Harvard Scientist Proposes Refreezing Arctic to Prevent Global-Warming Disaster | Hacker News Reader

Harvard Scientist Proposes Refreezing Arctic to Prevent Global-Warming Disaster

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28 pointsmarcieoum33 comments

As distasteful as geo-engineering might be (and I see many comments here to that effect), it is probably the only politically palatable way to actually do something about the problem. The country with the world's largest CO2 emissions, China [1], has a political class that owes its legitimacy to continued economic growth. Other countries, hard hit by the recent economic crisis, are finding it difficult to confront the issue as well (e.g. witness Barack Obama's four years of near-silence about it). Yes, these proposals are terribly risky, but they deserve well-thought replies that highlight the actual risks and difficulties instead of high-handed dismissal on grounds of "geo-engineering". There are other fields of engineering where safety is paramount, and perhaps the concepts can be brought over. Having no options is certainly no guarantee of safety.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_dio...

I am afraid that one of these days geo-engineering ideas are going to be implemented. Wasn't there some billionaire who dumped on a massive scale iron in the Ocean just because he believes this is going to help climate change?

In my opinion it is absolutely crazy to implement "stuff" in a super complex system (in which humans fail over and over again to predict relatively "simple" occurrences such as earthquakes or the weather) and present a "solution" by pretending to have the slightest understanding of all the potential long and short term side effects.

On the flip side - carefully studying the impact on the global environment of naturally occurring phenomena such as volcanoes, can't hurt, and can give us some good background information should we have to rely on such large scale intervention in the centuries to come.

One way, or another, it's important to recognize that regardless of what we do, or don't do, we will be having an impact on the global environment. For example, we can either run a massively carbon-based industry-ecosystem (Such as we are right now), or we can go out of our way to reduce the carbon output into the environment.

Either way, we will be making radical injections or removing injections into the ecosystem. There is no way to avoid it.

On the other hand we are already implementing geo-engineering by default. Humanity is already impacting a complex system and we have to do something or face the consequences.

Of course I don't mean to downplay the risks, more research is vital.

But the climate models which we consider 95% accurate (and on which the scientific consensus surrounding AGW is based) say it will work.

If the models are inaccurate for predicting what might happen under a Pinatubo-like forcing, why do we believe they are accurate for predicting what would have happened absent anthropogenic carbon emissions? (Note that scenario also involved Pinatubo-like forcing.)

Perhaps different levels of confidence are desired for different sorts of actions.

It was done off Haida Gwaii in BC western Canada but was not officially authorized by the Canadian government.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/story/2012/10...

This reminds me of when we have deliberately or accidentally introduced a new species into an environment with very negative results. We then follow up by introducing a second species to attack the first species. We know how that has usually worked out. Just one example here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cane_toads_in_Australia

I don't understand how all the excitement about global warming fits in with basic economics.

If the Earth's sea level rose several meters in an instant, yes, it would be a worldwide catastrophe with massive loss of life. But I fail to understand how that's physically possible; such change would take years or decades.

This would give people time to adapt. If the ocean's risen and there's seawater in your house up to your ankles, you move; you don't stick around for three more years until it's over your head and you drown.

Agriculture would certainly be affected by climate patterns. But how do we know that the outflow of farmland that stops being usable for farming due to climate change won't be balanced by an inflow of farmland that becomes suitable for farming due to climate change?

And even if agricultural output goes down: (1) New technology is invented all the time which improves agricultural output. Maybe by the time significant amounts of farmland become unfarmable, we'll be able to make due with less.

(2) Livestock takes a lot of land, because fundamentally, growing plants and eating them is much more efficient than growing plants, feeding them to animals, and then eating the animals. Vegetarians have been around a long time, and we know that it's possible for humans to live on plants alone. So if there's less farmland, why won't we just eat less meat as food becomes more expensive?

(3) Everyone needs to eat. iPod's are a luxury; food is a necessity. As food gets more expensive due to a scarcity of land and people start spending more of their income on food and less on iPod's, Apple will just close a couple factories and their land will be converted to farmland (funding for this will be available, because, again, if food is expensive, owning farmland will be very profitable.)

I fundamentally fail to understand why global warming deserves the same level of threat as (say) a bioengineered plague, a large nuclear war or an enormous asteroid on a collision course with Earth would.

