Scientists Plan "Artificial Volcano" Climate Experiment

First time accepted submitter tonyt3 writes "Scientists plan on conducting an unusual climate experiment at a Norfolk airfield next month. They plan to spray water into the air about 20 km high to mimic volcanic particles, hoping that their findings could lead to a solution to global warming. From the article: 'Pouring 10 million tonnes of material into the stratosphere each using 10 to 20 giant balloons could achieve a 2C global drop in temperature, the scientists believe. Sulphate emissions from the Mount Pinatubo eruption in the Philippines in June 1991 reduced world temperature by 0.5C for two years.'"

Comments

Not much air

[AJWM]

The air's pretty thin 1000 km up -- considering that the Space Station orbits at less than half that. Maybe 10 km?

Re:Not much air

[AJWM]

Okay, TFA (I know, I know) says 20km.

Re:Not much air

[Anonymous Coward]

The air's pretty thin 1000 km up -- considering that the Space Station orbits at less than half that. Maybe 10 km?

lol won't the balloons get popped by collisions with orbiting satellites? ;)

Re:Not much air

[DanTheStone]

That's the "long-term vision"; this test is only at 1 km.

Re:Not much air

[GameboyRMH]

Maybe that's the plan. Form an ice ring around the earth by building on satellite orbits, and then the solar winds will blow cool...space wind at the planet. Just like the old ice in front of a fan trick!

Re:Not much air

[sycodon]

"But we do know it was us that scorched the sky"
- Morpheus

Re:Not much air

[jonadab]

Even 20km is still well into the stratosphere. Water vapor is a MUCH more potent greenhouse gas than the carbon dioxide that has all the environmentalists' shorts in a bunch. (Yeah, I know, quantity is the issue, and the headline doesn't say exactly how much water they're planning to spray around up there.)

Perhaps the more interesting question is, "Where can I get my hands on the technology to spray water that far?" Because that would be WAY more awesome than the water pistols we had when I was a kid.

Re:Not much air

[pz]

Another failure of Slashdot editing in basic facts checking. The article states 1 km. The stratosphere is between 10 and 50 km, so 1,000 km would go well above that. The nominal edge of the atmosphere is about 600 km. Someone got a little too excited with the zeros, methinks.

Re:Not much air

[Anonymous Coward]

Water vapor is a MUCH more potent greenhouse gas than the carbon dioxide that has all the environmentalists' shorts in a bunch.

First off, go fuck yourself.

Second of all, the persistence of CO2 and water vapor in the atmosphere are completely different. Which you either don't know (in which case you're a dumbass), or you do know (and you're being a trolling little shit). Either way, it's because of shitmonging little fuckheads like you that we will be forced to make these experiments into actionable plans, you microphallic little fuck.

Lastly, go fuck yourself.

Re:Not much air

[Anonymous Coward]

It's possible, though unlikely, that you have a severe, severe, severe rage problem.

Re:Not much air

[MyFirstNameIsPaul]

20 km - what is that, around 85 stones?

Re:Not much air

[Smidge204]

Water vapor is a MUCH more potent greenhouse gas than the carbon dioxide that has all the environmentalists' shorts in a bunch.

Under certain conditions, yes. Studies suggest that thick, low-lying clouds provide net cooling effects thanks to shading and reflecting more than blanketing.

But this experiment isn't trying to use water vapor to provide a cooling effect - the ultimate plan is to use some other material. The test uses water 'cause it's cheap, abundant and environmentally benign. The "real" plan might use water as a carrier agent for whatever it is they actually send up.
=Smidge=

Re:Not much air

[Anonymous Coward]

Go smoke a joint or something...take the edge off. Yeah, he may a dumb ass but you're the one looking like a total dickwad.

Re:Not much air

[knarfling]

TFA is still a bit confusing. At one point they are talking about 20 pipes, each of them being 1 km long, and at another point someone starts talking about the pressure needed to move the water 20 km up.

Re:Not much air

[Anonymous Coward]

A total dickwad would post under his name and not as AC. Don't elevate his status. I do agree some self medication seems to be in order.

Re:Not much air

[pz]

Interestingly, I find that American-born scientists have a better ability to think in different scales than European ones precisely because the US uses Imperial units. American scientists hearing that the temperature outside is going to be 25C think, "um, wait a sec, oh, yeah, that will be comfortably warm," whereas European scientists hearing that the temperature is going to be 77F are completely baffled. Being able to think and converse independent of units is an important skill that European scientists tend to lack. Even if the entire world were converted to SI, there are still multiple ways of measuring given quantities (e.g., percent by weight, by volume, by molecular count, etc.) that have different scales for the same observation, and being able to rapidly shift from one to another is an important skill.

Re:Not much air

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, when someone implies that climate scientists don't know how to account for water vapor (which guess what, they do) AND is dismissive of those who are at least not fuckheaded enough to dismiss the conclusions of those much smarter than themselves, then I consider it my duty to call that person out as being a dripping festering cunt. So any rage problem I have might just be attributable to the large population of cuntdom out there.

Re:Not much air

[Anonymous Coward]

I too recommend mind altering substances for clearly unstable individuals.

Re:Not much air

[Tjp($)pjT]

Ozone is beneficial in the upper atmosphere, not so much on the ground level. One strata's benign is another's OMG what could you be thinking!

Re:Not much air

[Anonymous Coward]

Scourged.

Re:Not much air

[budgenator]

Considering a column of water 10m high results in one atmosphere of pressure, a 1 km column would need a pipe capable of holding a pressure of 1,470PSI while still being light enough to be suspended by balloons! This is going to take some serious engineering mojo, and all because the Earth's average temperature has increased from 288.0K to 288.8 over the last 150 years.

Re:Not much air

[Cyberax]

Water is much more potent than CO2, but it does not cause climate forcing (in the sane temperature range, anyway). I.e. water vapor exists in the equilibrium condition - put more some additional vapor into the air and it will quite soon (hours to days) condense into water. So the more water you put into the atmosphere - the harder it'll going to rain down a few days after.

CO2 doesn't work that way. If you put it into the atmosphere - it just stays there (modulo CO2 sinks). It's not an equilibrium system (well, it is, but with very large reaction times) - more CO2 in the atmosphere will just give you more CO2 in the atmosphere.

Now, stratospheric water is yet another thing. It'll exist a a very fine snow ice particles (I won't call it 'snow' for the don't look like it) and in fact have the opposite effect - they reflect sunlight back into space. The greenhouse effect of stratospheric gases is mostly irrelevant, because 'stratosphere' is just another name for 'almost a hard vacuum'. AND stratosphere doesn't mix a lot with troposphere, so these ice particles are going to persist for a fair amount of time (probably months).

Re:Not much air

[jdgeorge]

...the Earth's average temperature has increased from 288.0K to 288.8 over the last 150 years.

Citation, please.

Re:Not much air

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey,

Fuck you, you mouth breathing, mother's basement dwelling, drooling troll.

Hey! That was fun!

Fuck you!Fuck you!Fuck you!Fuck you!Fuck you!Fuck you!Fuck you!Fuck you!

Re:Not much air

[mug funky]

i love how, through this exchange, everyone posts as AC.

Re:Not much air

[mug funky]

just measure weight by bags of ice and be done with it.

i'm sick of people asking how many pounds and ounces my son was born at. i tell them 2.64Kg, or just shy of a bag of ice.

Re:Not much air

[OeLeWaPpErKe]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Global_Temperature_Anomaly_1880-2010_(Fig.A).gif

From just below -0.2 to +0.5 (you have to follow the red line and round towards zero).

