--which is 
what science generally aims at doing rather than simply blaming the 
other side.


Best, Mike MacCracken


On 11/23/16 1:50 PM, Alan Gadian wrote:

Reto and Peter,

ECMWF is the best forecast model in the world.  If you had attended 
the change of directorship last Spring, you would have heard them say 
that the ice model predictions ( and they have the HIGHEST resolution 
forecasting model) are terrible, do not predict changes and have 
little connection with reality.  My climate model has taken 250 days 
on 12,000 cray cores and I only achieve 20km resolution.   ( I 
estimate I used about 2 million dollars of electricity in the end, as 
some of the model is at 2-3km resolution.  It has possibly been one of 
the biggest projects on ARCHER.


ECMWF can run globally at 2-4km resolution.  How is it also that 
Martin Miller , who masterminded much of the ECMWF model said of AR5 , 
that the clouds were so badly predicted that the radiative balance is 
not correct, and the climate models could not be trusted for clouds 
and radiation?  He was one of the worlds  best experts,but ignored.


Also then, How is it that then the climate models  can do so much 
better than the best weather prediction models in the world?   When 
the data evidence of the HUGE changes in ice volume and extent, are so 
apparent, so much so that by the time AR5 went to press , six months 
after writing, the ar5 ice extent predictions were outside the 
predicted range for the worst scenario, how can the ar5 community 
still try to sell the story?  Maybe Trump took his lead from the 
climate modellors?


I have had endless arguments with Piers Forster , another lead author 
on ar5 about this.  scientists who know about modelling the weather 
have been ignored. You do not get papers published which day that 
models are wrong, only when you say how great they are.


In essence ,after AR3, it has become a gravy train for academic 
careers based largely on CXXP models.   In a short time these models 
will be shown to be catestrophically wrong, and all that is done is to 
pillory those who try to point out the true science.


Regards
Alan.


T ---
Alan Gadian, NCAS, UK.
Email: a...@env.leeds.ac.uk   & 
alan.gad...@ncas.ac.uk 

Tel: +44 / 0  775 451 9009
T ---

On 23 Nov 2016, at 15:32, P. Wadhams > wrote:


Dear Dr Knutti, I would like to intervene in this seemingly 
interminable thread to draw attention to errors which you have made 
when you mention my work.


1. " But the natural variability is very large (e.g. Kay 2011,
Swart 2015, Screen 2013, 2016). There is no reason why short term 
trends could simply be extrapolated, and the predictions by Peter 
Wadhams of sea ice disappearing by today have not happened so far"
a) I completely agree that natural variability is very large and 
stress this in my book "A Farewell to Ice" which I suspect you have 
not read. In the book I stress that it is the TREND which is rapidly 
downwards towards zero, not that every successive year features a 
monotonic decrease in summer ice volume. And, despite the newspaper 

Re: [geo] CO2 capture may be our only option for stabilising temperatures - we need to find out the costs, fast | Oxford Martin School

[Michael MacCracken]

As I've said, I am all for social and governance research. I do wonder 
some times if as critical attention is being given to the social, 
governance (and ethical), etc. aspects of our ongoing use of GHGs. And 
fine for renewables as well, but also in a balanced way compared to what 
we consider to do in so seemingly casually using fossil fuels.



Mike


On 11/21/16 9:07 PM, Jonathan Marshall wrote:


Hi Mike,

I'm certainly not wanting to frame any kind of GE in terms of 1950s 
paradigms (although the history can sometimes be enlightening, and may 
not be quite as left behind as we might hope for - the military 
fantasies, for example, still seem to feature in talk about it)


I certainly see the current research (and proposals) primarily in the 
context of climate change and greenhouse gas emissions - which are 
extremely politicised. However, I think that context has consequences 
- one of which is that the conduct and especially the application of 
physical science is, unfortunately, not isolatable from the 
governance, politics, profit and power complexes that we live in and 
will not be isolated from conflicts.


