THREAD FOR BRAIN-STORMING OF PRACTICAL GEO-ENGINEERING SOLUTIONS TO TACKLE GLOBAL WARMING.

[iapennell]

Dear Readers

This is a thread which, I hope that fellow members of this great forum can discuss practical geo-engineering solutions to fight Global Warming and to arrest some of the egregious regional climatic trends- heatwaves, drought, floods and storms, coastal erosion, etc.,- that have become more apparent in recent years. Whether one believes we are soon to face Apocalypse or that CO2- induced warming will be cancelled out by natural trends in the next thirty years- temperatures globally- and averaged throughout the year- have undoubtedly risen byjust over 1C since the end of the 19th Century: More severe droughts and wild-fires in the sub-tropics and Mediterranean latitudes and more devastating floods and storms in higher latitudes certainly have the potential to not only destroy habitats but also cause great economic hardship, destroy homes and offices and displace significant numbers of people. And, at this time, with China and Russia staying away it looks like COP26 will end up being little more than a jolly of G20 World leaders: If China, Russia and (likely) India will not countenance really cutting down coal production and burning (these are by far the biggest CO2 polluters), what hope is there for curbing CO2 increases to stop global mean temperatures getting above the 1.5C threshold whereby unstoppable feedbacks set in causing sea-levels to rise precipitously?

In the light of all this, and the huge economically-damaging costs of Net Zero, forcing people to go electric by a certain date, putting higher costs and taxes on businesses and home-owners in Britain (and potentially bankrupting the country), I think the Government could abolish the Climate change Act (2008) and strike down the legal commitments to make Britain carbon-neutral by 2050 (costs of this in excess of £1 Trillion are conservative estimates). If the Chinese and Indians are not going to bankrupt their economies to persue Net Zero, then why should Britain when it is not going to have much effect? A different approach is needed.

Firstly, Britain should incentivise business and companies to go green using tax breaks. There are still over £20 billion of stakes in part-nationalised banks still on the Government's books, these could be sold and the proceeds used to cut taxes on green products- economic growth and the revenues from the increased "Green Economy" will help make these tax breaks self financing.

Secondly, rising CO2 levels, Global Warming and some of the unpleasant side effects (like increased drought in the Med and coastal erosion from more winter storms in high latitudes) need completely different, new approaches to tackle them. Again, R & D funds can be directed at the scientific community to develop real solutions to Global Warming, funded more by (perhaps) cutting the size of Quangoes. And talking of real solutions, please feel free to discuss practical, but effective solutions to reducing global temperatures- and dealing with some of the now- apparent unpleasant side-effects of a warmer World.

Some ideas I have seen around, that could be economically feasible and practical (but with limited side effects) are as follows. These might need a Coalition of the Willing countries to just do (getting full Global Agreement for anything these days seems to be nigh-on impossible!):

1) Spraying sea-water into the troposphere over tropical oceans (with pumps from the sea-surface supported by large balloons (hot air balloons or filled with helium, whichever is most practical). The fine salt solutions sprayed into the atmosphere leads to moisture and condensation nuclei causing the ready development of more cloud. The increased cloud over tropical oceans would reflect more heat from the Sun back to space and help keep the Earth cool. The costs of a few thousand large balloons and pumps- and some helium should not be more than a few £ billions.

2) A fleet of suitably-modified high-flying jets could spray milions of tonnes of suplhur dioxide into the stratosphere around the Equator- above the altitude where it will be rained onto the surface from rain and high-altitude snowfall. Half a metre thickness of sulphur-dioxide above 20 km would have a dramatic effect in shielding the Earth from the Sun's rays whilst the settling of this sulphur dioxide is likely to be sufficiently gradual as to cause minimal damage to ecosystems, the environment and communities at the Earth's surface. Relatively cheap and practical to do, but likely to be great resistance from Environmentalists.

3) Salt extracted from sea-water. Billions of tonnes of powdered salt could be carried up to the edge of Space by thousands of specially- constructed Earth- orbiting rockets. These rockets would fly west-to-east around the Equator (and other low latitudes) releasing the powdered Salt- which would remain in orbit around the Earth- a man-made Earth ring (like Saturn's). The Earth-ring of powdered salt rotating around Earth at the edge of space would reflect the Sun's rays back into space and help keep the Earth cooler. At a cost of a few ££ billions, this could buy time for global markets to work on CO2-neutral energy and transport solutions.

