Register | Sign In


Understanding through Discussion


EvC Forum active members: 65 (9162 total)
3 online now:
Newest Member: popoi
Post Volume: Total: 915,817 Year: 3,074/9,624 Month: 919/1,588 Week: 102/223 Day: 0/13 Hour: 0/0


Thread  Details

Email This Thread
Newer Topic | Older Topic
  
Author Topic:   Geoengineering the Climate
Archer Opteryx
Member (Idle past 3598 days)
Posts: 1811
From: East Asia
Joined: 08-16-2006


Message 1 of 3 (403982)
06-06-2007 8:18 AM


Carnegie study of solar shields
Catherine Brahic reports in NewScientist (2007.06.05) on research suggesting a solar shield could serve as an effective stopgap measure to brake global warming.

A solar shield that reflects some of the Sun's radiation back into space would cool the climate within a decade and could be a quick-fix solution to climate change, researchers say. Because of their rapid effect, however, they should be deployed only as a last resort when "dangerous" climate change is imminent, they warn.
Solar shields are not a new idea - such "geoengineering" schemes to artificially cool the Earth's climate are receiving growing interest, and include proposals to inject reflective aerosols into the stratosphere, deploying space-based solar reflectors and large-scale cloud seeding.
[. . . . ]
Ken Caldeira at the Carnegie Institution of Washington, in California, US, and Damon Matthews at Concordia University, Canada, used computer models to simulate the effects that a solar shield would have on the Earth's climate if greenhouse gas emissions continued to rise along a "business as usual" scenario.
"We have been trying to pinpoint the one really bad thing that argues against geoengineering the climate," says Caldeira. "But it is really hard to find."
His computer models simulated a gradually deployed shield that would compensate for the greenhouse effect of rising carbon dioxide concentrations. By the time CO2 levels are double those of pre-industrial times - predicted to be at the end of the 21st century - the shield would need to block 8% of the Sun's radiation.
The researchers found that a sulphur shield could act very quickly, lowering temperatures to around early 20th-century levels within a decade of being deployed.
"The trouble is, the decadal timescale works both ways," says Caldeira. A sulphate shield would need to be continuously replenished, and the models show that failing to do so would mean the Earth's climate would suddenly be hit with the full warming effect of the CO2 that has accumulated in the meantime.
Added by Edit: original Carnegie press release
I'd be interested in seeing a Science forum discussion of solar shields and other geoengineering options to deal with climate change.
The topic is creative possibilities for dealing with climate change--geoengineering--and the planet-sized variables these capabilities involve.
______
Edited by Archer Opterix, : added link.

Archer
All species are transitional.

Replies to this message:
 Message 2 by AdminAsgara, posted 06-06-2007 9:14 PM Archer Opteryx has not replied

AdminAsgara
Administrator (Idle past 2303 days)
Posts: 2073
From: The Universe
Joined: 10-11-2003


Message 2 of 3 (404158)
06-06-2007 9:14 PM
Reply to: Message 1 by Archer Opteryx
06-06-2007 8:18 AM


Re: Carnegie study of solar shields
Hi Archer,
You state that you want a science forum discussion. Does this mean that you do not want it in Coffee House? If not where do you see it going.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 1 by Archer Opteryx, posted 06-06-2007 8:18 AM Archer Opteryx has not replied

Adminnemooseus
Administrator
Posts: 3974
Joined: 09-26-2002


Message 3 of 3 (404173)
06-06-2007 10:31 PM


Thread copied to the Geoengineering the Climate thread in the Coffee House forum, this copy of the thread has been closed.

Newer Topic | Older Topic
Jump to:


Copyright 2001-2023 by EvC Forum, All Rights Reserved

™ Version 4.2
Innovative software from Qwixotic © 2024