And yes, this does make everything even more complex - however if we 
don't factor in the social issues and unintended consequences, as well 
as the ecological unintended effects, then I think we are probably 
stuffed.


For what it is worth, I think a similar argument applies to 
renewables, and I'm not quite as worried about the consequences of 
using them :)


jon


*From:* geoengineering@googlegroups.com 
<geoengineering@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Michael MacCracken 
<mmacc...@comcast.net>

*Sent:* Tuesday, 22 November 2016 12:42 PM
*To:* Jonathan Marshall; geoengineering@googlegroups.com
*Subject:* Re: [geo] CO2 capture may be our only option for 
stabilising temperatures - we need to find out the costs, fast | 
Oxford Martin School


Hi Jonathan--I can certainly agree that research is needed on the 
social sciences and governance--my main concern is about the framing 
for pursing this research, which too often, from my limited 
perspective, seems to be evaluating SRM or not (an evaluation 
appropriate to how geoengineering was being considered as a means to 
alter the world to a better state back in the 1950s and 1960s) rather 
than GHG warming with or without SRM (where now the idea is to use SRM 
to stay near to where we are and have been rather than create some 
new, supposedly better climate). On the former situation, the 
conclusion pretty quickly was that it would not be appropriate to, for 
example, melt the Arctic to more easily get at its resources). For the 
latter situation, I think the overall analysis is considerably more 
difficult and complex, especially in the social and governance sense 
as I think the physical science is likely more reliable when trying to 
keep conditions as they are and have been instead of going to climate 
situations that we have never experienced.



Mike


On 11/21/16 7:51 PM, Jonathan Marshall wrote:


 Hi Mike,

>Well, if you (on behalf of society) want to stay in the pot of water 
being heated instead of take the risk of jumping out,


>then we'll all be quite well cooked.

This is probably a false dichotomy - as a frog I would rather take a 
look around, because if I jump into the fire or to the heating 
surface then I might not be better off. I might for example think 
that if someone is cooking me it might be better to get rid of them, 
or learn how to turn the heat source off (especially if I found I was 
heating myself), rather than getting someone else to spray the 
kitchen with a poisonous foam in the hope that it just might help, 
but might not, because it just could be flammable :)


>I agree there are challenges. I should suggest, however, that while 
one cannot really check the system out beforehand, there


> are a number of natural events that can serve as quite analogous 
situations, and that if models can be shown to be able to do


>well on simulating such events, it would not be unreasonable to 
think that the models could do well on simulating what


>moving forward on SRM would lead to

As a person who works in the social sciences, I have found that 
everyone is incredibly good at explaining or simulating events which 
have happened, but incredibly bad at predicting events which have not 
yet happened. This is what you might expect with complex systems. 
'Natural' events are not always the same as simulated events, and 
often people are not looking for unintended effects - because there 
aren't any, and while there are social consequences, there are rarely 
social causes and attempts to maintain say the volcanic explosions. 
So real GE is more complicated than natural events.


>--and note that this would very likely involve using the models in 
the range of conditions that we have already experienced.


>

Re: [geo] CO2 capture may be our only option for stabilising temperatures - we need to find out the costs, fast | Oxford Martin School

[Michael MacCracken]

hat SRM may be inevitable, because of social factors - 
it is extremely hard to challenge the established power of various 
parts of the corporate sector, State models of development, a high 
degree of technological lock-in into fossil fuels and we now have a 
president Trump etc... - there seem, to me, to be marked problems 
with SRM


Firstly it is an attempt to modify a massively complex weather and 
ecological system. The fact that it is intended to prevent further 
change, is no guarantee that it would not generate further change. AS 
far as I understand it is extremely likely to generate unexpected 
changes and local consequences. The prime property of complex systems 
is the lack of long term predictability.