Re:Not much air

[advocate_one]

The "real" plan might use water as a carrier agent for whatever it is they actually send up.

You mean like CHEMTRAILS then? prepare to be really worried... ideal method of dispersing whatever they want to control us with...

Re:Not much air

[tehcyder]

you broke the chain!

Re:Not much air

[sumdumass]

would that be the three pound, eight pound, or 20 pound bag of ice?

Re:Not much air

[tehcyder]

Interestingly, I find that American-born scientists have a better ability to think in different scales than European ones precisely because the US uses Imperial units. American scientists hearing that the temperature outside is going to be 25C think, "um, wait a sec, oh, yeah, that will be comfortably warm," whereas European scientists hearing that the temperature is going to be 77F are completely baffled. Being able to think and converse independent of units is an important skill that European scientists tend to lack. Even if the entire world were converted to SI, there are still multiple ways of measuring given quantities (e.g., percent by weight, by volume, by molecular count, etc.) that have different scales for the same observation, and being able to rapidly shift from one to another is an important skill.

What a pile of old toot, it is a useful day to skill to be able to convert temperatures in your head if you're in the UK or US, but for scientific purposes, I hope everyone is a bit more accurate than the "double it and add thirty" approximation we oldies have to use to convert C to F.

Re:Not much air

[luis_a_espinal]

It's possible, though unlikely, that you have a severe, severe, severe rage problem.

Possibly a symptom of vaginal silicosis or a centipedal infection of the surrounding areas /dark humor>

Re:Not much air

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course it would only experience that pressure at the bottom of the column. So the pipe would need to be less robust as it got taller.

Re:Not much air

[budgenator]

That would be, Nobel Prize-Winning Physicist Who Endorsed Obama Dissents! Resigns from American Physical Society Over Group's Promotion of Man-Made Global Warming, Ivar Giaever.

Re:Not much air

[budgenator]

Good point, even taking it farther, by using boaster pumps and check valves along the pipe you reduce the pressure at the bottom even more, making it still an interesting engineering problem of multi-factor optimization.

Re:Not much air

[budgenator]

I think your worrying too much, temperatures are basically meaningless, heat is where the rubber meets the road and there is a lot of heat needed to make a dent in the ocean.

Paging Dr. Bob, Paging Dr. Bob...

[Anonymous Coward]

... please pick up the red courtesy phone when you manage to free one of your arms from the straightjacket.

Isn't water vapor a greenhouse gas?

[flaming error]

My understanding was water vapor was more potent than co2 at trapping heat. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_gas)

Re:Isn't water vapor a greenhouse gas?

[ceoyoyo]

They're not spraying water vapour.

Presumably the water they do spray will increase the amount of water vapour in the atmosphere, which is bad, so you wouldn't want to build the working model using water. But for a test water droplets have the advantage of being well accepted as non-toxic.

Re:Isn't water vapor a greenhouse gas?

[jonadab]

Yes, SIGNIFICANTLY more potent. (Actually, carbon dioxide barely works as a greenhouse gas at all. You need, like, gazillions of tons of it to even make a difference.)

Re:Isn't water vapor a greenhouse gas?

[WalksOnDirt]

Except that the water vapor in the atmosphere is largely there because the carbon dioxide has made it warm enough. Remove the carbon dioxide and we all freeze (among other problems).

Re:Isn't water vapor a greenhouse gas?

[artor3]

I know, right? And just look at those morons in New Orleans who complained a few years back about that hurricane. It was way less than 1% of the water in the Atlantic! What harm could it have done? Same goes for people who get stabbed -- the knife wound severs less than 1% of the blood vessels in your body, so what's the big deal?

Question.... if you have two one hundred pound weights on opposite sides of a scale, and add one pound to one of them, what happens?

Not that any of that matters, as you're either a fool or a liar. CO2 accounts for more than 10% of greenhouse gases (closer to 15%), and human activity accounts for more than 10% of atmospheric CO2 (closer to 30%). So which is it, did someone trick you, or are you a liar?

Re:Isn't water vapor a greenhouse gas?

[Anonymous Coward]

Thanks for that explanation. I was under the wrong impression that radiation from the Sun had something to do with our balmy temperatures.

Re:Isn't water vapor a greenhouse gas?

[Bemopolis]

Correct. Do you also understand what rain is made of? (Hint: it's not CO2). Maybe once you understand simple things like that you won't depend on your demonstrably limited knowledge of climate to post inane statements on the Internet.

Re:Isn't water vapor a greenhouse gas?

[Anonymous Coward]

Greenhouse gases raise Earth's temperature from from 260 K to 288 K. If CO2 is responsible for 10% of that, it's responsible for a 2.8 K temperature change. If we assume the temperature change is linear with the amount of CO2 a doubling of the CO2 in the Earth's atmosphere will result in a 2.8 K temperature increase. Which is within the range of temperature change climate scientists predict for a doubling of the CO2 in Earth's atmosphere.

So why do you think your little factoid is an argument against global warming?

Re:Isn't water vapor a greenhouse gas?

[brit74]

(1) "It's supposed to be a secret that CO2 accounts for less than 10% of greenhouse gases"

When these gases are ranked by their direct contribution to the greenhouse effect, the most important are:
Gas / Greenhouse Gas Contribution (%)
Water vapor (H2O) 36 – 72 %
Carbon dioxide (CO2) 9 – 26 %
Methane (CH4) 4 – 9 %
Ozone (O3) 3 – 7 %
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_gas

It's also generally accepted that these are not independent, since increases in CO2, CH4, and O3 increase the temperature, which increases the water vapor: "The average residence time of a water molecule in the atmosphere is only about nine days, compared to years or centuries for other greenhouse gases such as CH4 and CO2. Thus, water vapor responds to and amplifies effects of the other greenhouse gases."

(2) "and that the amount generated by human activity is further less than 10% of that CO2."
The CO2 in the atmosphere has increased from 270-280 ppm a century ago to 390 ppm today (and it was down to 180 ppm in the last ice age). 390/280 = 40% increase. And, before you say that not all the 110 ppm increase is due to human activity, I submit this graph showing that CO2 levels over the past 600,000 years have never been above 300 ppm until the 20th century ( http://static-www.icr.org/i/articles/af/does_carbon_dioxide_fig3new.jpg )

You know: I'd think there was a lot more to climate change denial if the facts presented by climate deniers weren't almost always wrong.

I would be interested to know, though, how they think this would lower the temperature - for example: if water vapor at different elevations have different effects.

Re:Isn't water vapor a greenhouse gas?

[cyfer2000]

They are making ice particles not water vapor, and if there is too much water vapor in the air, the water vapor falls down as rain or snow.

Re:Isn't water vapor a greenhouse gas?

[Anonymous Coward]

Is anyone sucking millions of tons of water out of the earth every year and throwing it into the air? What is the half-life of water vs CO2?

Re:Isn't water vapor a greenhouse gas?

[mbkennel]

A 1% change in the Solar constant would be catastrophic for civilization.

yes, climate is that sensitive for humans.

Re:Isn't water vapor a greenhouse gas?

[FhnuZoag]

Right, there's a significant difference between water vapour and water aerosols, which is what this experiment is about. The second thing is that they are mainly interested in testing whether they can pump the stuff that high, instead of the climatological effects of that. (Which realistically ought to be negligible for a test this small.)

Re:Isn't water vapor a greenhouse gas?