As far as I can tell, the problem is that we really don't know about the long reaching effects of global warming, and you're not accounting for the extreme possibilities. There have been periods of time where the earth was extremely inhospitable to life. I'm not saying that will happen but to simply believe that there will be enough food without actually modeling possible outcomes is foolish.

Risk = consequences x likelihood

While the catastrophes you list might have higher consequences, they are far less likely to happen than global warming--because we are virtually certain that global warming is happening right now.

The greatest threat of global warming is social instability. Large, rich nations like the U.S. will most likely be able to afford the considerable investments it will take to mitigate the consequences. If Oklahoma becomes a dustbowl again, maybe the growing season in North Dakota will get longer to compensate.

But most nations are not that rich, resourceful, or large. Changing precipitation patterns might mean that new water sources and farmland becomes available; but if all those new resources are in the nation next door, that does not help you. Water and food are fundamental needs, and shortages are well correlated to social unrest and warfare.

I suppose that as good as this sounds, and I have heard about it many times [1][2][3], it boils down to opportunity cost. To me it will allow for a powerful counter argument when it comes to hitting emissions targets.

[1] http://www2.eng.cam.ac.uk/~hemh/climate/Geoengineering_RoySo... [2] http://aircrap.org/uk-climate-fix-technical-test-put-on-hold... [3] http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-14936184

It is clear to me that crazy geo-engineering 'solutions' will pop up more often as we are passing one climate tipping point after the other. However, it is not like we are doing too less geo-engineering, we are doing too much for thousands of years. Agriculture, deforestation and industrialization have already left marks on the planet. So, why adding some more instead of substituting fossil energy with solar power? Just because of lack of political will and failure of leadership?

There is the interesting side effect that we'd have some measure of control over how much global warming we can handle. Instead of stopping some action X, we could instead amplify some geo-engineering Y.

It has a certain appeal. Not advocating for this, just pointing out the perspective.

Sure, pumping enough aerosols into the atmosphere will stop nearly instantly global warming. And it opens a path to burn even more carbon. But whom would you trust to run this solution over the next millions of years until all carbon is back in Earth's crust? The point is, if it stops working all hidden and accumulated warming will kick in virtually over night. And nobody wants the planet to warm by 4°C within days.

While I do not advocate to messing up with the atmosphere, your statement shows a clear lack of understanding. Carbon being trapped is NOT the same as heat being trapped in the earth's crust. The Earth could NOT warm by 4°C within days - that is ludicrous.

Here's the deal: the Earth is warmed by the Sun; it cools off by emitting back (glowing in the infra-red region if you wish) some of the heat. An equilibrium is reached when the amount of energy emitted is equal to the amount it receives. (Thus, Mars is cooler than the Earth which is cooler than Venus...). The amount of energy that can be emitted back into space depends on the property of the atmosphere. Some gas (so-called greenhouse gas) will prevent energy (in the form of infra-red radiation) from escaping, thus contributing to the rise of the temperature, until a new equilibrium is reached. (The proposed solution is to change the atmosphere properties so that less energy reaches the Earth in the first place.) We are currently seeing such a heating taking place, and it is not happening "within days".

You did not get the point. Currently we are close to 400ppm/+0.8°C without geo-engineering. If we use geo-engineering, keep temperature at current level and continue emitting CO2 to let's say 1000ppm, we can't stop because the greenhouse effect of these extra 600ppm will kick in as fast as the reducing effect of the engineering slows down.

But you are right: This is not comparable to today's situation where concentration rises by 1-2 ppm y⁻¹, but it is comparable to injecting instantly the equivalent of 600ppm into the atmosphere. It's like the opposite of a huge volcano eruption.

So to make a long story short, any geo-engineering solution which does not remove greenhouse gases from the atmosphere and turn them into a stable chemical compound is nothing but a time bomb - exploding at failure.

Yes, I did get the point, but I don't believe that you get the Physics. It takes a lot of energy to raise the average temperature of the earth by 4 C - much more than we are getting from the Sun "within a few days". Stopping (most) of the Sun's light to reach the Earth would be an effective (if not crazy...) way of cooling down the Earth. Adding a huge quantity of greenhouse gases is not going to turn the atmosphere into a one-way trap for radiation. The physics involved in light being blocked by air-borne aerosol particles and that of the trapping of heat by greenhouse gases are different, and their effect, while going in opposite direction, are not the exact inverse one of another.

Would you prefer to read 'weeks'?