Secondly, (sorry I forget who argued this) but my understanding is 
that essentially there is no way you can test an SRM system in the 
small scale. It is not an SRM system until it is large scale (micro 
climate engineering is a different matter and has been done for a 
long time). Because of these two factors, it is likely to be highly 
difficult to address problems until they manifest and are probably 
out of control. This is another point where the social system creeps 
in - people involved with such projects may have incentives and 
information distorting arrangements, which render the ability to 
discontinue or adjust difficulties.  If you look at world, and 
business, history such distortional processes are more or less 
routine - and often quite lethal.


Thirdly if once an SRM system was up, then stopping it would likely 
produce further unstable feedbacks - especially if socially it was 
used to increase emissions, because it in theory enabled someone to 
do so. This is whether the stopping occurred because of bad 
unintended effects, political squabbles about the results in 
different countries, or because there was a political financial 
crisis and we could not longer afford to maintain it.


Then we get into issues of responsibility, interpretation and game 
playing as I argued in the previous letter - which I think are 
inevitable.


Given all this, I agree with you completely, that "I'd like to hear 
more about the social science and governance challenges of 
undertaking a comparative analysis of ongoing GHG-induced change with 
and without there being SRM" - and to some extent that is the new 
research project I will be engaged with. I would also suggest that 
such a project actually needs to be underway and put out some 
results, before we start SRMing or else we will be in a massive mess.


As a guess, I would say that whatever we do will involve politics and 
unintended consequences. I would suggest that the politics of 
modifying social action are probably simpler, than modifying social 
action and modifying the weather and climate together :)


jon

------------
*From:* Michael MacCracken <mmacc...@comcast.net>
*Sent:* Tuesday, 22 November 2016 8:13 AM
*To:* Jonathan Marshall; geoengineering@googlegroups.com
*Subject:* Re: [geo] CO2 capture may be our only option for 
stabilising temperatures - we need to find out the costs, fast | 
Oxford Martin School


Dear Jonathan--While I certainly agree that governance and the social 
status quo are issues, I would just note that the notion of SRM is to 
prevent further change and perhaps take us back a bit from the 
consequences of the warming that we are experiencing (so back to more 
familiar territory), whereas the no-SRM path is one heading into the 
future and to much greater and unknown (at least more uncertain) 
changes. This is not to say that SRM is a perfect response as there 
will be changes, but generally back toward the more familiar and less 
likely to severe new extremes. And if that is not what is happening, 
SRM can be stopped, and if things are implemented and moderated 
relatively gradually and careful observations are being taken and 
used in the planning, the phasing out would not also not be so 
harmful as the future that lies ahead without SRM.



So, I am a bit confused by all this talk of harm from doing 
(gradually implemented) SRM as compared to the harm that seems to 
clearly lie ahead from not doing this. Putting a tourniquet on a 
rapidly bleeding leg might well cost me the leg, but otherwise I 
might well be dead. I'd like to hear more about the social science 
and governance challenges of undertaking a comparative analysis of 
ongoing GHG-induced change with and without there being SRM; while to 
an external or long-term observer (like me, quite probably), it would 
seem the rational choice is to gradually implement SRM, in reality, 
acceptance of the ongoing upward trend might well be seen as less 
disruptful of one's short-term interests (so the classic frog in the 
warming pot of water dilemma)--this, at least, seems to me, to be the 
tenor of the social science discussions, and, if the way society 
seems to be going about its li

Re: [geo] CO2 capture may be our only option for stabilising temperatures - we need to find out the costs, fast | Oxford Martin School

[Michael MacCracken]

 quickly or fractionally enough to deal with the situation, 
and it can be a very expensive option as well--but we are in trouble 
even if we could go to zero emissions tomorrow, and this cannot happen 
as fossil fuels currently provide about 80% of the world's energy and so 
a huge number would die if we just stopped  using fossil fuels. The 
Paris accord and commitments are commendable in getting unanimous 
participation, but they are very far short of limiting climate change to 
the indicated goals--even assuming the commitments are fulfilled, the 
likely warming is likely a good bit over 3 C, plus a high rate of loss 
from the ice sheets inundating cities and serious ocean acidification. 
I'd say the harm created is just far too large to be ignored and of far 
more seriousness than the comparatively much smaller problems associated 
with gradually ramped up SRM to shave off top warming (and the 
additional CO2 emissions that will be needed to keep people cool as the 
world goes through the higher temperatures).