4) Pump large amounts of purified sea-water (or fresh water from glacial rivers/ lakes) using giant pumps and large pipes to the top of the Antarctic Pleateau and the top of the Greenland Ice Cap (in their respective autumns and winters) where it would freeze in the very low temperatures. The release of latent heat as vast quantities of water freeze would reduce the atmospheric temperature and pressure gradients (that is what meteorologists call the atmospheric baroclinicity) that drive powerful storms at higher mid-latitudes- helping to stem some of the heavy rain, flooding and coastal erosion in places like Britain, western Norway and western Canada. The freezing of water onto the ice sheets would help build up the ice-sheets and (in the process) help to reduce sea-level rises. This process could be taken further by spraying and freezing water onto large parts of northern Canada (with their permission) in the winter, over a designated a new ice-sheet. If ten metres' thickness of ice can be built up over a large part of Northwest Territories the ice would not melt away the following summer and the new ice-sheet would reflect away the Sun's heat. Thereafter the new ice-sheet could be built up the following winter by being hosed from some of Canada's many tundra lakes- the water would freeze and build up the ice-sheet and the release of latent heat would weaken the baroclinicity downstream- meaning less damaging winter storms heading towards Britain.  This is practical, the costs are likely to be just a few £ billion (which rather compares favourably with over £1 Trillion for Net Zero!).

5) Cause a mild "Nuclear Winter" (or "H-Bomb Winter") to fight Global Warming by dropping a couple of powerful H-bombs on an evacuated desert island. Hydrogen bombs dont cause nuclear fall-out but (if powerful) they could send enough dust and ash into the Stratosphere to reflect heat from the Sun to but more time as the World moves towards CO2-free energy and transport solutions. A variation of this might be to try and bomb a normally- explosive volcano in a remote area to provoke it into exploding and releasing vast amounts of dust into the Stratosphere. This is probably the cheapest option, but would be very much a last resort!

As this is intended to be a thread to discuss Geo-engineering solutions you are welcome to propose your own, different, ideas. If you think the above are non-starters what do you think might work? Should Western Nations bankrupt their respective economies and impoverish their populations for a vain cause (which it will be if China and India keep belching out CO2 and refuse to reduce emissions)? 

Ian Pennell           

 

 

     

Edited October 31, 2021 by iapennell

[Roger J Smith]

I've had some similar thoughts. 

Massive desalination of surplus ocean water at ten to fifteen locations around the world might involve the use of a large enough volume of seawater to offset any further rises. 

Your suggestion about pumping seawater high onto existing stable ice domes -- I also wonder if parts of Baffin Island that have become deglaciated since the later stages of the Dryas period (and have no current economic or social utility) might be used also to form extensions of rather small ice caps in the interior of that very large rocky land mass. The areas I have in mind are basically in the central third of Baffin Island and closer to its southwest coast than the current glaciers of the Barnes Ice Cap (which is slowly shrinking too). Once formed these new glaciers could be sustained by further freezing of additional sea water annually. If Baffin Island was 30% glaciated rather than 10% as at present, it would both cool the regional climate slightly and add the equivalent of 1-2 per cent of total northern ice. (Canada's Ellesmere, Devon and Axel Heiberg Islands all have more than 50 per cent ice cover now, the rest of the large islands further west have none, other than small ice caps on Melville Island and the Ringnes archipelago). A successful project in Baffin Island could be repeated on northern portions of Victoria Island which has become totally deglaciated since about 6,000 BCE. 

I am not so much in favour of projects that would modify the atmosphere, because some of their ongoing results might be hard to predict and harder to reverse if found to be harmful. We can be more certain that removing seawater without adding it directly to the atmospheric water vapour load, or creating new land ice, would be more passive forms of climate engineering. I have doubts that anything within our capability would have great effect, but worth studying the cost-benefit in any case. 

Many have discussed the possible merits of damming the Bering Strait so that warmer Pacific water cannot flow into the western Arctic Ocean. This might in fact preserve sea ice in the Siberian and Beaufort Sea sectors creating longer ice seasons and less spectacular summer melts, but whether that would then have any effect on arctic climate is debatable, and if it had no effect, then what's the actual point of the change to ice cover? For every .01 C uptick in mean temperature there might be a corresponding cooling feedback from additional snowfall on land margins of the open seas up there. So it's complicated. Ice ages tend to start with more rather than less open water near the poles and increases in arctic snowfall which is the only natural way to get glaciation to expand.

You had a suggestion about pumping sea water into the upper atmosphere, but what about pumping it out of the atmosphere altogether? Once the water leaves the earth-atmosphere system, it is essentially gone from our mass balance and dispersed into the space environment. Somebody would need to check out the orbital stability implications of reducing the total mass of the Earth. We don't want to be drifting closer to the Sun, for example. 

There is also the possibility of taking salt water out of the ocean and using some here and there to top up declining levels of salty inland lakes and even the Caspian Sea. I suppose beside cost there would be the problem of introducing unwanted species of marine life into those bodies of water, something that filtration could perhaps avoid. In the western U.S., the Salton Sea in southern California (which formed after a dam break on the Colorado River in 1905), the Great Salt Lake in Utah,  which fluctuates considerably in volume and is currently at a low level, and various other salty inland lakes, could all use additional water and having salt water from oceans would not be problematic as their salt levels are higher anyway. There are many large dry lake beds in Nevada and Utah for additional storage, the land is not used for much now because it is too salty and sometimes floods in wet years. Then the same situation exists in parts of north Africa, the Middle East, western Australia, the Caspian Sea, and what used to be the Aral Sea (once the size of Lake Huron, now a few remnant pools of brackish water). 

