- re Andrew's: who cares? It's the rate that does you in (largely)? Oreskes and Conway present their scenario in a time period, i.e. they are talking about rates that do you in. They're saying a high rate of warming caused by stopping SRM persists long enough to drive the planet's temperature so high so fast it triggers their "fatal chain of events' that ends civilization. No scientist has found that a high rate of change caused by removing the influence of SRM could possibly persist long enough to drive the planet's temperature up to higher than the accumulated GHG would drive it had there had been no SRM. Oreskes and Conway write as if stopping a project aimed at cooling the planet is a new so far not that widely known about forcing that will warm it, therefore, no one had better ever try to cool it. They emphasize this idea by making a geoengineering-caused sudden spike in planetary temperature the villain in their plot, i.e. it is depicted as the trigger of the "fatal chain of events" that ends civilization. These are popular authors who made names for themselves among climate scientists and the general public with their last book *Merchants of Doubt*. What they say might become what many end up believing, and *there would be another meme*. Oreskes and Conway present themselves as being sincerely interested that what they say is accurate. Perhaps they might appreciate it if they were corrected. They've misunderstood the Ross and Matthews paper <http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/4/4/045103/pdf/1748-9326_4_4_045103.pdf> they cite. The Ross and Matthews charts illustrating some of what they found in their paper are below. I drew the heavy black lines. The top chart is Ross and Matthews Figure 1(A) which depicts a number of model runs assuming a BAU emissions scenario with no geoengineering. Each line is a run that assumed a different climate sensitivity. The lower chart is their Figure 1(B) which depicts a similar set of model runs but SRM is simulated in all of them staring in 2020 and ending in 2059. I've drawn the heavy vertical black line at roughly year 2064 to supposedly make it easier to see that the two horizontal black lines are pointing to the temperature the models indicate at the highest sensitivity for that year, i.e. 2064. All sensitivities and all years indicate the same thing. I.e. if you apply SRM and stop, whatever the sensitivity, the planet is cooler than it would be if you didn't apply SRM. The planet is cooler at all times after you apply SRM, than it otherwise would be if you didn't apply SRM.
<https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-pY7kYR2bKJg/U-Rn9jZzgtI/AAAAAAAAAfs/RC5fR6AnppA/s1600/modified%2Bgraphic.jpg> On Thursday, August 7, 2014 6:22:00 PM UTC-7, andrewjlockley wrote: > > The heat capacity of the ocean means that you'd have a lower terminal > temperature with SRM, not a higher one. > > But who cares? It's the rate that does you in (largely). > > A > > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "geoengineering" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to geoengineering+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to geoengineering@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/geoengineering. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