I certainly do agree that research is needed on SRM, but not really so 
much that one waits decades before starting implementation as I just do 
not agree that uncertainties are anywhere near as large as proceeding 
along with warming without SRM. I will also agree, that in spite of 
this, I think there is a huge question about whether the public would be 
willing to jump to doing something additional, even if not portrayed as 
negatively as you portray the situation, whether because of your 
suggestion of the difference in a moral perspective or just the shear 
hubris of suggesting that doing something additional could make the 
situation less serious (even a lot less serious) than a continuing 
intensification of the trends we have had that people are at least 
trying to deal with.


Regards, Mike MacCracken


On 11/21/16 4:52 PM, NORTHCOTT Michael wrote:

Dear Mike and Jonathan

I enjoy quietly reading this list and learn, especially from 
atmospheric and arctic scientists.


As a non-scientist I note that the economics and the science seem to 
indicate that:


CCS is expensive (because social costs of burning fossil fuels are 
externalities not born by coal oil and gas corps.) and its climatic 
effects are known (on large enough scale it will mitigate global 
warming from ongoing fossil fuel use).


SRM is expensive, its climatic effects are unknown (unfamiliar) 
because unpredictable. Mt Pinatubo eruption 1991 provides best real 
world analogy to human intentional injection of particulates designed 
to 'shade the earth' from the sun, or 'cool the arctic' to use a 
phrase often seen on this list. As others argue, the effects of SRM 
are relatively unknown but in the case of Pinatubo included, 
counter-intuitively, tropospheric warming in N Hemisphere winter 
according to NASA: 
http://m.earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/Volcano/ Currently Arctic 
is much warmer than it should be and winter ice formation is delayed. 
Pinatubo '91 like atmospheric injections apparently won't fix this and 
they will cause other unknown harms - as did Pinatubo '91.


As a philosopher I can say, from my area of expertise, that there is 
no moral equivalence between stopping intentional harm to the 
atmosphere and trying to counter one kind of intentional harm (which 
is stoppable through available tech and regulation and yes CCS) with 
another kind of intentional harm whose externalities are 
unpredictable. This lack of moral equivalence combined with extreme 
uncertainty is why currently international law rightly bans SRM but 
not CCS.


Michael Northcott
(School of Divinity, University of Edinburgh)

On 21 Nov 2016, at 21:13, Michael MacCracken <mmacc...@comcast.net 
<mailto:mmacc...@comcast.net>> wrote:


Dear Jonathan--While I certainly agree that governance and the social 
status quo are issues, I would just note that the notion of SRM is to 
prevent further change and perhaps take us back a bit from the 
consequences of the warming that we are experiencing (so back to more 
familiar territory), whereas the no-SRM path is one heading into the 
future and to much greater and unknown (at least more uncertain) 
changes. This is not to say that SRM is a perfect response as there 
will be changes, but generally back toward the more familiar and less 
likely to severe new extremes. And if that is not what is happening, 
SRM can be stopped, and if things are implemented and moderated 
relatively gradually and careful observations are being taken and 
used in the planning, the phasing out would not also not be so 
harmful as the future that lies ahead without SRM.



So, I am a bit confused by all this talk of harm from doing 
(gradually implemented) SRM as compared to the harm that seems to 
clearly lie ahead from not doing this. Putting a tourniquet on a 
rapidly bleeding leg might well cost me the leg, but otherwise I 
might well be dead. I'd like to hear more about the social science 
and governanc

Re: [geo] CO2 capture may be our only option for stabilising temperatures - we need to find out the costs, fast | Oxford Martin School

[Michael MacCracken]

he weather and climate together :)


jon

----
*From:* Michael MacCracken <mmacc...@comcast.net>
*Sent:* Tuesday, 22 November 2016 8:13 AM
*To:* Jonathan Marshall; geoengineering@googlegroups.com
*Subject:* Re: [geo] CO2 capture may be our only option for 
stabilising temperatures - we need to find out the costs, fast | 
Oxford Martin School