[sjames]

(1) "It's supposed to be a secret that CO2 accounts for less than 10% of greenhouse gases"

Perhaps he got Wikipedia and Wikileaks mixed up in his head again?

Re:Isn't water vapor a greenhouse gas?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, burning fossil fuels also generates a lot of water...

But the amount of water in the air is limited because water at Earthly temperatures mostly wants to stay a liquid. Adding more water to the environment will just increase the amount of liquid water. The CO2 stays as a gas, so all the CO2 you generate increases your greenhouse gases and disturbs the planet's heat balance.

Re:Isn't water vapor a greenhouse gas?

[wagnerrp]

Except if such a positive feedback loop worked as you suggest, we would be running our ACs a lot harder than we are currently. Many global warming models had predicted changes over the last ten years several times what they actually were, misjudging the effect this feedback loop would have.

Re:Isn't water vapor a greenhouse gas?

[ElectricTurtle]

You think that a third of CO2 in the atmosphere comes from human activity? You think that what we do is more substantial than an entire world of decaying organic matter and volcanic activity? Decomposing organics alone accounts for more than four times more than human activity (at least according to Wikipedia, which I don't necessarily trust but I've been searching for the better part of a hour for hard numbers for world biogenic CO2 emissions and found nothing), which if you can do basic math already invalidates your own number as folly or lies, and that doesn't take into account any of the other sources of CO2.

Re:Isn't water vapor a greenhouse gas?

[Fned]

Is anyone sucking millions of tons of water out of the earth every year and throwing it into the air?

...the Sun...?

Re:Isn't water vapor a greenhouse gas?

[riverat1]

The quantity of water vapor in the troposphere averages around 1% or 10,000 ppmv as compared to 390 ppmv for CO2 which means there is around 25 times as much water vapor in the atmosphere as there is CO2. So, from the Wikipedia article water vapor is responsible for 36-72% of the greenhouse effect and CO2 is responsible for 9-26% of the greenhouse effect. So water vapor is responsible for 3-4 times as much greenhouse warming as CO2 despite being 25 times more prevalent.

Based on that I would say that CO2 is a more potent GHG than water vapor, there's just enough more water vapor in the atmosphere to have a greater warming effect.

Re:Isn't water vapor a greenhouse gas?

[riverat1]

The Sun provides the incoming energy. Without the greenhouse gases in the atmosphere blocking some of the outgoing IR radiation the average temperature on the surface of the Earth would be around 0F (-17.7C) instead of 58F.

Re:Isn't water vapor a greenhouse gas?

[Anonymous Coward]

But for a test water droplets have the advantage of being well accepted as non-toxic.

No kidding.

Re:Isn't water vapor a greenhouse gas?

[WalksOnDirt]

Nonsense. Models predict no discernible change over the last ten years. Besides, I think our Anonymous Cowards run quite enough.

Re:Isn't water vapor a greenhouse gas?

[riverat1]

To claim that water vapor is an issue or that humans could have any effect on water vapor levels in the atmosphere (except in some local situations) it as silly as those guys who claim the CO2 you exhale is going to become an issue. Continuing to bring it up just shows your ignorance.

Re:Isn't water vapor a greenhouse gas?

[riverat1]

For thousands of years since the end of the last glaciation around 10,000 years ago the CO2 level in the atmosphere hovered around 280 ppmv. Every year, tracking the seasons, the level fluctuated about 10 ppmv going down as plants grew in the northern hemisphere spring/summer and going back up as stuff decayed in the northern hemisphere autumn/winter. It's all part of the carbon cycle which holds a balance of carbon between the atmosphere, hydrosphere and biosphere (with the geosphere playing a minor role). The carbon in fossil fuels had been sequestered from the carbon cycle for many millions of years but now we are releasing it back into the carbon cycle so a new balance is being created with more carbon in all of the "-spheres". It's quite clear that the increase of carbon in the carbon cycle is due to human activities releasing the fossil carbon.

Re:Isn't water vapor a greenhouse gas?

[flaming error]

Maybe once you understand simple things like [what rain is made of] you won't depend on your demonstrably limited knowledge of climate to post inane statements on the Internet.

I'm afraid I'll always depend on my limited knowledge for everything I do and say.

If you'd like to do me the favor of educating me, I'll thank you. But your reply has no information in it except that I'm stupid and you don't like my post. Which is kind of an inane post itself, isn't it?

Re:Isn't water vapor a greenhouse gas?

[Dthief]

See, all of that CO2 is coming from decomposing plant materials, that in extermeley short term was probably a tree or something that ate a plant. What did that plant do to become so wonderful that it can decompose into CO2, it removed a comparable amount of CO2 from the atmosphere.

Human activity involves the burning of oils and coal in which carbon has been sequestered efficiently for long term (millions of years) out of this cycle. In this way any change to the system comes largely from human influences.

Re:Isn't water vapor a greenhouse gas?

[Dthief]

Though you ingest too many, too quickly, and you'll die of oxygen deprivation.

Re:Isn't water vapor a greenhouse gas?

[flaming error]

> been searching for ... hard numbers ... and found nothing
How does one "do basic math" without numbers?

Re:Isn't water vapor a greenhouse gas?

[trout007]

I have a question that you may know the answer to. The CO2 in the air gets trapped in the ice. But even in ice wouldn't the CO2 slowly dissolve and basically even out the peaks and valleys? The ice cores don't immediately trap the air. It gets caught between snowflakes and slowly over time gets compressed to the point it becomes ice where it is mostly trapped. The problem is the point from when the snow falls until it is locked up will act like a filter averaging out the CO2 level on the order of many hundreds of years. So we don't really know that CO2 levels have never been higher. We only know current levels are higher than any running 500-1000 year average.

Re:Isn't water vapor a greenhouse gas?

[xenobyte]

You know: I'd think there was a lot more to climate change denial if the facts presented by climate deniers weren't almost always wrong.

You know, there's be much more credibility to the ramblings of the Climate Change Cult if they didn't have to 'tweak' and 'adjust' the data in order to produce results supporting their claims... ;)

The worst claim so far is the words from the conclusion in one of IPCC's reports: "The Sun has no significant effect on the changes in global temperature" (not the exact phrase). That's so obviously incorrect it puts the credibility of the whole IPCC in question. The Sun has EVERYTHING to do with the global temperature on Earth. More radiation from the Sun will result in a temperature increase, less in a decrease. The mechanism is extremely complex in details but the overall effect is extremely simple and obvious.

Now, given that we've seem rather significant chances in global temperature over the years (both in historical time and in geological time), and these times were without 'the usual suspects' - significant human population, major volcanic eruptions, meteor impacts etc. - so the culprit has to be something else, like the Sun. But without knowing what, how and why, it should be the focus as the culprit of any change we see today as it is much more likely that it's the same thing again than it's something new, like human activity. But the Cult jumps the gun and throw all common sense out the window, and are having so much influence that politicians everywhere are rushing to dismantle civilization on this flimsy and unlikely theory. That's just stupid IMHO.

Re:Isn't water vapor a greenhouse gas?

[Walkingshark]

(1) "It's supposed to be a secret that CO2 accounts for less than 10% of greenhouse gases"

Perhaps he got Wikipedia and Wikileaks mixed up in his head again?

More like wikipedia and conservapedia.

Re:Isn't water vapor a greenhouse gas?

[riverat1]

The CO2 in ice cores (like the O2 and N2) never gets compressed enough to solidify. If you're going to propose that there are spikes in CO2 levels that don't show up in ice cores you need to propose a mechanism for that to happen. Otherwise it's just speculation with no scientific backing.