No, I would prefer at least "years", but even better "decades". A few days (or weeks depending on your background) is the time required to read a few papers on the Physics of the atmosphere.

I know this post is specifically about global warming, but I thought I'd talk about climate change and conservation in general.

We are at the point of no return for climate change in my opinion. I just don't see a global will to enact the kind of change which would be required to reverse this.

Tiger populations have decreased from an estimated 100,000 at the start of the 20th centry to around 3000. Lion populations have decreased 30-50% in the last few decades alone. ([1] and [2]). I fear that we will see these, and many more iconic species go extinct in our lifetime.

I'm sure this has been discussed before, but the ice-melt could precipitate a "Day after Tomorrow" kind of event, with the warm currents changing course [3].

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiger#Conservation_efforts [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lion#Population_and_conservatio... [3] http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2004/05...

You do realize that Lion/Tiger populations have basically nothing to do with AGW, and have dropped due to hunting by humans and habitat destruction, right?

Yes, I do realize that, which is why I prefaced my comments with the disclaimer. The point I was trying to make was my opinion that environmental changes due to human activity is now at an irreversible point. The examples of the Lion and Tiger populations highlight that even with much increased awareness, the decline of these species is continuing. This is happening with global warming as well, and I don't know if there is a point at which the awareness actually translates into action.

Expect to soon be reading about the loss of jobs for such proposals. Iceland plans to expand their port to handle Northwest Passage traffic. Governments and industry are planning to drill the Arctic seabed. Big business will fight attempts to reverse global warming.

And how much will this "solution" (extraordinary evidence required) --cost-- ?? (On the face, apart from economic & natural costs.) Compared to (over-simplified outline) 1. TERMINATE beginning a relentless closing down of the biggest CO2 emitters? And 2. CONSERVE retrofitting human dwellings for far great energy efficiency? And 3. REPLACE building the offshore wind resources to offset terminated emitters?

Who will pay for the cost of such a program? Who will control it (and thus shoulder the responsibility)? What measures will additionally be needed to protect against the failure of the "solution"?

Averting global warming by instigating a mild nuclear winter does not seem a reasonable course of action.

Be cheaper to have a largish silverish baloon aligned to block the sun at altitude, also knowing how we do freezing currently it will on balance not add more warm air.

I did not do the math, but I think a huge, huge object would be needed in order to shadow even 1% of the Earth.

we are only talking about the artic here, and with altitude the effect increases as relative size of objects etc and shadows.

But it is a more saner and plausable idea than the article moots. Not that anybody seems to care.

Suppose you block a percentage of sunlight from reaching the earth. The main reason this is a bad idea is that plantlife on this planet has evolved for a certain amount of light. Yeah, it'll cut down on melting. But what that do to ecologies all over the world? Yes, volcanoes can have this effect. But volcanoes of that scale don't happen very often.

These kinds of solutions scare me because of their short-sightedness. I haven't seen any comforting explanations of how these reflective particles leave the atmosphere and where they end up such that their effects can be stopped. Solar energy has been and will continue to be the only actual source of energy on our planet. All other resources are finite and will eventually be depleted, many within our lifetimes or those of our children if reserve estimates are accurate. If our strategy for using finite energy resources is to block out the energy from our only infinite (at least millions of years worth) energy source, it would seem that we are shooting our grand children in order to have a bigger party today. Once the prices of oil and fissile materials get high enough, we'll be facepalming at a global scale when we have to rely on solar-derived power (biomass,PV,wind,etc) to fill the gap. Even if there are no unintended consequences (which I do NOT believe is the case), the intended consequence of reducing the total solar energy input to the planet seems like a simple case of short-term fix, long term problem.

I suspect the answer to your first question is available based on what happened from 1991 to 1993. I've been around long enough now too to believe that relying on the exhaustion of fossil fuels is no longer the answer. Interestingly Sandy hitting New York City may have done more for the global warming cause than any other event.

I haven't seen any comforting explanations of how these reflective particles leave the atmosphere and where they end up such that their effects can be stopped.

That's only because you haven't bothered to educate yourself. The answer is gravity brings the particles back down to the land/sea over the span of a few years.

We've actually tried this experiment a number of times (for example, Pinatubo in 1991, Krakatoa in 1883, various smaller eruptions as well) and on a scale more massive than most geoengineering proposals. It has worked as the models predicted and the long term effects have been negligable.

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