Dear Jonathan--While I certainly agree that governance and the social 
status quo are issues, I would just note that the notion of SRM is to 
prevent further change and perhaps take us back a bit from the 
consequences of the warming that we are experiencing (so back to more 
familiar territory), whereas the no-SRM path is one heading into the 
future and to much greater and unknown (at least more uncertain) 
changes. This is not to say that SRM is a perfect response as there 
will be changes, but generally back toward the more familiar and less 
likely to severe new extremes. And if that is not what is happening, 
SRM can be stopped, and if things are implemented and moderated 
relatively gradually and careful observations are being taken and used 
in the planning, the phasing out would not also not be so harmful as 
the future that lies ahead without SRM.



So, I am a bit confused by all this talk of harm from doing (gradually 
implemented) SRM as compared to the harm that seems to clearly lie 
ahead from not doing this. Putting a tourniquet on a rapidly bleeding 
leg might well cost me the leg, but otherwise I might well be dead. 
I'd like to hear more about the social science and governance 
challenges of undertaking a comparative analysis of ongoing 
GHG-induced change with and without there being SRM; while to an 
external or long-term observer (like me, quite probably), it would 
seem the rational choice is to gradually implement SRM, in reality, 
acceptance of the ongoing upward trend might well be seen as less 
disruptful of one's short-term interests (so the classic frog in the 
warming pot of water dilemma)--this, at least, seems to me, to be the 
tenor of the social science discussions, and, if the way society seems 
to be going about its living, short-term interests seem to me to 
really have the upper hand. Are there instances or approaches that 
might lead to greater consideration of the long-term interests of society?



Mike


On 11/20/16 5:34 PM, Jonathan Marshall wrote:



The real thing to remember about governance is that it is often about 
politics and preserving the social status quo.



Just as current governance processes seem often to be about 
protecting the fossil fuel industries from any harm.


I would imagine the most likely result of changing the rules "in an 
instant" will be to have rules which protect the people who impose 
SRM (and impose is the right word, plenty of people will object to 
the potentially disastrous consequences) from any legal liability for 
damages. The argument will be that it is impossible to determine what 
damages will have happened anyway, and what damages came directly 
from the SRM. This will lessen any pressures to make sure the process 
works properly.


The other obvious problem is that if the bad effects were localized, 
then people could think it was an act of "Weather warfare" and decide 
to strike back with either more SRM, or terrorist attacks, or 
nukes This would render the systems (social, international, and 
ecological) even more unstable.


Basically if you don't think about the social consequences now while 
you have time, the chances are high that it will massively interfere 
with any success the project might have and amount to a massive waste 
of time


jon​



*From:* geoengineering@googlegroups.com 
<geoengineering@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Stephen Salter 
<s.sal...@ed.ac.uk>

*Sent:* Monday, 21 November 2016 1:46 AM
*To:* Myles Allen; geoengineering@googlegroups.com; Oxford Martin Info
*Subject:* Re: [geo] CO2 capture may be our only option for 
stabilising temperatures - we need to find out the costs, fast | 
Oxford Martin School


Hi All

It is much easier to change legal rules about liability and 
governance than to alter the laws of physics and the boundaries of 
engineering. The rules will be changed in an instant when the results 
of climate change get bad enough.  But now the arguments about them 
are wasting time which we may not have.


Stephen


Emeritus Professor of Engineering Design. School of Engineering, 
University of Edinburgh, Mayfield Road, Edinburgh EH9 3DW, Scotland 
s.sal...@ed.ac.uk, Tel +44 (0)131 650 5704, Cell 07795 203 195, 
WWW.homepages.ed.ac.uk/shs, YouTube Jamie Taylor Power for Change


On 20/11/2016 14:13, Myles Allen wrote:
Others much more expert in these matters than I have concluded that 
liability and governance issues mean that SRM is probably out of the 
question u

Re: [geo] Negative Emissions: Arrows in the Quiver, Life Preserver, and/or Moral Hazard?