Re:Isn't water vapor a greenhouse gas?

[riverat1]

The average lifetime of a water molecule in the atmosphere is about 9 days, as opposed to a CO2 molecule which is on the order of 20-30 years. But that says nothing about how much of either substance is in the atmosphere, just how fast the level can change.

Re:Isn't water vapor a greenhouse gas?

[WalksOnDirt]

Greenhouse gases raise Earth's temperature from from 260 K to 288 K. If CO2 is responsible for 10% of that, it's responsible for a 2.8 K temperature change.

It is actually responsible for most of the warming.

If we assume the temperature change is linear with the amount of CO2 a doubling of the CO2 in the Earth's atmosphere will result in a 2.8 K temperature increase.

It's actually logarithmic near current levels, although at much lower levels it varies.

Your errors roughly cancel out, but that doesn't show anything useful.

Man...

[Fned]

...this totally blows away my papier-mache-and-baking-soda model.

I bet those guys are going to win the Science Fair.

It's like using deoderant instead of soap

[bennomatic]

Sometimes you're on a crowded bus and you can tell that the person next to you decided they didn't have time to actually get clean, but thought they could mask their odor with deoderant. Unfortunately, in some cases, what you get is a retch-inducing mixture of BO and deodeo.

Solutions like this to the climate issue remind me of those folks on the bus. If there's a real problem and if there are real things we can do to address the cause, let's do them. If, instead, we don't address the cause but do something else to mask the issue, then it seems likely that we'll just end up with an even bigger mess. I can just imagine scientists from another planet examining the burnt out husk of Earth and saying, "There's no life there; the atmosphere is an unlivable mix of carbon dioxide and sulphates!"

Re:It's like using deoderant instead of soap

[show me altoids]

If it's cheap, it works, and it buys time it may still be worth doing though. I don't think anyone sane is calling it a long term solution.

Re:It's like using deoderant instead of soap

[Anonymous Coward]

We are (slowly) taken steps to curb our dangerous emissions, but that won't help deal with what's already done.

Re:It's like using deoderant instead of soap

[Anonymous Coward]

"There's no life there; the atmosphere is an unlivable mix of carbon dioxide and sulphates!"

Or they'll say "I can't believe there's no life there. the atmosphere is an incrredible mix of carbon dioxide and sulphates!". You assume that carbon based life is the only kind. Really its just the only kind we know of so far.

Re:It's like using deoderant instead of soap

[ElectricTurtle]

You've unwittingly described the climate that gave rise to life in the first place. It wasn't until organisms started photosynthesis that a new type of life came along and radically altered the atmosphere, killing almost everything else that came before it in the Oxygen Catastrophe of the Siderian. Which in turn allowed all the animal life we know to come to exist.

This is the fundamental problem with green ideologues, they think that the biosphere is static and that life is impossible if it changes. You need to wrap your head around some facts. Mass extinctions created the current biosphere. If you think mass extinctions are bad, you must by extension think that the current biosphere you currently hold next to sacred is also ultimately a perversion of the state of life before said extinctions.

Life can spring back from virtually nothing. During the greatest mass extinction, 90% of ocean-dwelling species perished completely. Have you noticed how they're not still empty? More importantly, have you noticed how there are a lot more species in the oceans now than in the Permian? Over time, biodiversity has always increased, regardless of how severe any event has been over short periods.

The Chinese have a saying: 'Jiu de bu qu xin de bu lai' which means 'If old things don't go, new things will never come.'

Of course my heresy against green dogma will be properly downmodded.

Re:It's like using deoderant instead of soap

[Anonymous Coward]

Species appear, change the world and then die out. It happens. Plants appeared and filled the atmosphere with the respiratory poison oxygen, killing off everything else. The dinosaurs appeared and went extinct and paved the way for us. We've appeared and filled the atmosphere with carbon dioxide. What if we're just the paving stone for a more advanced species?

Re:It's like using deoderant instead of soap

[FhnuZoag]

Helllooooo strawman.

Re:It's like using deoderant instead of soap

[sjames]

I don't know about you, but I think it'd be kinda nice if *I* am not on the extinction list at this time, thank you very much.

Re:It's like using deoderant instead of soap

[rwa2]

Word... offsetting global warming by global dimming doesn't sound all that great of a deal.

That's trading useful energy (sunlight reflected back to space by aerosol pollution) for useless energy (more heat energy retained by greenhouse gases). The temperature might end up being the same, but the the entropy is higher.

Not an ideal way of saving the planet :-P It's bad enough that we're burning up all the fossil fuels stored from the solar energy collected by plants over the eons, but then there will be less solar energy to be absorbed and stored by plants for, uh, distant future fossil fuel production :-D But hey, it's a nice way to stick it to those people who invested in solar cells!

There are studies showing that the limiting factor for vegetative mass growth in the rain forest is not rain (plenty of water there) but sunlight. So less sunlight reaching the Earth will probably translate to less vegetative biomass to offset CO2 emissions. It's probably all written there in the geology of Venus if we bothered to dig ;-D

Re:It's like using deoderant instead of soap

[Anonymous Coward]

Can I borrow that lovely straw man you got there? I seem to have some crows in my corn.

I don't give a rat's ass if the Siberian Snow Turtle goes extinct because of rising CO2 levels. Neither do most people who are concerned about AGW.

I DO give a rat's ass if WE go extinct (or, more likely, if the world economy collapses) because of rising CO2 levels.

Re:It's like using deoderant instead of soap

[Fned]

This is the fundamental problem with green ideologues, they think that the biosphere is static and that life is impossible if it changes.

This is the fundamental problem with gigantic bipedal primates whose capacity for rational thought isn't as strong as their desire not to change their favorite habits; they think that when the biosphere changes, they'll be among the chosen species to survive.

You are way, way huger than anything that survived the greatest mass extinction, and this is not a fat-guy-in-mom's-basement joke. No human would have survived that event.

Re:It's like using deoderant instead of soap

[ElectricTurtle]

Humans are the cockroaches of large mammals. We can eat anything and live anywhere and can even withstand (as a population) large amounts of toxins and pathogens. More importantly, we can solve problems rationally and move or convert resources in innumerable ways. Mankind is as close to extinction-proof as any large animal can be.

Re:It's like using deoderant instead of soap

[confused one]

Sure it will. If it has the effect of immediately dropping the global temperature 2C by increasing the albedo, then the problem induced by past CO2 emissions is mitigated.

Re:It's like using deoderant instead of soap

[EvanED]

I'd be surprised if we go extinct. I wouldn't be surprised if there's a famine sometime in the next century with casualties in the billions.

Re:It's like using deoderant instead of soap

[Anonymous Coward]

Is your head really so far up your ass that you'd rather see the human race go extinct than give up your SUV and other trappings of a narcissistic lifestyle?

Re:It's like using deoderant instead of soap

[Toonol]

I think an immediate drop of 2c in global temperature would be a severe problem, actually. Our fear of global warming shouldn't cause us to over-react. In general, a warmer globe is better than a cooler globe... and long term, global cooling is a more existential threat than global warming. More inevitable, too.

Re:It's like using deoderant instead of soap

[bckrispi]

Mankind is as close to extinction-proof as any large animal can be.

So sayeth the species with the nukes. :P Human innovation is a double-edged sword. Yes, we are the only species on the planet with the ability to attempt to stave off an extinction event. We are also the only species on the planet where the actions and passions of a few dozen can result in the deaths of billions.

