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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.'"
a rubber duck. It's not a proper bubble bath without a rubber duck.
Summation 2
Tiny bubbles are also good for sinking ships. Decrease the density of the water, decrease the buoyant force on the boats. Source
Actually you would not need to go to the spectrum. Since the bubbling water reflects more sunlight (which is what the cooling effect is based on), less sunlight enters the water. Less sunlight = less photosynthesis.
Less photosynthesis means less production of biomass, which I'd guess has a negative effect on the ecosystem. But less photosynthesis also has the effect of less consumption of CO2, so at the end this idea may actually have the opposite effect from what was intended.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
Geoengineering is such a spectacularly bad idea as to warrant armed revolt in order to prevent it. History has shown again and again that scientists understand far less about the complexity of natural systems than they think they do. Just look at the eggs: back in the day they were considered good, nutritious food. Then suddenly they were demonized for their cholesterol content. Oops! Guess again! They're a good source of omega fatty acids and really are good for you!
The law of unintended consequences comes into play as well. They guy is using a mathematical model. What's the model missing? "Garbage in, garbage out" is not a principle we want to apply to altering the global environment.
Any efforts to reverse "Anthropogenic global warming" should be confined to reducing the supposed causes. What's our incentive to stop polluting if we can "fix" it by blowing bubbles in the ocean?
I have mod points. The reign of terror begins now.