[Michael MacCracken]

Well, John, I'll start out (or add to)  the list of scientists who will 
offer differing/clarifying comments. With climate forcing constant at 
some new level, the system will tend to come into equilibrium with that, 
with the initial adjustment declining over time as equilibrium is 
approached (so, were there only one process acting that is dependent on 
the magnitude of being out of equilibrium, the approach might often be 
exponential). So, if forcing is steady (as it would be when CO2 is held 
constant), then approach would be except for the situation where one has 
gone beyond some threshold (like triggering some process in the ice 
sheets, etc.), where one could have ongoing impacts for some long time.


So, with regard to the COP views, cutting emissions to zero would 
quickly stop warming, but this does not mean that it would stop the 
substantial loss of ice from the ice sheets and resulting sea level rise 
because there are other destabilizing processes that have been started 
(a simple paleoclimatic estimate of sea level sensitivity is of order 
15-20 meters of SL rise per degree of warming--so we have a long way to 
go to get to equilibrium, and this process could well trigger further 
warming).


Mike

On 11/17/16 1:20 PM, John Nissen wrote:

Hi Reto,

I'll just focus on CO2.

In the diagram I attached to my previous email, the red line in the 
temperature diagram suddenly becomes flat when CO2 reaches 500 ppm.  
This is just contrary to plain physics, and nobody has shown that I am 
wrong in my physics.


The basic physics is that the _rate_ of global temperature increase 
rises as climate forcing rises.  So that if CO2 reaches 500 ppm and 
stays at that level, its climate forcing will stay at that level, and 
the global temperature will continue to rise accordingly.  The rate of 
temperature increase was projected as 0.2C per decade in AR4, but 
we've had a 0.2C rise between 2015 and 2016 according to WMO, see 
attached.  So one must expect the rate of temperature rise at 500 ppm 
to be much greater than 0.2C per decade.


It is difficult to comprehend how IPCC could have made such a blunder, 
but that seems that they have.  As a result, COP is suggesting that 
achieving zero emissions will halt climate change which is simply not 
true.  Governments around the world have been misled.  We need 
aggressive CO2 removal in addition to drastic cuts in CO2 emissions, 
to bring the CO2 level down close to its pre-industrial level.


Kind regards,

John
​



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[geo] Re: US Strategic Plan for Deep Decarbonization by 2050

[Michael MacCracken]

Today, the US, Canada, and Mexico issued their plan for deep 
decarbonization by 2050--apparently Germany will issue its plan 
tomorrow. The three main (broad) elements of the US plan are move to a 
low-carbon energy system, enhance carbon uptake by land, soil and 
removal (so relevant to this group), and sharp cuts in emissions of 
non-CO2 GHGs.


You can download the US Plan at 
https://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/docs/mid_century_strategy_report-final.pdf


Mike MacCracken



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[geo] Re:

[Michael MacCracken]

g the Earth System to the 'old 
norm' of the Holocene in which our civilisation developed and flourished.
MCM: I'm going to draft a note about what we go back to--the Holocene 
norm is not really well-defined, in my view.


In the process we can actually improve food production, as I point out 
in the attached letter which I was hoping could be presented to COP22.


Restoration is the only path to a safe future for our children and 
grand-children.  It can be done.  It must be done.
MCM: These are both assertions, plausible in a policymaker sense, but 
too strongly stated to be considered proven to a scientific level of 
significance. Thus I'd be stating these a good bit more carefully.


Best, Mike


Best wishes, John

[1] Wadhams (2016) "A farewell to ice" page 88.



On Tue, Nov 15, 2016 at 7:38 PM, Michael MacCracken 
<mmacc...@comcast.net <mailto:mmacc...@comcast.net>> wrote:


Dear Knutti--Thank you for your note and full explanation. I have
been trying to point out these misconceptions of John's for a
number of years now. I hope your note will finally convince him.