Re:It's like using deoderant instead of soap

[confused one]

yeah, tipping the globe in the direction of a mini ice age might be an issue... But you've got to make up your mind: Do you want it hot or do you want it cold.

Re:It's like using deoderant instead of soap

[Grishnakh]

So you don't mind living in shitty conditions, breathing toxins and pathogens, and enduring extreme climates? Maybe you don't mind living in misery, or perhaps in a completely sterile and artificial environment made of concrete, but the rest of us do. We want to live somewhere where we can go outside, breathe fresh air, enjoy nature, at least part of the time.

The other problem with global warming is that it results in rising sea levels. Something like 90% of the earth's population lives at sea level; rising sea levels will destroy most cities. What do you think that's going to do for society?

Re:It's like using deoderant instead of soap

[Grishnakh]

That's trading useful energy (sunlight reflected back to space by aerosol pollution) for useless energy (more heat energy retained by greenhouse gases). The temperature might end up being the same, but the the entropy is higher.

Huh? Maybe I'm forgetting my freshman chemistry, but the energy coming from the sun is mostly heat, so if we retain more heat (with greenhouse gases), but compensate for it by reflecting more energy from the sun, doesn't that result in the same entropy?

Honestly, I don't see the problem here, except of course for any considerations or hidden dangers we haven't thought of (which isn't what you're talking about here). If we can reliably reflect enough light to make up for the greenhouse gases, and thus keep the global temperature stable, that sounds like a success to me. At the worst, it'll buy us more time to learn more planetology science and figure out what other problems we might be causing, as well as develop better technologies to reduce the amount of greenhouse gases we emit (such as 1) fusion power, and 2) SkyTran or other personal rapid transit to replace cars).

But hey, it's a nice way to stick it to those people who invested in solar cells!

Isn't this idea about reducing the sunlight, over a very large area, only a few percent? I don't think people with solar cells are going to notice a less-than 5% difference very much.

There are studies showing that the limiting factor for vegetative mass growth in the rain forest is not rain (plenty of water there) but sunlight.

They don't have to do this over the entire planet; they could leave the rain forests alone and reduce the sunlight over more heavily populated areas instead, where there isn't so much vegetation.

Compared to the alternative (which is doing nothing and burning ever more fossil fuels and continuing to make the problem worse), this seems like a pretty good idea. Honestly, what is the alternative? You're not going to get everyone to stop driving, as civilization would stop if that happened: our infrastructure is built around the use of fossil-fuel transportation, and turning it all off would cause the collapse of civilization and the deaths of hundreds of billions. We can't go back to an agrarian society now.

Re:It's like using deoderant instead of soap

[rwa2]

Huh? Maybe I'm forgetting my freshman chemistry, but the energy coming from the sun is mostly heat, so if we retain more heat (with greenhouse gases), but compensate for it by reflecting more energy from the sun, doesn't that result in the same entropy?

Plants don't photosynthesize heat, they need that electromagnetic radiation that's being reflected back out to space, You can't really do much with thermal heat, unless you also have a cold place so you can run some sort of engine off of the temperature gradient. But then after that the hot place is less hot, the cold place is less cold, and you come closer to heat death. So we should maybe sort of be a little bit worried about the ice caps melting, because then we won't have so many cold areas to drive our winds. But that doesn't really matter since wind energy doesn't really convert CO2 back into O2 either.

So the point is, other than geothermal, just about all of our energy comes from the Sun, either directly (via photovoltaic cells) or indirectly (via wind, hydro, or compressed decayed plant matter). And if we're going to counteract the negative side effects of our excess energy consumption by further reducing the amount of energy that reaches the planet (sure, just by "a few percent", but that's HUGE!) that doesn't seem like a good long term solution... quite the opposite of the advanced race that would be building Dyson spheres or something to sate their energy demands.

Personally, I'm not terribly worried about global warming (I'm still not investing in real estate in low-lying coastal areas, though :P ). CO2 isn't a terrible thing, compared to reactive, corrosive gases like, say, oxygen. CO2 just happened to be a great indicator that you were creating energy by burning something, probably something nonrenewable, and alternative energy sources we were interested in developing would not generate excess CO2. It was a brilliant way for Gore to boil down a whole bunch of ecology system issues down to one simple metric that Wall Street could be convinced to give a damn about. Unfortunately, he also felt the need to vilify it directly with the whole global warming bit.

But anyway, I am an environmentalist, and that's about giving back what you take from. Vegetation will balance things out. And that's sort of the whole idea of the cap-n-trade program... if you give back what you take in the form of carbon offsets (i.e. planting trees), you can consume more.

Re:It's like using deoderant instead of soap

[riverat1]

Around half of the incoming solar radiation is in the visible light range. What doesn't get reflected though gets absorbed and sooner or later released as IR energy.

If we reduce sunlight over a large area we also reduce plant growth in that area because of less of it hitting the leaves. I don't think you can limit the effects of the aerosols to a specific area anyway. If they're small enough to remain in the stratosphere for any length of time they will spread out around the globe as did the sulfate from Pinatubo.

The alternative to fossil fuels is renewable energy. It's not something that is going to happen overnight. I imagine it will happen over the next 30-40 years. With some of the developments in battery technology I've heard about in the past couple of years it looks like battery powered cars will have a 500 mile range in 5-10 years. The cost of solar PV is down to about $1 per kilowatt and getting competitive with coal. The change to renewable energy is happening and we can either be a leader or a follower. Being a leader is usually more profitable.

Re:It's like using deoderant instead of soap

[Grishnakh]

The change to renewable energy is happening and we can either be a leader or a follower. Being a leader is usually more profitable.

If by "we" you mean the USA (you did mention profit), being a leader is impossible, because that requires a lack of shortsightedness, a willingness to look beyond the next couple of quarters. We can't do that.

Re:It's like using deoderant instead of soap

[Anonymous Coward]

You are way, way huger than anything that survived the greatest mass extinction, and this is not a fat-guy-in-mom's-basement joke. No human would have survived that event.

Yeah, well, yo momma is so fat she could survive five mass extinctions while consuming less than 10% of her energies reserves.

Re:It's like using deoderant instead of soap

[riverat1]

It's not that we can't, it's just that we choose not to to.

Re:It's like using deoderant instead of soap

[AlterEager]

More importantly, we can solve problems rationally

This is looking less and less true as this whole insane "debate" goes on.

Re:It's like using deoderant instead of soap

[Anonymous Coward]

so you're not expecting to die? going to get kind of crowded if you have children

Re:It's like using deoderant instead of soap

[Walkingshark]

yeah, tipping the globe in the direction of a mini ice age might be an issue... But you've got to make up your mind: Do you want it hot or do you want it cold.

That's a hard call. At night when I'm trying to sleep I like it cold. But when it's warm all the girls on campus start wearing tank tops and short shorts...

This is a hard one!

Pun intended only post-facto.

Re:It's like using deoderant instead of soap

[Anonymous Coward]

So, yes, like many people, I'd rather preserve the climate in the state that is most likely to sustain life as it exists NOW. Life may have originated in conditions that are very unlike those that humans have enjoyed over the last few thousand years, and that's great, if you want to live like an early life form. Biodiversity sounds like a great concept until you realize that humans (i.e. YOU and ME) would likely be diversified right out of existence. I'd prefer to continue to live in conditions that favour humans: in the conditions that would have continued naturally for the next few thousand years if man hadn't gone and kicked off a very unnatural change over the last few decades with our greenhouse gas emissions.

