Concern grows over rich nations controlling sunlight

[image credit: latinoamericarenovable.com]

Say hello to an umbrella term for outlandish climate intervention schemes, or maybe scams: SRM (solar radiation management).
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Radical climate interventions — like blocking the sun’s rays — could alter the world’s weather patterns, potentially benefiting some regions of the world and harming others, says E&E News.

That possibility, climate scientists say, means any research on such methods must consider those risks and involve the countries that already bear the greatest impacts from a warming planet.

“If you’re actually talking about actively deploying technologies to alter the climate, then you need to engage all of us in the discussion,” said Andrea Hinwood, chief scientist at the United Nations Environment Programme in Nairobi, Kenya. “And that means those who are the most vulnerable to these effects need to be able to have a say.”

More geo-engineering fantasy – dust as a solar shield

[image credit: latinoamericarenovable.com]

People get paid to write research articles with supposedly climate-friendly ideas, however bizarre they may sound. Here they want, in their own words, to ballistically eject dust grains from the Moon.
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Abstract

We revisit dust placed near the Earth–Sun L1 Lagrange point as a possible climate-change mitigation measure. Our calculations include variations in grain properties and orbit solutions with lunar and planetary perturbations. To achieve sunlight attenuation of 1.8%, equivalent to about 6 days per year of an obscured Sun, the mass of dust in the scenarios we consider must exceed 10^10 kg. The more promising approaches include using high-porosity, fluffy grains to increase the extinction efficiency per unit mass, and launching this material in directed jets from a platform orbiting at L1. A simpler approach is to ballistically eject dust grains from the Moon’s surface on a free trajectory toward L1, providing sun shade for several days or more. Advantages compared to an Earth launch include a ready reservoir of dust on the lunar surface and less kinetic energy required to achieve a sun-shielding orbit.

Source: Dust as a solar shield (research article)
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EurekAlert science site calls it astro-engineering

Artificial ocean cooling to weaken hurricanes is futile, study finds

Image credit: sanibelrealestateguide.com

What a surprise, said no-one.
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A new study found that even if we did have the infinite power to artificially cool enough of the oceans to weaken a hurricane, the benefits would be minimal, says Phys.org.

The study led by scientists at the University of Miami (UM) Rosenstiel School of Marine, Atmospheric and Earth Science showed that the energy alone that is needed to use intervention technology to weaken a hurricane before landfall makes it a highly inefficient solution to mitigate disasters.

“The main result from our study is that massive amounts of artificially cooled water would be needed for only a modest weakening in hurricane intensity before landfall,” said the study’s lead author James Hlywiak, a graduate of the UM Rosenstiel School.

Scientists evaluate Earth-cooling strategies with geoengineering simulations

Layers of Earth’s atmosphere

Q: What could possibly go wrong? A: Even the sky’s not the limit.
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A group of international scientists led by Cornell University is—more rigorously and systematically than ever before—evaluating if and how the stratosphere could be made just a little bit “brighter,” reflecting more incoming sunlight so that an ever-warming Earth maintains its cool, says Phys.org.

Their work is published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Solar radiation modification—or solar geoengineering, as it is sometimes called—is a potential climate change mitigation strategy that involves injecting sulfate aerosols into the stratosphere, so more sunlight bounces off the Earth’s atmosphere.

Commission of ‘high-powered’ climate head-scratchers gathers as 1.5C overshoot looms

Photosynthesis: nature requires carbon dioxide

A Climate Overshoot Commission (COC?) will try to dream up ways of altering nature’s carbon cycle. The mind boggles at the futility.
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Fifteen former leaders and ministers are set to address sensitive questions on the role of CO2 removal and geoengineering in climate action, reports Climate Home News.

The chances of keeping global temperature rise below 1.5C, the toughest goal of the Paris Agreement, are increasingly slim. “Well below 2C” is a stretch.

Yet there has been little discussion at an international level on how to handle “overshoot” of those goals. A high-powered commission due to launch in May aims to break the silence.

