Hi Peter--I'm all for DAC and hoe you can scale up and do it as you
suggest, but to limit impacts, we should not let the temperature go
above 1.5 C and should be aiming to pull it down to less than 0.5 C, and
I agree therefore that CDR is absolutely essential. I know nothing on
pricing and challenge of scaling up, but it does seem a bit hard to
accept that it can be scaled up fast enough unless we really do get into
a Pearl Harbor to D-Day type of scale up (Manhattan Project was small
potatoes compared to overall scale up). There is now report coming out I
think tomorrow that focuses how close to the climate impacts edge we are
but it still seems that we are very far from scaling up far enough and
fast enough. I'd be delighted to avoid SRM, but just don't think that is
going to happen (even if possible in the way you suggest) and a little
SRM could help to save the species and impact commitments that will
really grow as the temperature heads beyond 1.5 C (or even 1 C for the
ice sheets).
I also think there is the chance that the fact that SRM may be needed
might well help scale up the CDR push rather than tamp it down--it
really will depend on how things are framed.
What seems to bother both of us, in any case, is this failure to be
acting strongly enough on any of the various possibiliities, much less
on all of them, which is what would be prudent/precautionary thing to be
doing. Mark Cane, at an NRC/BASC meeting yesterday offered the challenge
of naming an emerging problem that was dealt with before it became
really problematic, suggesting the only one he had come up with was
buying up the Catskill and Adirondack watersheds to provide water for
NYC, and that effort was during Tammany times and involved a good bit of
graft and profiteering; he did suggest that water for LA likely was
achieved with similar shortcomings (as a read of the excellent book
"Cadillac Desert" documents). Thus, he was a bit pessimistic that we can
rouse public action before disaster strikes, which will be too late
given the time and magnitude scales of this problem. I'd be delighted if
your approach succeeded sufficiently to avoid SRM, but I think at moment
instead of being concerned about the other, it would be better to be
working together (and with this new report/declaration that is coming)
to get attention to the real seriousness of the situation we are in and
that there are potential ways to deal with it, none without effort and
uncertainty, and we had better get to work on not only researching but
early deployment of them.
Best, Mike
On 11/6/17 2:47 PM, Peter Eisenberger wrote:
I believe the winner take all perspective is highly flawed and is a
major contributor why those of us who share the concern for the
climate risk
are not being effective in making our case. The winner take all
lanquage is appropriate for academic and commercial efforts but not
for a Manhatten
Project Perspective where finding the approach to focus ones efforts
on is the primary challenge and vigorous internal debate is the
process. The opportunity cost
of addrsssing SRM that cannot solve the problem and could make it
worse before we as a community support CDR which can solve the problem
and has minimal risk
is very large and made larger when so called experts argue in support
of SRM that one cannot depend upon or worse it is unlikely CDR can
work in time .
The self fulling and self serving aspect of that is clear . And by
the way those who oppose taking the climate threat seriously will
vigorously support doing more research rather than having a manhatten
like project where we all cooperate to address the treat we face.
Someone or some organization that supports the concern should provide
a process to have that vigorous internal debate with the pledge that
one will support the consencus approach that emerges . We can n o
longer afford to fagment our efforts by viewng this as an area of
competition for support rather than an emergency we need to come
together on and confront as best we can .
On Mon, Nov 6, 2017 at 10:51 AM, Michael Hayes <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>> 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
<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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