Re:It's like using deoderant instead of soap

[sammy baby]

This is the fundamental problem with green ideologues, they think that the biosphere is static and that life is impossible if it changes. You need to wrap your head around some facts. Mass extinctions created the current biosphere. If you think mass extinctions are bad, you must by extension think that the current biosphere you currently hold next to sacred is also ultimately a perversion of the state of life before said extinctions.

If the thrust of your argument is that "environmentalists are stupid because they're not okay with mass extinctions," then... um, okay. I suppose we'll have to agree to disagree - anyone not okay with mass extinctions on my side.

I have to say, though, that I thought you were setting up to make an "environmentalists are the REAL bad guys because they oppose mass extinctions, which usually lead to increases in biodiversity, which means that you stupid greenies are ANTI-EVOLUTION and ANTI-LIFE, man!" I'm a little disappointed, because that would have been worth a few extra comedy points.

Life can spring back from virtually nothing. During the greatest mass extinction, 90% of ocean-dwelling species perished completely. Have you noticed how they're not still empty? More importantly, have you noticed how there are a lot more species in the oceans now than in the Permian? Over time, biodiversity has always increased, regardless of how severe any event has been over short periods.

The implication being that following a catastrophic collapse of the ecosystem due to climate change, lots of life forms will bounce back nicely. That's a safe bet on two counts. First, because I don't know of anyone suggesting that everything down to single celled organisms will die off, and then a few million years later we're back where we started, only with merfolk or whatever. And second, because either way, all the humans are likely to be dead, so who is going to call you on it if you're wrong?

Re:It's like using deoderant instead of soap

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, yes, the "well I won't be alive when things get bad, so it's not my problem" perspective.

If our society is really that greedy and sociopathic, f**k it, we deserve to burn.

Re:It's like using deoderant instead of soap

[johnlcallaway]

They (environmentalists) are 'stupid' (your word, not mine) because they fail to take into account adaptability, and instead of expending energy to adapt, they want to spend energy to stop change. You must be an environmentalist since you appear to have been stupid enough to miss that.

And what could possibly go wrong with dumping tons of sulphates into the atmosphere, and dropping the temperature 2C. Hmmm...ice caps and glaciers reforming, sea levels dropping, existing ports becoming useless, acid rain....

Everything every animal does impacts the environment around it. I have yet to meet anyone that is in favor of dumping huge amounts of CO2 into the environment. Instead, they choose to discuss more economically viable means of reducing overall pollutants and reducing energy consumption without bankrupting large parts of the nations with the highest standards of living. It's the 'stupid' environmentalists that are willing to forcibly take from others to so guy in BongoBongo doesn't have to move his stick house. Or those stupid enough to build on barrier islands and other low-lying areas already threatened by hurricanes don't have to move or build dikes. Environmentalists who don't want farmers to have to move their fields or switch to irrigation methods or other crops.

Nope ... environmentalists like this believe in the phrase "it's always been that way, why change".

In my experience, it's always been far easier to adapt to change than to keep change from happening. Sane policies reduced smog in LA and keep rivers from catching on fire, we didn't eliminate cars and plastics to do it.

Re:It's like using deoderant instead of soap

[sammy baby]

John, you've managed to defend a point that the GP post doesn't appear to be making.

ElectricTurtle's post comes within a hair's breadth of admitting that mass extinctions are pretty much a given ("Life can spring back from virtually nothing. During the greatest mass extinction, 90% of ocean-dwelling species perished completely. Have you noticed how they're not still empty?") if climate change continues at this pace. I assert that if that's the case, it's odds on that a massive percentage of the Earth's human population will die off as a result. Either ET disagrees with that assertion, or it doesn't trouble him very much. Simple as that.

Re:It's like using deoderant instead of soap

[jafac]

Um, mass extinctions are okay, I guess. That's cool. Earth's biosphere will adjust, and in a few dozen million years, I'm sure new species will arise. All kinds of nice little microorganisms. It will be FABULOUS!

It's just that when we extinguish 99% of species (including ourselves, DIG?) for the CONVENIENCE and WEALTH of a very small minority among us. . . for a few decades. . . the trade-off doesn't seem quite fair. That's all.

Re:It's like using deoderant instead of soap

[Anonymous Coward]

Jeez... Where's the "asshole with an appaling, wrongheaded opinion" mod when you need it? The dumbass acts like this is just an academic discussion and it doesn't really matter what species survive. From the perspective of all the other creatures sharing the planet, extinction of all right-wing jerks would be an excellent start.

too high !

[Anonymous Coward]

"1,000 km" ... Wow ! is there an atmosphere there ? :-P

Hmm 1991 huh?

[Mashiki]

I remember that lack thereof summer here in Canada. Rain or clouds, with little to no sun and 12-18C from March to September, then right back to snow. I should note that our usual summer temperatures around here are in the 25-35C range.

Re:Hmm 1991 huh?

[Mashiki]

Aww. Someone feeling butthurt about the reality of 'natural earth events' causing cooling of the earth? Boo fucking hoo. Remember mod-trolls. -1 flamebait != disagree.

What could possibly go wrong?

[cowwoc2001]

I'd much rather save the earth by spending and using less than dumping even more crap into the air. Quick fix anyone?

Re:What could possibly go wrong?

[Iamthecheese]

yes! Let's just get everyone to stop using cars, rebuild the entire material transportation infrastructure, sweat in the summer, freeze in the winter, and stop watching television! easy peasy!

Re:What could possibly go wrong?

[publiclurker]

But where's the profit in that?

Re:What could possibly go wrong?

[tmosley]

You first. Start by turning off your computer, permanently.

Re:What could possibly go wrong?

[cowwoc2001]

There is plenty of profit in R&D. You simply need to tax the heck out of consumerism and use the resulting tax money into researching reusable energy.

Re:What could possibly go wrong?

[cowwoc2001]

Who said anything about stopping everything? I mean putting a damper on consumerism (buying more than we need) and disposable products (made in China, breaks after two days). The while thing is wasteful. You want to help the environment? Make it more expensive to buy disposable products than reusable ones. Substantially increase the cost of non-vital items. Funnel the resulting funds back into some research fund for reusable energy.

Re:What could possibly go wrong?

[Hartree]

"You simply need to tax the heck out of consumerism"

Yeah, like those major luxury items that contribute massively to greenhouse gas emission called food and fuel.

Like most "neat easy simple" ideas, I have my doubts about how neat, easy, or simple it is.

"reusable energy"

If you've come up with a way to reuse energy once it's been expended, Dr. Clausius and Lord Kelvin would like to have a word with you about the second law of thermodynamics.

Re:What could possibly go wrong?

[Anonymous Coward]

Who decides what is vital? When you are talking about distorting the market to change behavior you need to be VERY careful about the unintended consequences that follow - the "biomass" green energy folks aren't nearly so happy when they realize that wood chips are rather cheap but rather bad environmentally as a source of electricity.

Re:What could possibly go wrong?

[siddesu]

That's no profit, that's redistribution. It sounds very nice on theory, but there is one little problem - the people who decide how to spend tend to give it to their friends and relatives 120% of the time (if you include debt). And these friends and relatives are not in the R&D business.

Re:What could possibly go wrong?

[Toonol]

I'd rather spend and consume more, and make up the difference with huge engineering projects that fix the problem. So long as it works, that seems clearly the way to go.

Re:What could possibly go wrong?

[bckrispi]

If you've come up with a way to reuse energy once it's been expended, Dr. Clausius and Lord Kelvin would like to have a word with you about the second law of thermodynamics.

