Bill Gates Funds Seawater-Spraying Cloud Machines

lucidkoan writes "Environmentalists have long argued about whether geoengineering (using technology to alter the climate) is a good way to tackle climate change. But the tactic has some heavy hitters on its side, including Bill Gates. The Microsoft founder recently announced plans to invest $300,000 into research for machines that suck up seawater and spray it into the air, seeding white clouds that reflect rays of sunlight away from Earth. The machines, developed by a San Francisco-based research group called Silver Lining, turn seawater into tiny particles that can be shot up over 3,000 feet in the air. The particles increase the density of clouds by increasing the amount of nuclei contained within."

Comments

What could

[Dunbal]

OK, let's ignore for a moment the fact that water vapor is a greenhouse gas responsible for up to 76% of the greenhouse effect (as opposed to CO2 which is responsible for 1/3) of that. Let's also ignore the magical energy source required to pump all this water into the air. What could possibly go wrong? Where can I buy stock? /sarcasm

Re:What could

[idontgno]

Well, let's see. The salt falls back down. A proportion of it falls to the ground, slowly salting farmland. Famine sets in, and after the temporary greenhouse impact of a few hundreds of millions of corpses decaying, anthropogenic global warming reduces by virtue of less "anthropo" to "genic" that carbon dioxide.

Problem solved.

Re:What could

[Brett Buck]

Let's also ignore the magical energy source required to pump all this water into the air.

      I suggest unicorns on a treadmill.

        Brett

Re:What could

[Chris Burke]

OK, let's ignore for a moment the fact that water vapor is a greenhouse gas responsible for up to 76% of the greenhouse effect (as opposed to CO2 which is responsible for 1/3) of that.

Water vapor traps in a lot of heat on the earth, but water vapor in the form of clouds reflects a lot of energy; raising albedo by seeding clouds for a net loss of heat could actually work. Better yet the amount of water vapor in the air is naturally regulated, so excess water vapor and clouds are not so difficult to remove as CO2.

Let's also ignore the magical energy source required to pump all this water into the air.

Clean Coal, with the magic of Mr. Clean! =D

What could possibly go wrong? Where can I buy stock? /sarcasm

Yeah, cus Bill Gates has never been wrong before! Wait, what was that about a chasm? Yaaaaaaaah!

Re:What could

[WindBourne]

How were you modded insightful? The simple fact is, that the h20 is not the issue. It goes up, it comes down. In addition, when water is in the form of CLOUDS, it COOLS the planet. It is when it has a high vapor, but not enough to form clouds, that you get warming. OTH, the CO2 is an issue because it stays around and around and around. As such, a VERY small amount goes a long ways. So, the global warming issue is just garbage.

I will say that there are OTHER possible side effects, for example, the clouds WILL block sun from getting to the crops, so there will be less food. And I am sure that there are other ones that are not thought about.

Re:What could

[Ao_42]

Water vapor isn't considered to have much radiative warming potential mainly because the Earth's emission spectrum is already saturated at the wavelengths at which water absorbs (See Houghton's Global Physical Climatology text for a detailed discussion). -- from a student in meteorology & climatology at Cornell

Re:What could

[NeutronCowboy]

Water vapor concentration depends directly on the temperature of the air, and has a life cycle of about 2 weeks. In other words, it is not part of a positive feedback loop. If you pump too much into the air, it just rains out. Once the sun goes down, water vapor condensates out.

You can make Global Warming worse by adding water vapor to the air, but if enough sunlight gets reflected back out through cloud formation, it's a good deal. The cost of putting enough water into the air though.... is a different matter. Not sure if that's a cost-effective way of going about it.

Re:What could

[yariv]

I know it's slashdot, but I would still like to point out your remarks have nothing to do with the technique described. Besides that, 76% + 1/3 > 1, so you should go over your numbers again...

They talk about producing clouds, not water vapor. Clouds are made of liquid water in tiny drops, forming from vapor around some sort of nuclei, it's actually mentioned even in the summary! The energy issue need not be that much of a problem. Energy is needed, but how much? Probably nothing relevant to global warming, so it's just a matter of cost.

The problem of salt is also insignificant, given the task is done deep in the ocean. The salt will not get carried for 5,000 kilometers without a huge drop in concentration, if at all.

Having said all that, further tests must be carried out, of course, we still have no backup planet. From what I understand, that is the whole point in investing in research.

