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Cooling the Planet With a Bubble Bath
cremeglace writes "A Harvard University physicist has come up with a new way to cool parts of the planet: pump vast swarms of tiny bubbles into the sea to increase its reflectivity and lower water temperatures. 'Since water covers most of the earth, don't dim the sun,' says the scientist, Russell Seitz, speaking from an international meeting on geoengineering research. 'Brighten the water.' From ScienceNOW: 'Computer simulations show that tiny bubbles could have a profound cooling effect. Using a model that simulates how light, water, and air interact, Seitz found that microbubbles could double the reflectivity of water at a concentration of only one part per million by volume. When Seitz plugged that data into a climate model, he found that the microbubble strategy could cool the planet by up to 3C. He has submitted a paper on the concept he calls “Bright Water" to the journal Climatic Change.'"
Hey, I'm doing MY part... I'm sitting in the hot tub and passing gas as we speak!
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
Acidfication caused by too much carbon, which is also causing the warming, which means the same solution is required, not an adaptation.
Time is an illusion, lunchtime doubly so- Zaphod beeblebrox
the public mind can only contain one global issue at a time
And that's on a good day.
If libertarians are so opposed to effective government, why don't they all move to Somalia?
No light, no plankton, no life.
Well, bubbles might also mean no oxygen exchange. So we'll wind up killing 80% of the planet's ecosystem off when the oceans die, to stop global warming. Yeah. That makes sense.
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
There is no lack of rubber ducks in the ocean.
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What is more likely, that a climate scientist at Harvard has overlooked a simple yet obvious factor in his experiment, or you are too lazy to read the article?
As a matter of fact the article mentions evaporation, suggesting that bubbles actually reduce the evaporation. If anyone is a kook in this situation, I would put odds on you (but it's more likely you're just lazy).
Qxe4
Excess water vapor in the atmosphere quickly precipitates out as rain or snow. Consequently, you can't increase global warming significantly only by attempting to add water vapor to the atmosphere. If the temperature increases, that can cause humidity to increase, and that can cause additional warming. In climatology, you say that water vapor is a feedback, not a forcing.
Yes, I know, I'm ruining everybody's fun by mentioning facts again. What a party pooper!
What a fool believes, he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.
Never mind the fact that ocean acidification is caused by warming oceans, not just an ancillary effect of increased atmospheric CO2.
When you increase water temp, you decrease the dissolution rate of CO2 in the ocean, but you increase the amount of CO2 that is converted to H2CO3. The second impact is larger than the first.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
Any efforts to reverse "Anthropogenic global warming" should be confined to reducing the supposed causes.
All well and good, assuming that even instantly curtailing all anthropogenic CO2 emissions would make a jot of difference. If the climate is a feedback system [1], and enough CO2 has already been released for the runaway warming process to continue naturally as it has done many, many times in the past [2], then the damage is done. It's simply prudent to explore ALL the feasible geoengineering options available until it's clearly demonstrated they're not needed. Because if they are needed, they'll be needed badly.
[1] Yes, it is
[2] We don't know yet, our models are not detailed and broad enough, and we haven't got enough data to check them against to ensure accurate forward predictions, and probably won't until it may be too late
This has nothing to do with soap.
Not a Twitter sockpuppet... but I wish I was.
Actually all of North America has more trees the before Europeans came. Most Industrial Forresters plant 2.5 trees for everyone cut, they make money cutting mature lumber not running out of trees to cut. Even the American Indians would cut and burn old stagnate unproductive growth to allow productive vigorous new forrests to replace them.
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds