Solar Geoengineering/Sunlight Reflection Methods: Safe, Effective, Needed? w/ Doug MacMartin

[@bangelos1380]

I remember a talk of Frank Kautsch ( Harvard ) about stratospheric aerosol injection one year ago. His analogy was "use of painkillers". Appropriate use of painkillers is not to avoid or delay needed treatment, but reasonable, if needed treatment is delayed. I am sure, we will need it. And it sets my mind a litte bit to rest, that we have that opportunity.

[@ecomquest]

The best answer to getting srm( many methods) is to deploy easy, doable surface reflection ( reflectors. Bright paints, films,etc) that cool direly heated areas. When people see that works then the public attitude will most likely be swayed positive to mcb and sai -Reflectoman

[@StabilisingGlobalTemperature]

White roof tiles should be mandatory on new build dwellings.

[@TheBrontovox]

Is there an accurate figure for ppm sulphur in the stratosphere needed to stabilise temperature? Or put it another way, what is the relative sensitivity of temperature to sulphur vs CO2? I think Prof David Keith mentioned a one part sulphur to one million parts CO2 ratio. Is that about correct?

[@climatechat]

There is about 1 trillion tons of excess (human caused) CO2 in the atmosphere (or ~2T CO2e). It would take about 10 million tons of sulfur in the stratosphere per year to offset it, so roughly 100,000:1 so David Keith is about right (& he probably did a more detailed calculation).

[@tandrasz]

I thought acid rain was not a risk with evenly dispersed stratospheric aerosol injection because the concentration of sulphuric acid when it finally makes it to the surface is orders of magnitude lower than for what we know as acid rain caused by local/regional pollution from coal power plants, animal agriculture, factories and cars?

[@MarkMilne-u8v]

A frustrating conversation here, but a typical one. I'm co-authoring a book on SRM at the moment which included an analysis on 9 different SRM methods. Here, we have just two: SAI and MCB, as usual, as if that's the only show in town. I really wish people looking into and commenting on SRM would go a bit further than these two most-discussed proposals and look at for example high albedo crops as well as the use of surface mirrors or reflectors, which are among the most potentially effective of the many suggested SRM avenues. High albedo crops, while they will never be as reflective as snow and clouds, are particularly interesting as a partial solution because we have to eat, we are growing these crops anyway in darker variations, so why not experiment (as some scientists are) with lighter colored variations of the same plant species? No extra land or energy or materials are needed. And surface-based mirrors (made from plastics and aluminum rather than glass), particularly in agricultural settings but in many others as well, offers co-benefits that SAI and MCB don't, as they can help provide partial shade for overheated crops, help increase sunlight absorption when used near the ground level, cool the microclimate in general and help prevent evaporation. Farmers already do this using different materials from ground cover plastics to straw, for the same reasons: to help improve crop yields. There is plenty of agricultural land for this type of mirror use and it isn't going to destroy ozone or create acid rain. It also will not reduce the effectiveness of solar energy from solar PV, as SAI will. Nor will it reduce the amount of sunlight reaching living organisms on Earth that need it, as would SAI. MacMartin does not mention that. Secondly, MacMartin is really downplaying the dangers of SAI that so many scientists have raised and written about very hard here. It’s pretty surprising, actually. When he says that acid rain as well as the concern about ozone destruction is just not a problem with SAI because he says “we would be using such a tiny amount” of sulfur as compared for example to the pollution, including sulfur, from car exhaust etc., I don’t find that breezy attitude anywhere in the scientific literature. Scientists including Victor Trees, Susanne Baur, Samantha Tracy, Christopher Smith, Patrick Keys and Daniel Cziczo, among many others, have all authored/co-authored papers on both dangers of SAI as well as (Trees) its potential to fail, mainly through destroying, rather than enhancing, cloud cover, as well as creating extremely hot years following substantial cooling, particularly in some of the most inhabited regions of developed nations (Keys). In my own work I find that the main concerns with SAI (on top of the many technical hurdles that people like MacMartin gloss over), since that is all this discussion really covers, meaning those concerns or potential problems which seem to not be problems we are already heading for with continued global warming (such as ill effects on weather patterns!), are concerns about ozone depletion, reducing solar energy production, the unintended warming of polar ice and the potential to destroy reflective cloud cover. The issue of moral hazard is moot and is raised only by those who have no clue how close we are to extremely severe consequences from global warming as it is, and who don't seem to understand that emissions reductions and carbon removal are simply way too slow-moving given our timeline to ecosystem and social breakdown. Governance, as MacMartin says, is just something we'll need to deal with and figure out. But I think most people would be much happier going forward with high albedo crops, MCB and surface mirrors rather than SAI. The problem is, as long as conversations like these continue to sit on SAI and MCB, the public will ever know about all the other proposals being discussed. Scientists love to talk about and write about those subjects which are already heavily researched, like SAI, because their jobs demand it: they need attention, they need visibility and funding, and they do not get that by doing research on subjects nobody else is writing about. It is a sad truth, but our scientists are just as locked into our rat-race world as the rest of us, and have to put food on the table and make sure their jobs aren't in jeopardy.