Re:What could

[Rei]

Hey, I'm all for blocking more sunlight. That way we can just acidify our oceans in peace. Who needs those pesky "corals"?(/snark)

Any global warming "solution" that doesn't involve actually lowering the CO2 level of the atmosphere isn't a solution. And I agree with those who are concerned about the ramifications of this. Increased planetary cloudcover. Less sunlight reaching the surface. The temperature drop being only masking and contingent on the continued operation of an ever-increasing number of devices with finite lifespan. What could go wrong? ;)

Re:What could

[Dunbal]

Because last time I checked, when I stuck my tongue out when it rained, I didn't taste any salt at all, and I am 99.9% sure that the rainwater I drank used to be in the salty seas not too long before. Just because it seems to fulfil symbolic logic doesn't mean it's true.

      You obviously have never lived near the ocean. The rain isn't "salty" enough to be tasted, but there is salt in the air. Anything that can be corroded will be corroded faster near a body of salt water.

Re:What could

[Shadow of Eternity]

The rainwater you drink is condensed water that evaporated naturally. Unless they forgot to mention a filtering step they're talking about shoving atomized saltwater directly into the air.

Re:What could

[mollog]

I actually studied this as part of my Master's. IIRC, the number is around 13 watts per square meter overall (this is a net loss of energy, aka cooling). This number includes the net heat gain from the clouds at night. (Clouds at night prevent IR radiation from escaping into space, thereby warming the Earth.)

Alrighty, crank up those machines after the night air has cooled, stop them before sundown.

What Gates is funding is research. All the hypothetical problems suggested here are valid, but will be tested during the research.

Re:What could

[SpzToid]

Yes, Wired had an article about this years ago. It might be considered a good idea on islands near very cold deep water, because the condensation from the pipes is also a source of fresh water. These same islands often find fresh water extremely hard to come by otherwise. Haven't heard of this advancing beyond a lab-stage though.

Re:What could

[pseudofrog]

If you'd put down the Ayn Rand book for a minute, you'd really that your statement is absurd.

Wars? Civil rights? International relations? Law enforcement? Disaster rescue?

Re:What could

[GreatBunzinni]

You, sadly, don't know what you are talking about. The air on areas which are adjacent to the ocean has a high concentration of chlorides which, if not designed with this in mind, can get reinforced concrete structures to completely corrode and crumble in a span of 3 to 5 years. The high concentration of chlorides in the air vary according to multiple parameters, including the topology and some papers have been written that show that high chloride concentrations can be found in areas which are up to 10m above sea level, which means that in some flat areas such as river deltas and flood plains you can find concentrations of chloride a couple of km inland which are practically as high as right in the beach.

But never mind that. Just stick your tongue out, lick the funny rain and let the truthyness of that guide your reasoning. After all, who the hell needs those idiot scientists who have proven multiple times the exact opposite of what you claim?

Re:What could

[RobertM1968]

when I stuck my tongue out when it rained, I didn't taste any salt at all,

If I was choosing my nick again I would be the RTFT-TROLL (yes; that loud)

Here it is; the article title again, but this time a bit marked up for those of you so bloody stupid you can't see it.

First when I joined this site, it was read the summary, then it's read the article... now it's read the title too? Screw this, I'm leaving this site. I was more than content to just pick a word or three (changing a few) to base my wild speculation on (such as "Gates Salt(ing) Clouds")

Re:What could

[JWSmythe]

    I actually had a similar idea a while back, which would be more eco-friendly as you're suggesting. It would involve buoys and black plastic sheets. The sheets would sit maybe 1" under the water, to encourage evaporation. If the sheets were spread out, they wouldn't cause damage to the ecosystem below. So, maybe 1% coverage over 100 square miles is 1 square mile of increased evaporation and therefore more clouds and rain.

    It takes a lot for evaporation to become a cloud though. It may be that all that would be created is just raised humidity in the area.

Re:What could

[JWSmythe]

    No, I think the expected results are pretty much a given. Being that Bill is in Seattle, but it's rainy there about 340 days of the year, he'll have the operation set up from San Diego to San Francisco.

    The winds there tend to go East. So now you're sending what is great seeding for rain clouds over the desert Southwest United States.

    I argued for cloud seeding and other methods for adding rainfall into the desert regions, which could make them more habitable. Freshwater rivers and lakes would be replenished. More plants would be able to grow. Several people pointed out that there is an existing and viable ecosystem there already. It's not as dense as we're used to seeing in forest areas, but it definitely exists.