Climate diplomats are finalising a 15-strong lineup of former presidents, ministers and representatives of international organisations to explore options for deep adaptation, carbon dioxide removal (CDR) and geoengineering, Climate Home News can reveal.

A sun reflector for Earth? Scientists explore the potential risks and benefits

UK summer 2018 [image credit: BBC]

The Sun is more than capable of regulating itself. Attempts by humans to interfere with its effects are by definition ill-conceived. No trend in Arctic summer sea ice data since the early 2000s, for example, despite so-called experts claiming it was doomed several years ago, so who needs any intervention?
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Nine of the hottest years in human history [Talkshop comment – meaning since 1979, when satellite data became moderately reliable] have occurred in the last decade.

Without a major shift in this climate trajectory, the future of life on Earth is in question, claims Phys.org.

Should humans, whose fossil-fueled society is driving climate change [Talkshop comment – evidence-free assertion], use technology to put the brakes on global warming?

Meet ‘The Centre for Climate Repair’

Fine summer weather [image credit: BBC]

This takes climate pretension to a new level. Bizarre.
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WHO WE ARE — The Centre for Climate Repair at Cambridge is working in affiliation with Cambridge Zero at the University of Cambridge to safeguard our planet from the disastrous effects of global warming.

We are a cross-disciplinary research institution, aiming to develop and understand the solutions that will safeguard our planet from the disastrous consequences of global warming.
[Talkshop note: their repetition, not ours.]

Scientists try ‘cloud brightening’ to protect Great Barrier Reef

Great Barrier Reef, Australia [image credit: BBC]

Research continues, but what other ‘futuristic’ climate-related plans might they want to conjure up if this trial is deemed a success?
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An ambitious “cloud brightening” experiment has been carried out over Australia’s Great Barrier Reef in an early-stage trial that scientists hope could become a futuristic way to protect coral from global warming, says Phys.org.

In an attempt to cool waters around the reef by making clouds reflect more sunlight, researchers said they used a boat-mounted fan similar to a snow cannon to shoot salt crystals into the air.

Results from the trial were “really, really encouraging”, the project’s lead scientist Daniel Harrison from Southern Cross University said on Friday.

Is ‘radical plan to repair Earth’s climate’ a job creation scheme?

Has it occurred to these scientists that the Earth might respond in unexpected ways to grandiose attempts to artificially change the climate? Self-proclaimed would-be saviours of the world should be closely monitored to say the least.

Researchers plans for new centre to explore refreezing the poles, sucking out CO2 and ocean greening, says BBC News.

Scientists in Cambridge plan to set up a research centre to develop new ways to repair the Earth’s climate.

It will investigate radical approaches such as refreezing the Earth’s poles and removing CO2 from the atmosphere.

Volkswagen in dispute with Mexican farmers over ‘hail cannons’

Mexican VW [image credit: retro-motoring.com]

This sounds totally bizarre – a local version of geo-engineering?

Mexican farming communities accused German auto giant Volkswagen on Tuesday of “arbitrarily” provoking a drought in the central state of Puebla to protect its newly manufactured cars from hail, reports Phys.org.

Volkswagen, which has a major plant in Puebla, has been using “hail cannons”—sonic devices that purport to disrupt the formation of hail in the atmosphere—to disperse storm clouds menacing the thousands of new cars parked on its lots.

China to build a rain-making network three times the size of Spain

Tibetan Plateau region

This is industrial scale geo-engineering. From one researcher: “Sometimes snow would start falling almost immediately after we ignited the chamber. It was like standing on the stage of a magic show,” he said.

China is testing cutting-edge defence technology to develop a powerful yet relatively low-cost weather modification system to bring substantially more rain to the Tibetan plateau, Asia’s biggest freshwater reserve, says the South China Morning Post.

The system, which involves an enormous network of fuel-burning chambers installed high up on the Tibetan mountains, could increase rainfall in the region by up to 10 billion cubic metres a year – about 7 per cent of China’s total water consumption – according to researchers involved in the project.