Ben
You will find that time speeds up as you get older.
I have been looking for GeoMip papers about marine cloud brightening
with mono-disperse spray sized to suit Kohler but have not be able to
find any. Have I overlooked one?
Stephen
Emeritus Professor of Engineering Design. School of Engineering,
University of Edinburgh, Mayfield Road, Edinburgh EH9 3DW, Scotland
s.sal...@ed.ac.uk, Tel +44 (0)131 662 1180 WWW.homepages.ed.ac.uk/shs,
YouTube Jamie Taylor Power for Change
On 30/06/2020 16:09, Andrew Lockley wrote:
https://geoengineering.environment.harvard.edu/blog/ten-years-geomip
TEN YEARS OF GEOMIP
June 30, 2020
By Ben Kravitz
I’m writing this blog from my couch, where I’ve effectively been for
the past 3 ½ months in self-quarantine due to COVID-19. Putting myself
in the shoes I was wearing ten years ago, if you asked me in 2010
where I see myself in 2020, I guarantee you that I would have gotten
the answer wrong.
Speaking of looking back over the past decade, 2020 marks the ten-year
anniversary of the Geoengineering Model Intercomparison Project
(GeoMIP). The original publication establishing the project and the
first round of climate modeling experiments was submitted in 2010 to a
special issue of Atmospheric Science Letters. Since then, GeoMIP has
involved hundreds of researchers from around the world and is to date
the single largest source of scientific information about solar
geoengineering.
On this tenth anniversary, I thought it would be interesting to look
back at that original GeoMIP paper and see how my thinking has evolved
over the past decade. This excerpt1 stuck out:
[The experiment] assumes an RCP4.5 scenario...but with additional
stratospheric aerosol added starting in the year 2020, which is a
reasonable estimate of when the delivery systems needed to inject the
aerosols might be ready.
Well, I sure am terrible at predicting the future. The world has
(thankfully) not yet decided to deploy climate-altering solar
geoengineering. Nevertheless, publishing this statement did have
consequences for the future. Numerous climate modeling studies have
since begun their simulations in 2020 thanks to GeoMIP’s precedent.
Many of these geoengineering studies that show a start date of 2020
are highlighted in reports at national and international scales.
We picked 2020 because it was a nice, round number in which we could
begin our simulations. Thankfully that decision has not been widely
used outside of scientific research. But what if governments had been
more ready to deploy and perhaps looking for some kind of
justification? If the largest geoengineering research group on the
planet says that this is the year to begin....
Let’s take another example2:
The sudden start of the aerosol injection in 2020 is meant to
approximate the kind of action that might result from society’s sudden
perception of a climate warming ‘emergency’ (e.g., an immediate
imperative to stop ice sheet melting).
This assertion was a somewhat casual justification for suddenly
starting stratospheric aerosol injection in our simulations, as
opposed to ramping up the level of injection, as has been suggested by
others. Much has been written about climate emergencies in
geoengineering in subsequent years, far more eloquently than I can
replicate here. But two especially salient points come to mind:
An emergency is a political declaration, usually to justify some
“extraordinary” action in response to a perceived threat. Declaring an
emergency can allow the state to circumvent normal political processes
to allow, for example, rapid allocation of resources or exercise of
executive power (such as financial relief during a natural disaster or
martial law during civil unrest). Each of these decisions has enormous
sociopolitical ramifications that, quite frankly, I am totally
unqualified to comment on.
There is an inherent assumption in this passage: if geoengineering
were used to combat a declared climate emergency, then the way it
would be done is suddenly switching on a large amount of
geoengineering. That assumption not only has no basis in fact, but
based on research that has been conducted over the past decade, I
personally believe that suddenly deploying a large amount of
geoengineering is a terrible idea.
Why is this passage problematic? Again, statements from the world’s
largest geoengineering research effort influence how ideas are shaped
and discussed, not just among the scientific community, but also in
society and politics. As I recall, this sentence was not debated at
length, which in retrospect seems like an enormous oversight. I cringe
at the possibility that this sentence might be used as part of a
justification for any potential deployment.
I don’t mean to turn this blog into a guilt party. I’m proud of all
that GeoMIP has accomplished for the science of solar geoengineering,
and the credit for that rests entirely with the body of researchers
who have so generously donated their time and effort to conducting
simulations, preparing output, and evaluating the simulation results.
GeoMIP continues to grow, often serving as an entry point for
newcomers to the field.
It is those newcomers I think about. What messages are they taking
away from things I have said? If I had taken more care with what I
say, would they come away with a different message about solar
geoengineering?
Looking back over the past ten years has been a useful, if somewhat
embarrassing, reminder of how important it is to pay close attention
when discussing solar geoengineering. Words matter, and humility in
the communication process can go a long way. After all, the idea we’re
researching and debating is modifying Earth’s climate. Carelessness
has no place here.
1That original paper had multiple coauthors, but I think the
responsibility for this passage rests with me.
2Like the previous example, I’m taking responsibility for this one.
Please direct your criticism my way.
Ben Kravitz is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Earth and
Atmospheric Sciences at Indiana University. His research involves
using climate modeling to better understand the Earth system. He is
the co-founder and coordinator of the Geoengineering Model
Intercomparison Project (GeoMIP).
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