Hi Michael--I am all for doing all the CDR one can do as well--and if it
can be enough to keep the temperature near constant so SRM can be
avoided, that would be fine. I am just not convinced there will be
enough of a commitment to accomplish this, and so think that need SRM,
and that we just don't know enough to rely on marine cloud brightening
to rely on it--fine to phase in as learn more, but right now we just
know a lot more about stratospheric aerosol injection at low intensities
and so I'd lean to that first. And with the new simulations, I think
that these results are starting to provide the capabilities for
evaluating the very low levels of SRM that I am talking about to just
hold the global average temp at the low end of being between 1.0 and 1.5
before deciding what more might be desirable, needed, etc.
Best, Mike
On 11/6/17 1:51 PM, Michael Hayes wrote:
Mike,
Well said and reasonable. Yet we seem to be drawn to a winner takes
all type of strategy. If stratospheric injection presents unknowns, as
all large scale actions will, and time is of the essence, why not
field as many a plausible to filter out, and or adjust, as many as
possible.
There was once concern that one method would somehow contaminate
another. Frankly I don't see that happening. Will SAI trouble MCB?
Will AWL sink Biochar or BlueBiochar. How would SAI, MCB, or even OIF
negate Olivine?
Lets approach this as it is, a critical deployment phase which must
reach for the best basket of tech coming on line and do so as soon as
plausible. Table top neatness in experimentation eats far too much
time and, fankly, is not needed.
As a side note on SAI, the same equipment can be used to test out
wetted C as an air dehydrator/electrical bridge to the GEC (GEC+) and
the Hydroxyl Cryogenesis Geotherapy (HCG) approach.
All of the methods need to be tested in the most informative, and thus
challenging, set of conditions.
I propose an Arctic high altitude field campaign involving SAI, HCG,
and GEC+ be immediately ramped up for and deployed this Arctic Winter.
The balloon station and tether components are all off the shelf. I
propose a $3M budget. The law HR 353 peovides the budget.
The aviation tech development during this Arctic build and deploy
exercise will be valuable to the weather forecasting field for many
decades. $3M is cheap for this amount of immediate science as well as
new tool development.
https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/house-bill/353
Michael Hayes
On Nov 5, 2017 7:45 PM, "Michael MacCracken" <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
Hi Doug--In response to your Nov 4 post below, I am all for
learning, but the problem with waiting and waiting is that the
Earth will keep warming and warming and impacts will keep growing
and growing--including especially ones that are or near
irreversible, such as to biodiversity and commitment to sea level
rise.
If the goal were, during this 20-year learning time, only to
reduce or offset year-by-year warming as might be done, based on
our understanding of volcanic effects, using quite small annual
increments to the stratospheric sulfur loading, and basically
iterating as we go on something like 5-year running averages, we
would very likely be in a much more favorable situation to
evaluate how to proceed, both having better model analyses and
having some experience to work with. If we find the 20-year
accumulation is worse than ongoing global warming with GHGs or
that mitigation is working particularly well, the stratospheric
injection level could be gradually reduced instead of continuing
with ongoing augmentation. While there would of course be
uncertainties, it is not really clear that they would be more
serious than the increasing changes and impacts that are
occurring. It just seems to me that to do nothing while continuing
with research just lets the situation get worse and then the cure
having to be so much stronger than deployment itself could be
problematic.
If, as Santer et al suggest, early 21st century rate of warming
was slowed by the cooling influences of small volcanic eruptions
that injected amounts that were barely noticeable even with
advanced instruments and really not at all noticeable by the
general public, I'd suggest that we actually have a natural analog
of the type of influence that I am suggesting be pursued. And, in
that we will be learning along the way through the 20-year
research program (let's assume that the research is funded), so it
just seems, as noted above, that the uncertainties associated with
such an approach would not be less than the impacts and
uncertainties of deferring all intervention efforts until some
probably pretty arbitrary level of understanding in the future.
Regarding my favoring of regionally focused alterations, I would
make that a research priority, but I'd suggest that the earlier
one started injecting enough sulfur to offset each year's forcing
increment or so, the better--just thinking that, in the type of
relative risk framing that I view as appropriate to the situation
given where we are, that, with mitigation ramping up virtually
everywhere (and the US doing somewhat well despite the
Administration's mistaken actions), starting very modestly with
stratospheric aerosol climate intervention could really help in
making sure that the situation is not so bad by the time we learn
enough to "make reasonably informed decisions" (whatever that
means) that we will be unable to avoid significant overshoot of
the global average temperature without such aggressive
intervention that we'll be suffering from both the growing impacts
and then the supposed cure.
At the very least, I would think a good case could be made for
such an effort.
Best regards, Mike MacCracken
On 11/4/17 11:43 AM, Douglas MacMartin wrote:
Both SAI and MCB probably need of order of 20 years of
research before we could make reasonably informed decisions;
both have a long list of unknowns. (In the case of MCB, we
don't even really know if it "works" in any meaningful sense
of the word, because cloud-aerosol interactions are too
uncertain today, so we really don't know whether there is a
useful fraction of cloud meteorological conditions in which
the albedo is significantly enhanced. We should all really
really hope that it doesn't work very well, because if it
doesn't, that means the indirect aerosol effect is smaller
than current best guess and climate sensitivity will be on the
low end...)
(And, of course, at the current level of worldwide funding,
that "20" above is probably off by a few orders of magnitude.)
-----Original Message-----
From: [email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>
[mailto:[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>] On Behalf Of Michael
Hayes
Sent: Saturday, November 04, 2017 10:00 AM
To: geoengineering <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>>
Subject: Re: [geo] Can anyone offer a CE perspective on this
SLR article?
Holly and List,
The use of sulfur needs proper polar field level testing.
Testing is planned yet may not be done in areas prone to Polar
Stratospheric Cloud formation. Time of the season is also of
the essence for testing.
Until that is done, SAI has a large question to answer; in
general terms.
MCB, used in key areas, is a critical first step. There should
be no deflection at that engineering level. Once MCB paves the
way, other marine capable systems can gain traction.
What marine engineering minded person or institution would not
give Steven's word heavy weight? This is a marine issue.
--
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