Futuristic fleet of 'cloudseeders' (BBC)

[eppur_se_muova]

VIEWPOINT
Professor John Latham

Some experts are proposing radical ideas to save us from disastrous climate change. But would they work? Professors John Latham and Stephen Salter have designed a fleet of yachts that would pump fine particles of sea-water into clouds, thickening them to reflect more of the Sun's rays. Here, Professor Latham talks about the proposal.
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The idea my colleagues and I are pursuing is to increase the amount of sunlight reflected back into space from the tops of thin, low-level clouds (marine stratocumuli, which cover about a quarter of the world's oceanic surface), thereby producing a cooling effect.

Calculations show that if we can increase the reflectivity by about 3%, the cooling will balance the global warming caused by increased CO2 in the atmosphere (resulting from the burning of fossil fuels).

Cloud-seeding yachts

In order to deploy our scheme and produce adequate cooling, we would need to spray sea-water droplets continuously over a significant fraction of the world's oceanic surface, at a total rate of around 50 cubic metres per second.

Professor Stephen Salter has developed plans for a novel form of spray-droplet production (involving high-velocity propulsion of sea-water droplets), and has designed a wind-powered unmanned vessel which can be remotely guided to regions where cloud seeding is most favourable.


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more: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/6354759.stm

Most such proposals seem to falter in the face of the sheer scale of the problem. These guys seem to have picked a 'fulcrum point' -- some factor that can be manipulated on a managable scale, to produce meaningful results on a global scale. (Since this is largely how the problem got started, it seems worth trying some intellectual judo to attack the problem.)

As he explains in the article, the point of this effort is to BUY TIME, not to solve the whole problem. Buying time may be something we find ourselves in desperate need of.

[StClone]

1. We're way ahead of you: Chem Trails... nuck, nuck , nuck

Ubbb ubbb whoo whoo whoooo!

:crazy:

Once upon a time:

To control flooding we dam rivers (watch the river die, silt in, and fish disappear).
Deer run amok after we eliminated their predators systematically or coincidentally.
I can give countless examples where a cure leaves us in equally distressed state as when diseased.

[amitten]

2. True. But, the alternative may be worse. n/t

[StClone]

4. True, lower light penetration to the lower levels

May mean less photosynthesis and less food along with less CO2. It may mean higher temperatures at higher levels in the atmosphere and what that entails. Unintended consequence (see below) indeed.

[amitten]

5. With the significantly thinned ozone layer, I don't think light

penetration is the biggest issue. We're certainly getting stronger UV exposure than we used to.

But the other things may be an issue.

[StClone]

7. The aim is to reduce sunlight penetration

And reflecting it back into space with more clouds via cloud seeding. High clouds trap heat and low clouds reflect sunlight. Less sunlight means less light available for photosynthesis (meaning less greenhouse CO2 production), but also less food production in the World. I shouldn't be so simple here because clouds are a vexing problem in modeling and Science is still not sure of them and neither should I be. So that is why I believe the effects of cloud seeding could be not as intended.

[amitten]

10. I understand how it works...my point is that UV penetration is

already way above normal levels due to the abnormal ozone thinning. Reflecting *some* of it back out is probably not going to affect plant life. It's just a way of tilting the scales back the other way a little, because they are now so unbalanced.

[StClone]

11. UV rays are less affected by clouds

Than other light spectrum wavelengths that is why you can get a sunburn on cloudy days. I pretty much excluded that from the the focus of any of my prior posts. Clouds will have much less affect on decreasing UV levels.

[GliderGuider]

3. Aren't we clever little monkeys?

Clever enough to get ourselves into trouble, not smart enough to get ourselves back out.

I wonder if any of these big brains have ever heard of the Law of Unintended Consequences.

[phantom power]

6. I'm actually somewhat open to a "terraform the earth!" movement.

Not because I don't think it would be dangerous, but because I think that sooner or later we'll be that fucking desperate, and have nothing to lose. Most of our previous global-scale fuckups have come about by completely ignoring any possible consequences. In principle, an earth terraforming effort could proceed by actively trying to predict and address consequences, and so possibly do more good than harm.

In principle.

[GliderGuider]

8. What's that old saying about the pavement on the road to hell?

I'm of the school that says at some point, like an antelope in the jaws of a lion, we should accept our fate, quit struggling and let nature take its course. We may not be quite there yet, and our monkey brains probably won't let us stop anyway.

[phantom power]

9. I've never adhered to that school.

For one thing, it implies that there is some "fate" out there that we can (or should) accept, when in fact there are actions and consequences. Giving up has consequences like trying to survive does. What those consequences are is deeply unpredictable. All of us organisms inherit programming that embodies the concept "you can't win if you don't play."