I have also been trying to convince him that the really
significant drop in albedo leading to large amounts of additional
solar absorbed comes when the fresh snow on ice melts (presumably
in late spring), reducing the surface albedo from something like
70-80% to or order 20-30% and that the albedo effect of going from
melting ice surface albedo to the albedo of open water (with Sun
at low slant angle) will not lead to a catastrophic increase in
the absorbed heat in the fall (though it may well set the
situation up for an earlier melting of the snow surface in the
spring, etc.). What would be really interesting to have is a graph
of the amount of solar heat uptake at the surface over the warm
season (I guess, as well, actually having a comparison of what the
uptake is now with what it would be were there no sea ice).

Best regards, Mike MacCracken


On 11/15/16 2:18 PM, Knutti Reto wrote:


Dear John, all

As a coordinating lead author of IPCC AR5 WG1 (and someone how
has done work on these topics) I’m surprised to read such comments.

>*Blunder 1*. IPCC has ignored the increasing loss of Arctic
albedo, which is already contributing the equivalent of 30 ppm
CO2 to the radiative budget, i.e. a quarter of the forcing from
CO2.  […] The first blunder is symptomatic of IPCC's treatment of
the Arctic sea ice, where they refuse to accept the observations
that it is in a death spiral, preferring to rely on models of
proven inadequacy which predict that the sea ice will last for
decades.  You can read all about it in Peter Wadhams' new book "A
Fairwell to Ice".

The change in albedo is part of every climate model as snow cover
and sea ice change. Indeed some many models show smaller Arctic
sea ice decline than observed. But the natural variability is
very large (e.g. Kay 2011, Swart 2015, Screen 2013, 2016). There
is no reason why short term trends could simply be extrapolated,
and the predictions by Peter Wadhams of sea ice disappearing by
today have not happened so far

(https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2012/sep/17/arctic-collapse-sea-ice

<https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2012/sep/17/arctic-collapse-sea-ice>,

http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/arctic-could-become-ice-free-for-first-time-in-more-than-10-years-claims-leading-scientist-a7065781.html

<http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/arctic-could-become-ice-free-for-first-time-in-more-than-10-years-claims-leading-scientist-a7065781.html>).
Maybe the models are missing something, but it’s just as
plausible (and in most scientist’s view more likely) that the
models are largely consistent with observations within natural
variability.

Many studies have used observations to recalibrate and weight
models, and even IPCC has explicitly made projections for Arctic
sea ice based on those models that best reproduce various aspects
of sea ice (section 12.4.6.1). All of these studies indicate that
using observations point to a somewhat steeper decline of Arctic
sea ice (Boe 2009, Massonnet 2012, Mahlstein 2012, Wang 2013,
Notz 2016), but not a “death spiral”.

I’m not downplaying the strong changes in the Arctic, but the
science suggests a fairly linear (and reversible) relationship
between Arctic sea ice and temperature with large variability
superimposed. In my view they do not support a “death spiral”.

*>Blunder 2*. IPCC has ignored the warming effect of accumulated
CO2.  They say that global temperature rise will be halted when
net CO2 emissions have fallen to zero, ignoring the effect of
accumulated CO2 and other forcing agents in the atmosphere.[

Re: [geo] Negative Emissions: Arrows in the Quiver, Life Preserver, and/or Moral Hazard?

[Michael MacCracken]

Dear Knutti--Thank you for your note and full explanation. I have been 
trying to point out these misconceptions of John's for a number of years 
now. I hope your note will finally convince him.


I have also been trying to convince him that the really significant drop 
in albedo leading to large amounts of additional solar absorbed comes 
when the fresh snow on ice melts (presumably in late spring), reducing 
the surface albedo from something like 70-80% to or order 20-30% and 
that the albedo effect of going from melting ice surface albedo to the 
albedo of open water (with Sun at low slant angle) will not lead to a 
catastrophic increase in the absorbed heat in the fall (though it may 
well set the situation up for an earlier melting of the snow surface in 
the spring, etc.). What would be really interesting to have is a graph 
of the amount of solar heat uptake at the surface over the warm season 
(I guess, as well, actually having a comparison of what the uptake is 
now with what it would be were there no sea ice).