[@climatechat]

1st, see my conversation with the founder of MEER (mirrors on the ground), Dr. Ye Tao: kzbin.info39kBw4UiN0o , 2nd other partial SRM methods such as lighter crops, white paint, mirrors, etc. are great but they will not reduce the global temperature by 1.5ºC nor stop tipping points such as an AMOC collapse. 3rd, we are doing about 100 Mt/y of TAI (tropospheric aerosol injection) & we can reduce that by 95% and put the final 5% in the stratosphere and have more cooling! There are negative side effects of SAI but they are small compared to the negative side effects of *not* doing SAI.

[@MarkMilne-u8v]

@@climatechat Yes! Wonderful, I have watched the interview with Dr. Tao, so that's great. You are looking at more SRM solutions than SAI and MCB. However, your interview with Dr. Tao gave you lots of reasons to have second thoughts about SAI but it was clear you were not interested in hearing them, why not? (Having heard the conversation, reading your comment here I wonder if you were paying much attention? ) You even lost your patience and forced Dr. Tao away from that subject by essentially saying that "look, whether it's SAI or mirrors, any SRM method will have negative side effects so let's talk about something else" but that's far too easy to say, and harder to back up. (You are an entrepreneur as is Stacey: are you investing in SAI?) SAI has much more downside in that sense than mirrors, but you didn't want to hear about it. As to your comment here that mirrors "will not reduce the global temperature by 1.5ºC nor stop tipping points" I must say, having listened to your interview with Dr. Tao, there was nothing in that discussion preventing a decrease by 1.5C from mirrors as it's all about scale, so where are you coming from? As for tipping points, presumably you are talking about the speed of implementing mirrors versus SAI? Speedy cooling is the only way to stop tipping points, and I don't see SAI becoming implemented quickly. Mirrors COULD be implemented fairly quickly but when people (like entrepreneurs, universities and politicians) want sexy, high-tech fixes, common-sense, simple solutions like mirrors made from our own landfill doesn't make them see dollar signs. The technical hurdles with SAI are more than just developing the aircraft, there are still problems with the material to disperse, and trying to work out a "most suitable" material from the point of view of ozone destruction and other issues. And then there is the fact that people are simply afraid of planes flying around spraying sulfur into the atmosphere that will eventually return to Earth. It is easy to say "SAI negative side effects are small." MacMartin said as much and now you. But that doesn't square with the research I'm reading at all. Have you read any of it? Your last point refers to auto and industrial pollution, and I say Yes, great, end that. When that happens, by the way, we'll get a surge in heating as the cooling provided will disappear. Any SRM solution has to live with the extra heating from a cessation of fossil pollution now sitting in the troposphere. Somehow you seem to think there is a link to ending this pollution and deploying SAI but I don't see it. We are going to end that pollution anyway. SAI is a different subject and is not a requirement, only a possibility.

[@climatechat]

@@MarkMilne-u8v As Dr. Tao said, it would take an area covered in mirrors literally the size of the United States to cool around 1.5ºC so that will not happen quickly and will be very expensive (not to mention that it will have a significant environmental footprint!). That's why he recommends MEER for local and regional cooling at first. SAI is much easier, cheaper and faster. In fact, we are doing it right now, though we are doing it very inefficiently and accidentally. We could have more cooling while reducing sulfur emissions by 95%.