    Lets not forget what happens to Southern California when they get more than 3 days of rain in a row. The "Los Angeles River" (I quote that, and you'll understand why if you've ever seen it) becomes a fast moving deathtrap that frequently overruns its "banks", and sweeps the occasional car or kid into it. Mudslides wash away hills, houses, and even close interstates. That's always national news. So, instead of it happening occasionally, it would be a regular event. In time, we'd grow accustom to it, and people (the survivors) would migrate to safer areas. The mudslides would become less of a problem as the loose soil washes away and plants and trees begin to grow. Then again, the massive wildfires of Southern California would be less of a problem, since it would rain frequently.

    With increased plant growth, our atmospheric CO2 levels would drop. Humidity in these areas would also rise, and non-native animals would migrate into these areas.

    So, it sounds like a win-win situation, with the exception of the arid environment ecosystem which would be totally destroyed.

    The problem with that is that we would essentially be terraforming significant areas. I know we haven't learned quite yet that man playing god isn't a great idea, as we're still very primitive (no offense, but we are). The bigger problem would be that to sustain the terraforming, the system would have to remain in place forever. Without the system, the area would return to its previous state. Since you'd eventually have vast woodlands where there was just desert before, that would die off, and a single wildfire would become a world wide disaster. Imagine an area consisting of New Mexico, Arizona, and Southern California burning. That little volcano pop in Iceland would be nothing in comparison.

Re:What could

[apoc.famine]

Heh, the best part is that we might be trapping more heat than we're reflecting...

I'm doing a PhD in a climate area now, and the science is DEFINITELY not out on whether increased clouds hurt or help us. It depends on the height, location, water content, droplet size.....

But I agree with Idiomatick below - it's clear that we're into at least 40 years of warming, even if we turned off every last CO2 source today! As I posted above, we're on the ride, while we're still building the track ahead of us. The first 40+ years of the ride has been completed. What the next 80, 120, 160 years looks like is still a bit up in the air. However, it's hotter, with climate like we humans have never seen since we invented writing.

Our last chance to keep our climate like the last 10-15k yrs is to geo-engineer. Our only chance to get off this ride in the next 40 years is to put all our chips on 00 and spin the wheel. They aren't good odds, for sure....

Re:What could

[the_womble]

That was exactly my reaction.

I live in a (tropical) seaside town and people several km inland have problems with sat corrosion - this stuff can stay in the air.

Bringing salt inland (e.g. for prawn farming) has already had a severe impact in some places.

Now, this is apparently going to all happen out at sea, but even so it could have an impact (on precipitation) and it could get carried further than we think (if volcanic ash can get from Iceland to Africa, how far can atomised salt go?),

Re:What could

[Shihar]

First, the fun thing this and nearly all of the serious geoengineer proposals that I have seen is that they are easily turned off. If there is some horrible consequence to making the ocean a little more cloudy? Ok... turn them off. We are already geoengineering through industrial pollutants. We might as well geoengineer some more to try and fix the problems. The path to using this techs is pretty clear. Start small, work up to the effect you want, turn it off if you don't like where it is going.

As far as "masking" the problem, what is wrong with that? So we need to run a bunch of sprinklers in the ocean. Is it cheaper than the substantial costs of reducing CO2 output now? If it is, then we should seriously think about doing it. That isn't to say that we shouldn't work on removing CO2 in a more permanent way or work on emitting less, but it could be a hell of a lot cheaper and political far more feasible than the alternative. Do you have to maintain these and replace them? Sure, but that goes with almost any technology. It isn't like the fact that power plants wear out stop us from building an electrical grid. You just include replacement in the cost. It is hardly an insurmountable problem.

If you really believe that climageddon is upon us, geoengineering really is shaping up to be the only way to level off the warming. The cost to reduce CO2 emissions now at levels high enough to stop global warming are through the roof. The political cost is even higher (if not utterly unpayable). We are going to fail at reducing CO2 emissions in the short term. Why not deploy technology to counteract our unintentional geoengineering at a fraction of the cost of "fixing" the problem. Don't stop working on the problem, just give the world some breathing room. Transitioning over to clean and renewable energy is the direction we want to go regardless, making it so that we need to make the transition in a few generations rather than a few years results in a drastically reduced cost.

Frankly, I think that geoengineering makes hardcore environmentalist pissy because it snatches away the best issue that environmentalist movement has had in decades. When it comes down to it, reducing CO2 emission with today's technology boils down to reduced consumption and energy usage. You can tie those two things to pretty much anything in the environmentalist cause. Global warming makes an good proxy in any fight over the environmental. Arguing that coal is bad because it pumps out toxic crap in the PPM range is a very hard argument to make to your average uneducated dolt. Simply declaring coal is a going to cause climageddon on the other hand is much much easier to understand and get worked up over.