Best regards, Mike MacCracken


On 11/15/16 2:18 PM, Knutti Reto wrote:


Dear John, all

As a coordinating lead author of IPCC AR5 WG1 (and someone how has 
done work on these topics) I’m surprised to read such comments.


>*Blunder 1*.  IPCC has ignored the increasing loss of Arctic albedo, 
which is already contributing the equivalent of 30 ppm CO2 to the 
radiative budget, i.e. a quarter of the forcing from CO2.  […] The 
first blunder is symptomatic of IPCC's treatment of the Arctic sea 
ice, where they refuse to accept the observations that it is in a 
death spiral, preferring to rely on models of proven inadequacy which 
predict that the sea ice will last for decades.  You can read all 
about it in Peter Wadhams' new book "A Fairwell to Ice".


The change in albedo is part of every climate model as snow cover and 
sea ice change. Indeed some many models show smaller Arctic sea ice 
decline than observed. But the natural variability is very large (e.g. 
Kay 2011, Swart 2015, Screen 2013, 2016). There is no reason why short 
term trends could simply be extrapolated, and the predictions by Peter 
Wadhams of sea ice disappearing by today have not happened so far


(https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2012/sep/17/arctic-collapse-sea-ice, 
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/arctic-could-become-ice-free-for-first-time-in-more-than-10-years-claims-leading-scientist-a7065781.html). 
Maybe the models are missing something, but it’s just as plausible 
(and in most scientist’s view more likely) that the models are largely 
consistent with observations within natural variability.


Many studies have used observations to recalibrate and weight models, 
and even IPCC has explicitly made projections for Arctic sea ice based 
on those models that best reproduce various aspects of sea ice 
(section 12.4.6.1). All of these studies indicate that using 
observations point to a somewhat steeper decline of Arctic sea ice 
(Boe 2009, Massonnet 2012, Mahlstein 2012, Wang 2013, Notz 2016), but 
not a “death spiral”.


I’m not downplaying the strong changes in the Arctic, but the science 
suggests a fairly linear (and reversible) relationship between Arctic 
sea ice and temperature with large variability superimposed. In my 
view they do not support a “death spiral”.


*>Blunder 2*. IPCC has ignored the warming effect of accumulated CO2. 
They say that global temperature rise will be halted when net CO2 
emissions have fallen to zero, ignoring the effect of accumulated CO2 
and other forcing agents in the atmosphere.[…] The second blunder can 
be illustrated by AR5 WG1 figure 6-40 attached and available here 
[1].  The red curves are supposed to show the effect if net emissions 
were to suddenly fall to zero at 2050, when CO2 has reached about 500 
ppm.  The temperature (red curve in bottom diagram) should continue to 
rise as a result of the forcing from 500 ppm CO2; but instead the 
temperature flattens off as if the accumulated CO2 ceased to have a 
warming effect!


Of course CO2 continues to have an effect, but as emissions are set to 
zero the atmospheric concentration and therefore forcing decrease.


>It is absolutely astonishing and frightening that such a fundamental mistake 
can be made.

Where is the evidence for a fundamental mistake?

>If we want to halt global warming at any particular temperature, then we need to bring net forcing down to 
zero by the time that temperature has been reached.


No, that is simply wrong. The forcing has to decrease to compensate 
the slowly decreasing ocean heat uptake, but it does not have to be 
zero at any time to limit warming, not even in equilibrium. The global 
energy balance is Q=F-lambda*T where Q is heat uptake, F is forcing, 
lambda is the inverse of climate sensitivity and T is warming (see 
Knutti and Hegerl 2008 for example). If today F~=2.3 Wm-2 and Q~=0.9 
Wm-2 and we want to keep T constant and Q=0 towards