[@MarkMilne-u8v]

@@climatechat I have never hear or read any person, and certainly not any scientist describe SAI in this way, as you have, with MacMartin. Obviously, the two of you have discussed this together before. To say that SAI is just a more efficient way of cooling the planet than the way we are accidentally doing it now with pollution, and that SAI would be done on a much smaller scale, is a great sales pitch. It makes people, who probably feel that our current pollution from car exhaust, etc., is "not a big deal," think that SAI sounds pretty smart. Why haven't scientists described it this way, if it is as you say? Maybe it is because it is one thing to spread sulfur dioxide into the lower atmosphere, and another to spread it into the stratosphere? And maybe it isn't at all as innocuous as you imply. And as I've already said, from what I've read, it is not as easy as the two of you make it out to be. When climate scientists run side businesses, like David Keith, who pocketed $40 million when he sold his CDR biz to oil giant Oxy, who's CEO Vicki Hollub declared at the CERAweek oil conference in 2023 that this captured CO2 "...gives our industry a license to continue to operate for the [next] 60, 70, 80 years" through EOR, or enhanced oil recovery (injecting CO2 into depleted oil wells to squeeze out more oil) it makes me wary of them when they come along and suggest this or that "easy fix" for something related to climate change, especially when others don't seem to agree with them. So I don't know. I don't know of MacMartin and I don't know what his motivations are, but one thing is certain: all of our efforts to stop global warming thus far have focused on making money. We are making money, rather than making a difference, with CDR a prime example. Maybe with your venture capital firm you are looking to invest in SAI, I don't know. I do know that Dr. Tao, after leaving a lucrative position at Harvard, has been living in Africa most of the last year, trying to help the poorest people there have a cooler place to live through a nonprofit. He is trying to work out solutions that do the job, rather than simply make money. Using mirrors made from our plastic and aluminum garbage, even if it has an environmental footprint, may not be the fastest or easiest way to stop this warming, but sometimes the fastest, easiest solutions aren't the best ones. I think it makes sense to be less dismissive, as you have been, of the potential for danger with SAI and let those who can do the math spend more time on this and hopefully come to a good solution, even if it involves a compromise, without simply doing what they can to make a fast buck.

[@bangelos1380]

It would be much easier for me to get all the details correctly with ( automatically translated ) subtitles. Do you know, why this feature is not available for this video? Usually it is.

[@bangelos1380]

Now translated subtitles are availabe. Perfect for me.

[@terenceharvey6432kong]

Atmospheric ionization Using RF to bond with or excite the existing metal or other particulate in the atmosphere via agnostic technology solutions , electromagnetic scaler waves ELF used to control the weather as well as providing SRM , There is no need to put any extra particulate into the atmosphere There is already enough particulate in the atmophere to charge and reflect solar radiation, This technology can also be used to cool the poles by raining during the winter months and providing SRM we can thicken the polar ice sheets , this would lead to an immediate stopping of the polar and Greenland ice melt avoiding a amoc shutdown and avoiding catastrophic sea level rise this should create a cooling credit equivalent to 10 GT co2e yearly using AI and quantum compute ring modelling , needs to be monitories to generate a cooling credit equivalent to 10 GT of co2e @ $50 per tn and also by refreezing the poles you could generate another 10 GT of co2e @ $50 per tn via methane mitigation by stopping the poles from melting and can stop the methane from being emitted i could refreeze the poles and Greenland and Iceland and repair the Himalayas and stop the AMOC from stalling. for 10 billion per year ,Thats 5 billion for 10 GT s @ $50 per tn of cooling credit and 10 GT @ $50 per tn of methane mitigation reducing the global temperature bye 2/3 DG within a 3 to 5 year period Guaranteed www.theglobalgorilla.com

[@StabilisingGlobalTemperature]

I agree that it is inevitable that we will do SRM at some point. Do you have a feel for what would be more cost effective: high altitude aircraft (maybe drone aircraft) or drone boats spraying salt water mist? Cost per quantity of cooling.

