Scientist Patents New Method To Fight Global Warming 492
SUNSTOP writes to tell us that a relatively unknown Maryland scientist has proposed a public patent that he claims could combat global warming. The proposed plan would require massive amounts of water to be sprayed into the air in an effort to bolster the earth's existing air conditioning system. "First, the sprayed droplets would transform to water vapor, a change that absorbs thermal energy near ground level; then the rising vapor would condense into sunlight-reflecting clouds and cooling rain, releasing much of the stored energy into space in the form of infrared radiation. Kenneth Caldeira, a climate scientist for the Carnegie Institution's Department of Global Ecology at Stanford University whose computer simulation of Ace's invention suggests it would significantly cool the planet. The simulated evaporation of about one-half inch of additional water everywhere in the world produced immediate planetary cooling effects that were projected to reach nearly 1 degree Fahrenheit within 20 or 30 years, Caldeira said."
Huh? (Score:5, Insightful)
Isn't water vapor one of the biggest greenhouse gasses?
Re:A Little Known Maryland Scientist Has Made Publ (Score:2, Insightful)
and as for the idea itself, omfg what could go wrong? luckily such crack pot schemes don't get off the ground.
Re:A Little Known Maryland Scientist Has Made Publ (Score:5, Insightful)
Concerns: (Score:5, Insightful)
1) Where does the energy come from to spray this water?
2) Clouds are fickle where temperature is concerned. Depending on the type of cloud, they can either raise or lower the temperature. (The article, I see, also notes this.) This is one of the trickiest points of climate modeling, if memory serves.
3) Water vapor is also a particularly powerful greenhouse gas. Pumping a lot more of it into the air could exacerbate the problem rather than fix it. (Also noted in the article, but not actually discussed.)
Less is more (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes, let's fix the planet by changing the environment in more weird ways. That ought to work.
Did the simulation include ... (Score:4, Insightful)
Unless he has a carbon-neutral method of doing that, too...
Hmmmmm.... (Score:2, Insightful)
Ok but what about side effects. How will it effect rain fall if we are adding to the current evaporation. Also it seems like this would or could possibly change the ecosystem of the areas it is done in. And finally who would foot the bill and what would be an approx. cost on it. The story paints a nice pic but there isn't enough info to tell if this is even realistic other than the "practical, nontoxic, affordable, rapidly achievable" comment there isn't much info on what his comparisons are.
Re:Huh? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Less is more (Score:3, Insightful)
Oh how I miss the good old days (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:A Little Known Maryland Scientist Has Made Publ (Score:5, Insightful)
Even more fun, wator vapor provides the vast majority of the greenhouse effect (95%?). CO2 is more like 2% of the greenhouse effect. Somehow, combatting CO2 emissions by adding water vapor emissions doesn't quite seem like the right answer.
Re:Huh? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Huh? (Score:4, Insightful)
While I may not agree with all you said, I do agree that we do not know enough about the problem to be suggesting cures. All that can be done is to stop doing what we suspect is helping to cause the warming problem, and even that has no guarantee of stopping the warming. So while we do what is possible to stop contributing to the problem, adaptation is a very smart thing to begin working on ... pass the tanning lotion, would you?
Re:A Little Known Maryland Scientist Has Made Publ (Score:5, Insightful)
The other thing is that clouds are highly reflective, so the sunlight would never even reach the ground in the first place.
So I can see how these two effects would offset the greenhouse effect.
In any case, doing this would be catastrophic for another reason : what goes up must come down. And where will all this water vapor come down as and where, exactly ? Does southern asia really need more rain ? Does buffalo need more snow ? Can an arid region cope with a high increase in rainfall without causing massive mud slides and other nastiness ? What other unforeseen consequences will putting vast amounts water vapor in the atmosphere have ? These are all questions I hope we never have a definite answer for.
Re:A Little Known Maryland Scientist Has Made Publ (Score:3, Insightful)
What scares me is that genuine concern over global warming could spur popular support for one of these crackpot schemes.
"Green" activists, in their self righteous zeal to save the planet, have latched on to global warming as a means to further their anti-pollution, anti-industrial political agendas. These self appointed do-gooders *know* they're right, since their well-meaning desire to help others justifies any means to their end. This movement echos the "silent spring" hysteria used by the environmental movement to ban DDT in the 1960's & '70's. In that case, while increased regulation of industrial chemicals was undoubtedly a good thing, unscientific hysteria designed to move public opinion at all costs was definitely not.
Planetary climatology is an extremely immature science at best, and I sincerely doubt that any climatologist worth his salt would back any action other than reduction in the gas emissions believed to contribute to climate change.
Re:A Little Known Maryland Scientist Has Made Publ (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Huh? (Score:5, Insightful)
Not so much Evil as Ignorant and/or Stupid.
Re:Huh? (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, water vapor is the major green house gas only being augmented by carbon dioxide. This just points out that most of the people in the global warming camp know about as much real science as most kindergarten classes.
Normally I try to be more civil, but this calls for a "Hey dumbass, Ken Caldeira has forgotten more about climate science than you will ever know".
In particular, he is well aware of the greenhouse effect of water vapor. See here [slashdot.org] for more discussion.