I'll worry about the 2nd law of Thermodynamics once the sun goes out. Until then, we have more energy hitting the earth than human civilization can ever harness.

Re:What could possibly go wrong?

[Grishnakh]

You can't do that, at least not in any democratic country. The people won't stand for it: they like consumerism, and they don't like things costing too much. If you try taxing things heavily to change social policy, the people will simply elect someone who gives them what they want, and then the taxes will be eliminated.

Basically, what you're proposing is eliminating all popularly-elected governments and replacing them with autocratic governments like China's.

Re:What could possibly go wrong?

[Anonymous Coward]

Who decides? We all do, collectively. Yes, we'll no doubt screw it up sometimes. This is not an excuse to throw our hands up in the air and say "f**k it, let's just let unfettered greed determine our future".

Re:What could possibly go wrong?

[Anonymous Coward]

Or we could, idunno, educate people, instead of being nihilistic and assuming nothing will ever change. It doesn't have to be enforced from the top down.

Re:What could possibly go wrong?

[Grishnakh]

People are too stupid and selfish to be educated. It's not just here in the USA; look at Greece: all the people there are protesting in the streets because they can't get the other European powers to finance their habits of half the population working for the government and retiring at 50 with a generous pension. It's like this in every democracy; people are shortsighted, and they vote for leaders that cater to their whims.

How are you going to educate them anyway? Education is usually publicly controlled, meaning it's run by the government. Who elects the government? Shortsighted citizens. You can't teach things to kids that are unpopular with their parents (in general). If the majority agrees with it, sure, you can force the minority's kids to listen to it in class. But if the majority doesn't like it, they're going to vote for leaders who change the curriculum to suit their tastes.

The only way around all this is an autocratic government, like China. But then you have the danger that the leaders have the wrong idea, or that they're working against the long-term interests of the people; it's basically a roll of the dice. It's not much different from the days of monarchs, where you might get a good king or you might get a tyrant, except that the fact that there's a committee of leaders tends to moderate that effect somewhat. From what I see of China, it seems their leaders are more worried about short-to-medium term economic growth than anything else, and environmentalism is way down on their list of priorities as their cities are generally extremely polluted.

Re:What could possibly go wrong?

[Anonymous Coward]

No, people aren't too stupid and selfish to be educated, it just takes continual effort on the part of a large number of people, and extreme effort on the part of a few willing to sacrifice a great deal. We've seen popular sentiment change fairly rapidly (by "rapidly" I mean within a generation) on other issues. I think the real problem is that for decades now people have come to feel their civil obligation ends with punching a chad or pressing a button on election day. And that's assuming they even accept that they have any civil obligation at all, which many don't.

I suspect a decade or so of economic hardship might knock some of the narcissism and sociopathy out of our culture. Either that, or make it worse.

Re:What could possibly go wrong?

[Hartree]

Quite a number of countries have tried that. It generally didn't work out very well.

Look at the history of "reeducation" to change emotional outlook and viewpoint toward one that values doing what is seen to be best for the whole.

Certainly didn't work well in Cambodia, for example.

But, hey. You'll just be changing attitudes to the proper ones, not the evil ones that others tried, right?

Re:What could possibly go wrong?

[Hartree]

"I'll worry about the 2nd law of Thermodynamics once the sun goes out. Until then, we have more energy hitting the earth than human civilization can ever harness."

Uh huh.

The 1950s is calling and saying "Electricity from nuclear will be too cheap to meter. We just have to work out a few little problems."

Re:What could possibly go wrong?

[Grishnakh]

I suspect a decade or so of economic hardship might knock some of the narcissism and sociopathy out of our culture. Either that, or make it worse.

Ask the Romans what a few decades of economic hardship did for knocking the narcissism and sociopathy out of their culture.

Evidence?

[Banichi]

I still haven't seen any overwhelming evidence that global warming is real. Just a lot of hot air from talking heads and religious pseudo-science "true-believers".

Any actual proof that isn't bought-and-paid-for or biased by one side of the debate or the other?

Re:Evidence?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm just hoping to live long enough to see the effects of climate change, not global warming as you keep saying. As climate change increases the size and strength of hurricanes and tornadoes. I won't be laughing as the poor bastards in the trailer parks are made homeless, but the destruction of the expensive coastal resorts will make me chuckle, as the very rich people that deny the changes and pollute the most will be affected the most.

Re:Evidence?

[mbkennel]

Yes. The animals and birds and glaciers don't respond to human biases, and what they're doing is clear indication of warming.

The denialists are getting worse---they started out saying "there's no warming" (after the 1990's volcano had some temporary cooling), and then when the warming got clear, they said "well we don't know that people are responsible" (after all it could be magic fairys who just happen to change infrared emissivity of the atmosphere in exactly the way predicted by liberal-infected chemistry professors say that greenhouse gases do, when of course they don't, because in the atmosphere they're special and closer to heaven and don't have the same vibrational modes that they do in the lab). And now they're going back to denying that there's warming at all?

Re:Evidence?

[bckrispi]

I still haven't seen any overwhelming evidence that global warming is real.

Then you obviously haven't looked very hard...

Re:Evidence?

[haruchai]

I see that the you've upset the denialist fairies. I'm sure they'll come to their senses one day, probably instants before the Rapture.

Re:Evidence?

[Grishnakh]

I don't know that they're back to denying warming entirely. What you may be seeing is that the moron poster above is a hold-out from the first camp of people saying "there's no warming". It's not like they all move in lock-step.

Re:Evidence?

[haruchai]

Spend a little time on WattsUpWithThat and you might change your mind about their hive mind.

Re:Evidence?

[AlterEager]

I still haven't seen any overwhelming evidence that global warming is real.

Now with free added "anthropogenic":
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/wti/scale:100/plot/esrl-co2/offset:-300/from:1980/plot/wti/scale:100/trend

Re:Evidence?

[voidphoenix]

I still haven't seen any overwhelming evidence that global warming is real. Just a lot of hot air from talking heads and religious pseudo-science "true-believers".

Any actual proof that isn't bought-and-paid-for or biased by one side of the debate or the other?

That's exactly the problem. The climate is a huge complex system with a lot of inertia. The point where the "evidence is overwhelming" is probably way beyond the point where we'll be able to do anything about it within a reasonable time-frame. The best time to plug a leak is when it's just drip-drip-dripping, not when you're drowning.

Math does not work out...

[Anonymous Coward]

... 10 million tonnes of material in the stratosphere using giant balloons.
What displacement need the balloons need to have for that to happen?
I don't think we have enough helium, because we can only reach that height with stratospheric helium balloons.
10.000.000 tonnes or 10.000.000.000 kgs, come on... get real!

I mean, we don't HAVE ENOUGH HELIUM ON EARTH!
The total amount of molecules of helium - would you ever manage to extract them - in an environmental friendly way... are just 3800 million tonnes.

So I guess it's time for the idiots to wake up and do something useful with their lives :)

Re:Math does not work out...

[Iskender]

Hydrogen still works perfectly fine as a lifting gas. Doubly so when you're doing crazy last resort geoengineering.

Re:Math does not work out...

[tmosley]

Just use hydrogen. If they burn up, big deal, they just produce more water. These aren't being used to move people, and (presumably) it won't be done over a populated area.

Re:Math does not work out...

[Coren22]

Except the idea is not to lift tons of stuff, but a pipe that pumps the stuff up and sprays it. The balloon only needs to lift the pipe and the fluid in the pipe at any time, not the total of the fluid pumped up over the course of the project.