[@yetao5801]

Stratospheric aerosols also reduces direct/vs diffuse solar radiation by up to 18%. Total radiation reduces by order 1-2 percent. Solar PV and concentrating solar thermal power would operate at reduced in efficiency by 2% to 18%. UV radiation especially at higher latitudes could reduce sufficiently to induce loss of function mutations in different plants so they would no longer be able to handle UV stress. In the event of termination, primary production may suffer irreversibly since gain of function mutation and spread among populations is much much slower than loss of function mutation.

[@goddardwb]

Please Review and Comment Cooling the Polar Regions Wilson B. Goddard, Ph.D, Principal Research Engineer and Christine B. Goddard, M.A. Principal Environmental Planner Manager, Goddard and Goddard Engineering - Environmental Studies Abstract: A proposed geoengineering of Cirrus/contrail clouds by commercial aviation during polar flights using a Welsbach material added to their jet fuel to cool the Arctic is outlined. Aluminum oxide is discussed as an inexpensive spectral shifting Welsbach material. The geophysical implication, if nothing is done, is allowing continued Arctic global warming which is moving the northern hemisphere toward unknown adverse weather phenomena adversely affecting societies and agriculture. The proposed polar cooling program can move us back toward the cold geophysical Arctic which we understand and to which we have adapted.

[@bangelos1380]

I am sorry, but Welsbach materials do not shift frequencies of photons to higher values. Put a gas ( Welsbach ) mantle at night into a baking oven. It will not serve daylight for you. It is funny, what is patentable in the US.

[@QAlba1074]

CLOSE DOWN THE UNIVERSITIES

[@drawnbydragons354]

I suspect that there is a premeditated movement to blame all the heating on the alleged reductions in sulphur in fuels and get people to be OK with spraying sulphur in the skies. The rise in heating is mostly from undergoing a phase change once the polar ice is gone all the energy manifests as heating. Is there really less emissions or pollution generally, business as usual going full steam ahead. The thing about sulphur is it's highly acidifying so blocking out the sun will cause acid rain kill lots of trees & turn the skies yellow. Sulphur also triggers asthma. Volcanoes and life were never friends. I've heard the talk about mixing in calcium dust sounds like a bad idea to me. If it's a choice between an age of darkness and living like the Amish do sign me up for the Amish. If they start SRM they gonna just keep on burning fossil fuels and it's game over. Forests will die, Oceans will keep absorbing C02 and acidify more.

[@climatechat]

No. Very little of what you said is true. Did you actually watch the interview?

[@drawnbydragons354]

@@climatechat after watching the rest of the video I still hold the same opinion. Going to need a lot more than 0.5 of a degree if they want to bring the Arctic back. They are global averages so what would it be at least 4C globally? Cooling from Sulphur shipping emissions is fairly localised from what I hear. It's not changed what is happening on the rest of the planet. The abrupt change in temperature is exactly what would be expected when the ice melts as can be seen in this 2 min video kzbin.info/www/bejne/p6qXiWuBmLxroKc I would not put it past the industry to have conspired this all as damage control. Now all of a sudden the people doing the polluting are the good guys, I know it doesn't work like but that is what the average person will use it to justify business as usual.

[@climatechat]

@@drawnbydragons354 Again, no. Listen to what Doug MacMartin said and listen to my interview with Leon Simons, who is an expert in shipping emissions.

[@drawnbydragons354]

@@climatechat Well I hope you are right, I think if it wasn't an option real change would happen a lot faster.

[@QAlba1074]

Living in an Industrial Society was not even an option. Agrarian (Amish) Society was the limit for man on earth.

[@StabilisingGlobalTemperature]

The Eurofighter Typhoon can reach 65,000 ft with a 7 tonne payload. Probably more if the redundant military equipment is stripped out. The Royal Air Force will soon be scrapping 30 Typhoons, which still have most of their airframe life remaining. I have calculated that if they flew on average 3 sorties per day, carrying hydrogen sulphide and combusting it (probably in the afterburner / reheat) to form sulphur dioxide at that altitude, they would cancel out the entire heating from global emissions of CO2. The technology already exists, and it takes surprisingly few aircraft. But if governments fail to act then enthusiasts can get on and do it. Using balloons as Make Sunsets are doing. Individually not very much, but we can envisage thousands of enthusiasts. And doing drone boats spraying salt water mist. Well within the capabilities of technically competent enthusiasts.