Re:What could

[apoc.famine]

We're sure that CO2 produces warming for a couple of reasons:

1)All laboratory experiments show this.
2) All paleoclimate records show this. (To be fair, there are a ton of feedbacks in the system, but historical warm periods are very closely correlated with very high levels of CO2.)
3) All current observations show a very close correlation between CO2 and global temperature. In fact, there is nothing else that comes anywhere close to that correlation.
4) With reasonable parameters in models, previous CO2 data very closely predicts current temperatures and temperature distributions.

From a climate science standpoint, there is absolutely no doubt that increased CO2 leads to increased temperatures. Hell, even from a physics standpoint there's no question about it. In fact, the basic physics and chemistry aren't overly hard. Where the questions lie is in how the earth system as a whole responds to increased temperatures.

Clouds are perhaps the #1 area of uncertainty at the moment. Venus is scorching hot because of cloud cover and a strong greenhouse effect. Hotter on average than Mercury, which is a lot closer to the sun. Yet Mars is a frozen wasteland with no appreciable greenhouse effect or clouds. From ground and satellite observations we can see that, on average, low, thick clouds reflect more sun than they trap heat, and cause a net cooling. High, thin clouds trap more heat than they reflect, causing net warming.

But we lack data on "paleoclouds" - nobody really knows if a warmer planet leads to more low clouds or more high clouds. Most of the physics seems to indicate more clouds, (ala Venus) and paleoclimate records show wet periods corresponded with warm periods, and dry periods with cool periods.

I take a fair bit of issue with your last statement. You don't seem to know much about computational climate models. The entire point is to parametrize physical processes that are too computationally demanding to actually model. We can't model every raindrop, so we model net amounts based on parametrizations which agree with what we see. For instance, many model parametrizations are based on NCEP reanalysis data. It's freely available data, collected from a vast array of measurement devices. Pressure, temperature, humidity, winds, evaporation, precipitation, incoming solar, albedo, etc. The parametrizations we make are an aggreate of real data and pretty well known physical properties.

The big issues are the things we have no data for. "Paleoclouds", eg. Nobody knows what clouds were like 1 million years ago. We can estimate, based on what we know, but it's just a guess. Even something as simple as albedo is tricky. When we lose permafrost, the albedo of the poles changes. But what does it change to? Obviously it lowers, but the actual value depends on the types and distribution of plants that grow there. We've just got to guess at that. Do these uncertainties mean that global warming isn't happening? Not at all. It just means that the spread of predictions is that much larger.

One key thing we do know: The deep ocean has about a 1000 year circulation. We can trace the age of the ocean by testing for things like man-made nuclear particles and CFCs, among other things. When we examine 50 year old and newer water vs hundreds of years old water, the CO2 content of the new water is enormously higher. In fact, it looks like the ocean has taken up almost 50% of the CO2 we produced so far. As any chemist, physicist, or anyone who's opened a warm soda can tell you, warm liquids hold less gas. This potential slowdown of our major carbon sink, combined with our increasing emissions will likely have profound effects on future climate, above and beyond what's currently being modeled.

P.S. The IPCC models are a decade old. They only are using very well established, well reviewed models that have stood the test of time. The newer, more complete, less parametrized, and significantly more complicated models show a spread around the IPCC models. However, the bulk are above IPCC predictions for temperature. It doesn't help that we're following the worst-case IPCC emission scenario.

300 HUNDRED THOUSAND DOLLARS!

[Thud457]

finally, he's acting like a proper evil mastermind...

Re:300 HUNDRED THOUSAND DOLLARS!

[Capt.DrumkenBum]

seawater-squirting cloud machines, now with 'SquirtsForSure'!

Off to register 'squirtsforsure.com' Soon to the the hottest pr0n site on the internet.

Fatal flaw

[Yvan256]

The Microsoft founder recently announced plans to invest $300,000 into research for machines that suck up seawater and spray it into the air, seeding white clouds that reflect rays of sunlight away from Earth.

Unfortunately, the machines are solar-powered.

Bill Gates announces World's Largest Supersoaker!

[jpcarter]

Awesome.

I just blew a seal...

[deathcow]

...700 feet into the air

Re:I just blew a seal...

