This is a controversial subject especially when it involves spending public money on technological solutions. This week’s Climate Uncovered takes a look at why it’s needed to meet the Paris goals.
Tremendous job researching this and writing it up. Thank you! I am baffled by the co.r tied involved in any remediation option. There are so damned many interlaced systems each with interlaced feedback loops that no one can know wIth any certainty what any option is going to lead to. Its safe to say that given energy input output and storage variables in our climate models, the ensemble predictions combined with satellite, and ocean and surface sensors are that the world is getting hotter, air is holding more water vapor, cloud bands are constricting, storms are increasing, lightning discharge is increasing and soils are both drying and their temperatures rising. What a mess! That's if we do nothing. If we do choose an option or several options as a package, I suggest we proceed very cautiously and step into the uncertainty pool slowly. With all deliberate speed as some Justice said.
You are right in that the whole system is unbelievably complex and interconnected. I think the marine proposals are especially dangerous in this respect. What complex effects alkalinity enhancement could have for example.
Perhaps the safest method is direct air capture and deep geological storage since that is the closest reversal of the process that got us into this mess in the first place. Same its the hardest energy wise.
Brilliant article. I was having a similar conversation with a random stranger while walking along our sea front this morning. It's windy and 15 degrees here - and it's supposed to be summer?
If I ruled the world, I'd put solar panels on every roof and focus on regenerative farming and plastic pollution. This seems not to be important to the powers that be. The damage that microplastics do to ecosystems is vast. The damage also applies to our microflora, lungs and recently found in arteries.
HI Tom I wish I held your hope for technological solutions,
One of my focuses has been on reversing tipping points and once you move a system in the right direction you not only get co2 removal but cool the earth through rehabilitating the earths essential temperature regulators ,through water especially water vapor.
I have been giving some thought to cumulonimbus cloud spires as energy release valves and their input into temperature release of water vapor latent heat above other cloud masses to be reflected back into space. The notion that If you can create a ladder of ice nucleation due to higher to lower nucleation points you should be able to cause the biotic pump effect at higher and higher altitudes but if we destroy the lower rungs of the ladder can clouds climb the ladder? I would love to see if anyone has done a study in relation to vegetation types or more importantly nucleation types and cloud effects . studies in the past show a warm influx creating an upwelling but could cloud height be a property of ice nucleation? and how does this feed into heat radiation? especially above the low cumulous cloud mass.
One of my favorites is the use of spreader levees, In Australia we do not have beavers but in the semi arid monsoonal north flat land we use spreader levees They use foot high earth levees for the spreading of water out of the channels to give it time to soak into the hydrophobic clay .
Landscape Rehydration and Rehabilitation with Verterra Ecological Engineering https://irp.cdn-
this last one you need to feed into the search engine as it is not a direct link but watching it from about half way offers insight into rehabilitation in the order of hundreds of thousands of acres all with low foot high levee building.
I like to imagine how they could change the earths heat dynamic across many other parts of the world like the Sahal, the horn of Africa, new Mexico, the middle east etc. etc. and this gives me hope. Thanks again
Thanks Theodore. I wouldn't say I'm optimistic that technological solutions will work, rather that I wanted to set out the scale of the challenge and encourage people to try. I don't think many people realise just how bad the situation really is and how hard it will be to reverse.
Thanks for the links, it looks very promising from an ecology perspective and if it can help with cloud formation, so much the better.
I like your energy ladder concept. Longwave outgoing radiation is increasing as clouds move higher. I'm not aware of any work though.
I did see this post from Accumulation Zone on penguin guano generating clouds over Antarctica through ammonia assisted aerosol nucleation which you might find interesting.
Yes the longest video talks about the large increase in soil carbon but neither talk about the cooling effect of vegetation and clouds. Last decade I had an argument with the government scientists who wanted a $7 billion dam to pump water over our great divide mountain range to feed tropical coastal water inland, I suggested they trial levee capture of water as one flood event in this area was 86km wide when it hit the coast , the land is so flat it drops 200m over about 2000km.
I heard about penguin quano, thanks for the link, their sub looks interesting and this ties in with my last comment on our one in 500y floods from synthetic fertilizers which are flowing into the ocean in large flood events.
Great research and reporting …. You certainly have a site with significant information.
Unfortunately, most of the work is unnecessary, as a growing number of scientists are not concerned about CO2 levels being a climate driver and NetZero is unnecessary, technologically unattainable, economically unviable and extremely foolish.
We should be much more focused on adaption to a naturally warming planet although so far impact metrics do not show significant issues and a slightly warming planet and more CO2 looks like a net benefit. So it looks like adaptation will be a minor issue using the continued use of the power of fossil fuels.
An ongoing focus on pollution in all forms is a must… but CO2 is not such a pollution target.