A more sensible fellow was interviewed on TV recently who said that most of our climate change is driven by the Sun
Why is he more sensible? Because it supports the conclusions you want to reach? In particular, why is this fellow's claim more sensible given the large amount of evidence that most of the modern global warming is not driven by the Sun (e.g., here [nature.com], here [royalsociety.org]).
and that the best way for us to spend our capital in regards to climate change is to learn to adapt
We're going to have to adapt regardless, because we're already committed to some anthropogenic climate change even if there were no natural change, but that doesn't mean that we shouldn't mitigate the problem. It's less expensive to adapt if you have a less extreme climate to adapt to. A real solution, as noted by pretty much every economist who works in this area, is a combination of mitigation, adaptation, and technological R&D. Read Nordhaus's latest book for a good lay overview of the policy problem.
The climate is composed of myriad systems that we still haven't enumerated, cannot properly inter-relate (since we don't know them all) and already contain enough energy that we couldn't drive them in a particular direction if we wanted.
We can't dial in an exact climate state, but we can drive the climate in different directions. We're already doing it with CO2. Reducing CO2 will reduce and slow the warming due to CO2. This is not a difficult concept. The system doesn't respond instantaneously, and it's not realistic to completely halt emissions, but we can slow them to mitigate the resulting climate change.
if somehow we did manage to force a change, the system would likely react in a way we wouldn't be able to foresee
It is not really that hard to figure out that returning CO2 emissions to closer to pre-industrial levels will direct the Earth system to closer to a pre-industrial climate.
Re:Huh? (Score:2, Insightful)
And unlike CO2, water tends to precipitate out of the atmosphere rather than hang around for decades.
Yeah, so this half an inch times the earth's surface will quickly come back down over a few relatively localized areas. Nice. I just hope it's not where *I* live.
Re:A Little Known Maryland Scientist Has Made Publ (Score:4, Insightful)
Because a chemical in small quantities inside a house can have very different effects from that same chemical in the atmosphere.
Just look at ozone: in a house, it is toxic with no benefits unless you want to sterilize a room.
In the upper atmosphere, it is a very important protection against UV.
Re:Huh? (Score:3, Insightful)
Your first comment seems to indicate that all we need to do is nudge the climate to some course other than the one it is one now. The amount of energy needed to produce such a random change might be small but suppose you put a small amount of energy into the process and nudge it into a direction worse that the one we are on.
It's not a matter of "nudging", it's a matter of reducing the excess heat currently being added to the system. That slows the rate of change and total amount of change.
First, you agree that if we try to force a change the system might react in a way we cannot foresee then you suggest that all we need to do is keep the existing system from changing. The natural state of the climate is that it is always in a state of change driven by the Sun
Yes, we know that climate changes naturally. The problem is that human additions are changing the climate a lot more, and a lot faster, than what natural cycles usually do over similar time periods. The point, therefore, is to dampen and slow our extra forcing to the system, so the total changes (natural+human) are less extreme.
Re:A Little Known Maryland Scientist Has Made Publ (Score:3, Insightful)
You don't actually know what the net effect is until you calculate it. Caldeira calculated it, in a state-of-the-art climate model, and found that the net effect of the latent heat release coupled with cloud albedo outweighed the heat trapping effect. It's possible this model is wrong, but proving it would require a much more nuanced calculation than "clouds trap heat".
Re:A Little Known Maryland Scientist Has Made Publ (Score:3, Insightful)
"Green" activists, in their self righteous zeal to save the planet, have latched on to global warming as a means to further their anti-pollution, anti-industrial political agendas.
I'm not sure I know anyone who is "pro-pollution", but clearly you are directly insinuating that "Green Activists" are anti-industrial. Are you aware that what this person is proposing would probably create an industry - even if it is a crackpot scheme? Are you unaware that you are making the illogical assumption that all industry necessarily creates pollution? Are you further aware that you are insinuating that all "Green Activists" are attempting to "stop our economy", as evidenced by your association of "anti-pollution" with "anti-industrial"?
My guesses to questions, in order, because I doubt you will answer them: No, Yes, Yes.
Planetary climatology is an extremely immature science at best, and I sincerely doubt that any climatologist worth his salt would back any action other than reduction in the gas emissions believed to contribute to climate change.
Uh, you mean as immature as Physics right? Climatology started a long time ago - 10th or 16th century, depending on who is counting - about when people started studying that thing we sometimes call "Gravity" (again, depending on who is counting).
/.) is pretty "immature" in itself.
Just because a Science is not as popular as other sciences (which is usually caused more by economic incentive rather than the merit of the science itself) does not make it "immature". There is a lot of evidence to back up many of their claims.
It's really sad that your point - a concern over waste of money fostered by a skeptic attitude towards the effectiveness of the method - was completely clouded by very obvious under-supported biases against environmentalists, environmentalism, and all related sciences. Because honestly, I share that concern. But to voice your concern in such a manner (and yeah, I know, its
Re:A Little Known Maryland Scientist Has Made Publ (Score:3, Insightful)
Uh, you mean as immature as Physics right? Climatology started a long time ago - 10th or 16th century, depending on who is counting - about when people started studying that thing we sometimes call "Gravity" (again, depending on who is counting).
Oh please. You know what he meant by "immature". He means that the climate is not understood well enough to predict the climatological effects of the industrial revolution, much less how deliberately trying to counter those effects will affect things.