[Locke2005]

This Eskimo is having engine problems, so he takes his car into the mechanic to investigate. While it's being worked on, he wonders next door to the ice cream parlor and has a vanilla ice cream cone. When he returns, the mechanic solemnly says to him "It looks like you blew a seal,", to which the Eskimo replies, "No, no, no... I was just eating ice cream!"

Re:Has some heavy hitters on its side

[biryokumaru]

I understand that Dr Horrible is supplying the wonderflonium required for the machines to operate.

Re:You know what this reminds me of?

[david_thornley]

Precisely! On the other hand, we've rather fallen into climate engineering, and we really have no choice but to blunder around not knowing what we're doing. If we could quick scrub carbon dioxide from the air, and put it back to what it was in 1850 and keep it there, we could take this slowly and with proper experimentation.

Vaporware

[owlnation]

Vaporware -- the perfect business for him to be investing in! He has some experience.

Re:How about...

[Wyatt Earp]

The problem is, nature is never in a "balance". Forest fires, wild fires, volcanos, tsunamis, global cooling, ice ages, global warming, desertification, floods, forestation, those things all happened before, during and after man.

I'm from South Dakota, so I've looked alot at the geological history there. It used to be under the sea, under glaciers, partially under glaciers, burned by wild fires that crossed the entire region, forested, then less forested, it used to have volcanos, it's been covered by ash from other volcanos, it will be covered by ash when Yellowstone cooks off.

$7 billion is peanuts to stop global warming

[wonkavader]

The article says that 3 ships is nothing. We need $7 billion worth of ships to stop the temperature from increasing.

WHAT? We can stop warming in its tracks for just $7 billion? That's very little money.

This is useful for other things

[WindBourne]

Here in the west USA, we have long droughts. We count on reservoirs having enough water. The problem is that we have also been depending for far too long on aquifers. So, we regularly talk about pipelines. Well, there is ZERO chance that an economical large pipeline can be developed. HOWEVER, this has the ability to put a lot more moisture in the air. When it is known that a cold front is going to hit an area, then we simply bump up the amount of moisture in the air. It will mean LARGE snow dumps, but that is needed. It will allow us to fill the aquifers as well as reservoirs.

Generally, I think that Gates is causing more issues than solving (trying to stop hurricanes is a HORRIBLE mistake; it brings up nutrients from deep down; likewise, killing mosquitoes may actually stop evolution), but this one will help bring fresh water throughout the world as well as temporaly help with the global warming issues until we switch off of fossil fuels. Interestingly, if China, the worlds largest polluter of nearly everything, was to clean up their h2so4, then it would raise global temps quickly. With the clouds, it allows us to not worry about temps, while we go back to encouraging all nations to clean up their act.

Is this a joke?

[Ancient_Hacker]

Is this a joke?

The rate of evaporation from the oceans is about 400,000 cubic kilometers per year.

To increase that by just one percent would mean pumping 4,000 km^3 of water.

Just raising that much water to 3,000 feet would take approximately, oh let's see, carry the 0x100,
about 1,651,445,966.51 horsepower. One Point Six BILLION horsepower.

Re:Is this a joke?

[Bamfarooni]

Fortunately, they're not suggesting that increased evaporation is the important part. It's an increase in cloud cover.

Re:Isn't water vapor...

[bunratty]

Yes, water vapor is a greenhouse gas. But putting more water vapor in the atmosphere will not contribute to global warming, because any excess water vapor put into the atmosphere precipitates out as rain, snow, or dew within about a week. In other words, water vapor is not a forcing.

Excess carbon dioxide, on the other hand, can remain in the atmosphere for hundreds of years. That's why burning fossil fuels has the effect of increasing the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, leading to warming.

Cloud Services, LOL

[lcreech]

No relataionship to the Microsoft Cloud Services advertized here on /.

Re:Hmmm

[Mamaeh]

I believe the phrase is "What could possibly go wrong..."

Pehaps "what clouds possibly go wrong..."

Re:Bill Gates misunderstands

[amirulbahr]

No. It will be down moderated because it is a moronic post, and it uses way to many words to convey the BS.

The Yellowstone Caldera will take many years, probably hundreds of smaller eruptions before any major super-volcanic eruption. Your statement that it is 40 thousand years overdue is not based on any reasoning and no geologist would agree with you.

Global warming is real. It is caused by humans contributing shit-loads of Carbon to the atmosphere. It will have consequences on the human race. There is probably a tipping point where the changes in the planet will be dramatic.

p.s. It serves me in no way to be taking this position other than the fact that I kind of give a shit about the future of our species.