A cheaper engineering solution but one that might cause instability in geotechnical terms would be to expand the volume of the global ocean by taking some unproductive portions of west Africa or other places, where large expanses are not much above sea level today, and creating large and deep depressions there, once accomplished, then letting the ocean drain into them gradually through channels through barrier dunes. Some parts of southern Mauretania inland from the dunes there are already below sea level by a few feet. There are other possible places to create these oceanic extensions, in northwest Mexico, western Australia, southwest Africa and possibly some other less arid areas that can be sacrificed if they are not very productive at this point. All of these would require a lot of political work which might take too long to allow these proposals to begin in time. 

I think the most dangerous period for ocean sea level rise would be 2040 to 2070, nothing too drastic is likely to happen before 2040, in part because we have this solar downturn to compensate partially for global temperature increases underway, and also the process of large-scale melt in Greenland and other northern land masses would be slow at first (as it has been so far). So we have probably to around 2040 or 2050 to come up with solutions other than drastic economic solutions which might not fully work even if applied, and then it already appears unlikely that they would be applied. 

[iapennell]

@Roger J Smith

The idea of pumping sea-water onto Canadian glaciers in winter- so that the water freezes and increases the surface mass balance- and (hopefully) reduces sea-levels- and also building new glaciers in this way that reflect away the Sun's heat in order to keep the Earth cool are certainly achievable- with sufficient resources and enough pumps. Northern Canada does have large freshwater lakes which can be used in stead of sea-water as the melting point is higher (as is the albedo of pure ice). I agree with the point about the quiet Sun for the next 30 years having a cooling influence that counterracts the effect of rising sea-levels, so it might not be essential to resort to such drastic measures to prevent major tipping points arising until such times.

Damming the Bering Straight is certainly doable- a large floating barrier would stop warm currents from the Pacific melting the Arctic ice. Building a real barrier- a wall would require much more in the way of resources, and would certainly stretch the technical capabilities that man possesses today.  In the meantime, it is encouraging that COP 26 has produced more agreement from more countries- including India- on the need to reduce CO2 emissions rapidly. 

Unfortunately, places like Britain- on the west sides of continents in higher middle latitudes- are already suffering from the effects of storms, coastal erosion and greater flooding, some kind of north-south barrier in the North Atlantic or, if more practical, building a massive wind-farm in the North Atlantic west of Scotland both to generate more renewable energy and to slow down the strong winter south-westerlies ought to be considered in the next decade or so to protect our coastal communities and stop them falling into the North Atlantic. An alternative measure might be to invest ££ billions more into strengthening coastal defences and dredging rivers to cope with the storms that will come because of the global warming we already have. Mediterranean lands and countries like Israel already suffer from excessive droughts more than they used to- helping them with water desalination and more reservoirs would be enormously appreciated by these countries.

If other readers of this forum have other ideas for Geo-engineering that are practically possible and leave minimal side- effects in terms of pollution, please feel free to share them.      

[cheeky_monkey]

15 hours ago, iapennell said:

@Roger J Smith

Unfortunately, places like Britain- on the west sides of continents in higher middle latitudes- are already suffering from the effects of storms, coastal erosion and greater flooding

    

are they? is there real evidence that Britain is suffering more storms/erosion/flooding than in the previous centuries?

[LetItSnow!]

Geo-engineering a cooler climate... bringing this post to the forefront again in light of the upcoming spell of heat being a wake-up call, even to me. It's something I've read about over the past few years and by all means it seems a doable thing. I remember a trial period was scheduled to take place in Europe in 2021 but was cancelled - I recall due to backlash from the scientific community? It is something we may have to start thinking about though as well as other possible theories. Let's discuss.

[Mixer 85]

Personally I think geo-engineering is a ridiculous idea. Actively meddling with the climate system in ways that are vastly misunderstood. Can anyone guarantee that we’ll get the desired outcome without any undesirable side effects?

Would the organisations conducting such experiments be willing to cough up the potential billions in compensation to countries that suffer ill effects of such meddling….drought, famine, floods. I’m aware the above are happening now, but they don’t appear to be worsening or happening in places where they haven’t happened before. 

Another thing worth considering is that past warm climate phases are all described as “…..climate optimums” with the current one being the Holocene Optimum. These optimums brought about great abundance and comfortable living conditions for humanity whilst cooler conditions brought about death, disease and famine. 

[York-snow]

A Heat Shield for the Most Important Ice on Earth | The New Yorker

WWW.NEWYORKER.COM

---

Engineers might be able to protect Arctic ice by coating it with tiny glass bubbles. Should they?