Tremendous job researching this and writing it up. Thank you! I am baffled by the co.r tied involved in any remediation option. There are so damned many interlaced systems each with interlaced feedback loops that no one can know wIth any certainty what any option is going to lead to. Its safe to say that given energy input output and storage variables in our climate models, the ensemble predictions combined with satellite, and ocean and surface sensors are that the world is getting hotter, air is holding more water vapor, cloud bands are constricting, storms are increasing, lightning discharge is increasing and soils are both drying and their temperatures rising. What a mess! That's if we do nothing. If we do choose an option or several options as a package, I suggest we proceed very cautiously and step into the uncertainty pool slowly. With all deliberate speed as some Justice said.
Thank you, I appreciate your thanks and feedback.
You are right in that the whole system is unbelievably complex and interconnected. I think the marine proposals are especially dangerous in this respect. What complex effects alkalinity enhancement could have for example.
Perhaps the safest method is direct air capture and deep geological storage since that is the closest reversal of the process that got us into this mess in the first place. Same its the hardest energy wise.
Brilliant article. I was having a similar conversation with a random stranger while walking along our sea front this morning. It's windy and 15 degrees here - and it's supposed to be summer?
If I ruled the world, I'd put solar panels on every roof and focus on regenerative farming and plastic pollution. This seems not to be important to the powers that be. The damage that microplastics do to ecosystems is vast. The damage also applies to our microflora, lungs and recently found in arteries.
I 100% agree.
HI Tom I wish I held your hope for technological solutions,
One of my focuses has been on reversing tipping points and once you move a system in the right direction you not only get co2 removal but cool the earth through rehabilitating the earths essential temperature regulators ,through water especially water vapor.
I have been giving some thought to cumulonimbus cloud spires as energy release valves and their input into temperature release of water vapor latent heat above other cloud masses to be reflected back into space. The notion that If you can create a ladder of ice nucleation due to higher to lower nucleation points you should be able to cause the biotic pump effect at higher and higher altitudes but if we destroy the lower rungs of the ladder can clouds climb the ladder? I would love to see if anyone has done a study in relation to vegetation types or more importantly nucleation types and cloud effects . studies in the past show a warm influx creating an upwelling but could cloud height be a property of ice nucleation? and how does this feed into heat radiation? especially above the low cumulous cloud mass.
One of my favorites is the use of spreader levees, In Australia we do not have beavers but in the semi arid monsoonal north flat land we use spreader levees They use foot high earth levees for the spreading of water out of the channels to give it time to soak into the hydrophobic clay .
https://youtu.be/Ge0wRQgspv0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=koDUSA51d-0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6WOXvCgFvPQ
Landscape Rehydration and Rehabilitation with Verterra Ecological Engineering https://irp.cdn-
this last one you need to feed into the search engine as it is not a direct link but watching it from about half way offers insight into rehabilitation in the order of hundreds of thousands of acres all with low foot high levee building.
I like to imagine how they could change the earths heat dynamic across many other parts of the world like the Sahal, the horn of Africa, new Mexico, the middle east etc. etc. and this gives me hope. Thanks again
Thanks Theodore. I wouldn't say I'm optimistic that technological solutions will work, rather that I wanted to set out the scale of the challenge and encourage people to try. I don't think many people realise just how bad the situation really is and how hard it will be to reverse.
Thanks for the links, it looks very promising from an ecology perspective and if it can help with cloud formation, so much the better.
I like your energy ladder concept. Longwave outgoing radiation is increasing as clouds move higher. I'm not aware of any work though.
I did see this post from Accumulation Zone on penguin guano generating clouds over Antarctica through ammonia assisted aerosol nucleation which you might find interesting.
https://accumulationzone.substack.com/p/how-penguin-poop-powers-the-polar
All the best
Yes the longest video talks about the large increase in soil carbon but neither talk about the cooling effect of vegetation and clouds. Last decade I had an argument with the government scientists who wanted a $7 billion dam to pump water over our great divide mountain range to feed tropical coastal water inland, I suggested they trial levee capture of water as one flood event in this area was 86km wide when it hit the coast , the land is so flat it drops 200m over about 2000km.
I heard about penguin quano, thanks for the link, their sub looks interesting and this ties in with my last comment on our one in 500y floods from synthetic fertilizers which are flowing into the ocean in large flood events.
Great research and reporting …. You certainly have a site with significant information.
Unfortunately, most of the work is unnecessary, as a growing number of scientists are not concerned about CO2 levels being a climate driver and NetZero is unnecessary, technologically unattainable, economically unviable and extremely foolish.
We should be much more focused on adaption to a naturally warming planet although so far impact metrics do not show significant issues and a slightly warming planet and more CO2 looks like a net benefit. So it looks like adaptation will be a minor issue using the continued use of the power of fossil fuels.
An ongoing focus on pollution in all forms is a must… but CO2 is not such a pollution target.