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Combatting Global Warming With Artificial Volcanos?
An anonymous reader writes, "Some scientists are suggesting that a short-term solution to global warming could be to inject sulfate-based aerosols into the stratosphere as a 'sunlight-reflecting, cooling foil.' Tom Wigley of the National Center for Atmospheric Research says that adding just 5 million metric tons of sulfur dioxide annually to the stratosphere 'would have a significant influence.'" From the article: "Constant aerosol production also could mean we wouldn't have blue skies anymore, and it could reduce incoming solar radiation enough to hobble such imperatives as replacing fossil fuel with solar energy technologies."
a preemptive strike against the machines!
"I think that God in creating Man somewhat overestimated his ability."-Oscar Wilde
Anyone who needs evidence science is an inexact science need only remember Carl Sagan and his wrong prediction on the Kuwait oil fires (emphasis mine):
And that prediction explicitly about the effects of something on our atmosphere, ostensibly by one of our most noted intellects. The notion that we have any notion of what the effects of this effort would ulitmately be is indeterminant, and could introduce far more disastrous and devastating unforeseen results.
This concept is also known as Global dimming, and has already been occurring for a while now. In fact, it's one of the reasons we haven't noticed global warming as much. A very unsurprising downside to global dimming is that it totally mucks with rain fall, casting some areas into complete drought.
I recommend anyone that's interested in this concept check out the NOVA on this issue.
I can keep driving my Hummer!
Test 1 2 3 4
Didn't Venus try this?
Way back when, one of the suggested "fixes" for nuclear weapons was to loft a few tons of gravel into LEO. ICBM's would be destroyed upon hitting the gravel lair, and the threat of nuclear annihilation would be gone forever. Except:
1) Wouldn't do anything for bombers or other delivery methods.
2) Would forever close off space exploration, thereby stranding us here and cutting us off from sending out probes, etc.
The worst thing is, some considered the second a small price to pay to guarantee their safety.
"As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly." A. Carlson
This sounds similar to the idea floated a few years back about fertilizing the antarctic and other polar oceans with iron compounds to induce a plankton bloom. The plankton would then suck up the CO2, and either use it personally or turn it into calcium carbonate, die, and fall to the bottom of the ocean.
Unfortunately, these are the same phytoplankton which produce volatile haloorganics, on roughly the same scale as anthropogenic sources. End result; we stop global warming and blow away the ozone layer. A sub-optimal trade, to say the least.
Personally, I say it's time we start to cut back on the warming gases, and get ready to live with a warmer world with higher sea levels. Unless, of course, shutting down the Gulf Stream cools western Europe off enough that it starts snowing, reflecting heat back into space, and induces a new ice-age. The joys of climatology; we won't know until we finish the experiment.
the more accurate the calculations became, the more the concepts tended to vanish into thin air. R. S. Mulliken
Anyone remember the TV show Dinosaurs, and what they did to combat global warming caused by deforestation? Yeah, they blew up a bunch of volcanoes, thus causing the end of the show... and mass extinction of the title characters.
Not that this idea isn't totally half-baked but they are talking about "injecting" it into the stratosphere, which is above the level where rain is formed.