Re:Math does not work out...

[confused one]

Then make more. Nothing's stopping you from making more helium. All you need to do is squash a couple of hydrogen nuclei together and you have helium.

Re:Math does not work out...

[siddesu]

Don't worry, they won't be using neither expensive helium, nor dangerous hydrogen. They'll use the good old safe heated CO2, which they'll get by burning propane.

Re:Math does not work out...

[Savantissimo]

You're right, helium is too precious to be used for more than the initial tests. Once they get into unmanned platforms far out to sea, there is really no reason not to use hydrogen. It should be possible to arrange it so that if there is an fire nearly everything but the envelope itself can be salvaged.

The amount of lift needed will less than 100,000 tonnes. A 50cm diameter x 20km column of water weighs less than 4000mt. The pipe will have to have some serious walls, though - that's nearly 2000 bar just from hydrostatic pressure, and much more will be needed to push the water -the article states 4000bar. Allowing 50% extra length for the curve and figuring the weight including the hose wall as equivalent to a 64cm diameter column of water, that is about 10000 tonnes. The envelope will have to be huge, though, and it will weigh much more, about 72 tonnes if I've done my math right. (Figuring 1250m length, fineness 2.8 ellipsoid, 50g/m^2 envelope (higher weight envelope figured to allow for airbeam skeleton/keel), net lift of 0.8N/m^3 for H2 at 20km standard atmosphere.) A bit more lift is needed for reserve lift, other equipment and the higher density of salt water, but the total should be in the neighborhood of 100,000 tonnes.

That size pipe at that pressure should deliver about 3 or 4 cubic meters per second if the water is going at 15-20m/s (~35-45mph). At the higher flow rate, that would be about 785MW just to lift the water, and over 1.6GW including pipe friction. That's about 1/8 km^3 per year and about 5e16 Joules/year.

The water will need to be atomized - Prof. Stephen Salter of the University of Edinburgh designed an elegant, efficient and reliable way of atomizing such large volumes of water in his paper "SPRAY TURBINES TO INCREASE RAIN BY ENHANCED EVAPORATION FROM THE SEA". (The rain-making part didn't work, as the spray suppressed natural ocean eveporation by increasing humidity.) The atomization should not take a relatively significant amount of power, less than 1MW.

It may be possible to offset the energy cost by using wind power. The wind will do work on the charged water spray, which will be carried a long way, turning into microscopic salt-crusted condensation nuclei before being rained out, mostly into the ocean, which could act as a current return path. The work of the wind would be turned into a higher voltage on the droplets by capacitive voltage multiplication (costant charge on the droplets, increasing distance from the spray electrode -> lower capacitance, higher voltage). A direct wind-electric energy conversion should be possible, though how much power it would produce is an open question.

Re:Math does not work out...

[riverat1]

Is the fusion technology that's always 20 years away what you're talking about?

Re:Math does not work out...

[confused one]

If you don't require net energy production, it works now.

Re:Math does not work out...

[riverat1]

:) That's true. It would probably be more cost effective to mine it from one of Jupiter's moons though.

good

[kylemonger]

I'm glad scientists are working on ideas like this. The reality is that we, the human race, are not going to stop burning fossil fuels. We'd best get on with figuring out how to deal with the resulting problems rather than continue dreaming that everyone is going to agree to stop.

It's like a smoker ...

[MacTO]

It's like a smoker using air filters to clean up second hand smoke. Sure it may reduce the consequences of their actions, but it doesn't negate the fact that the addiction is the source of their problem.

That being said, I don't want to dismiss their research altogether. The data will probably be useful for improving climate models and we may just have to resort to such tactics since we've been doing relatively little about climate change even though we've been aware of the issue for decades.

Re:It's like a smoker ...

[SydShamino]

Well the people who deny global warming ultimately want free reign to pollute the global Commons without consequence. It's tragic.

This option, at least, doesn't involve us simultaneously convincing everyone on the planet to not be selfish bastards with shared resources. "You think it's okay to dump whatever crap you want to into the sky for a profit, consequences by damned? Well then you certainly can't stop us from shooting our own stuff into the sky and blocking out the sun a little."

It's not ideal, but it may be viable.

Re:It's like a smoker ...

[sjames]

It's like a smoker using air filters to clean up second hand smoke.

A socially responsible approach that has the potential to answer every genuine complaint?

Re:It's like a smoker ...

[drinkypoo]

It's like a smoker using air filters to clean up second hand smoke.

A socially responsible approach that has the potential to answer every genuine complaint?

There are other potential complaints. Tobacco is grown with synthetic pesticides, and lots of 'em. The ecological impact must be considered as well. I'm a big fat bastard to talk as I just trundled my 3/4 ton diesel in to town and picked up a refrigerator while other people are crouching in their mud huts burning sticks, but in my defense, it was used :) The point is, the things that cause global warming cause other things, too. CO2 in particular not only influences moods (and higher levels influence them negatively) but also causes oceanic acidification which is harmful to ocean life, some of which is tasty.

Re:1000m 1000km

[SEWilco]

The summary is off by three orders of magnitude - after all, there is no air in 1000km to keep the water suspended.

Obviously, then, the water will fall down on the atmosphere. And give the ISS a pretty ice glaze.

water isn't light

[Anonymous Coward]

How much energy does it take to get 10 million tons of water 10 km (seriously, 1000km? please.) up into the air?

How much coal would you have to burn in order to run the generators to power the pumps?

Re:water isn't light

[eparker05]

The answer; a lot of coal would be needed to run this program
The uncomfortable truth; relatively little coal would be needed to run this program.

The world consumed 4.74*10^20 joules of energy in 2008, it is safe to say that at least half that was carbon based.
the simple equation m*g*h say that operating at 100% efficiency, the pumps would need 1.96*10^15 joules per year to pump 10 million tonnes of material 20 km high.

Now say the pumps were only 10% efficient, and assume my 50% carbon based energy claim is true, then a tax of 0.01 % (yes; one hundredth of one percent) on all carbon based energies would fully fund the program's energy needs with a little surplus. Assume the infrastructure/administration also costs something then a tax of 0.02% would probably take care of the whole dang thing.

Compare a 0.02% tax with the exponentially higher taxes guaranteed in a cap and trade scenario.

Re:water isn't light

[Savantissimo]

Pipe friction losses will more than double the energy needed. OTOH it should be able to offset a bit of that with wind. Solar would only offer a percent or two of the energy needed, even if it covered the whole upper surface of the balloon, and the weight and expense would make it impractical.

Harnessing the wind could potentially be better, given the high and relatively constant winds in the stratosphere. Because of the nearly 20x lower density, though, the ~15m/s (34mph) median stratospheric wind speed's average energy content per area is about equivalent to an 14mph (6.25m/s) breeze at sea level. (~88W/m^2 Betz limit).

With the vast quantities of electrostatically charged droplets produced by the sprayers and the huge size of the droplet plume, a direct conversion of wind energy to electricity with an enormous effective wind capture area should be possible. The wind will pull the charged droplets away from the oppositely charged sprayer, doing work and increasing the voltage between them. The droplets will eventually settle out onto the oppositely charged ocean, completing the circuit. A load such as a pump can be hooked between the ocean potential and the sprayer potential. (An insulating layer between the ocean potential and the sprayer potential is needed, which can in principle be achieved by having the pump body be nonconductive, isolating the two sides of the circuit in the same way a revolving door prevents a free flow of air. The actual system would be in multiple stages, as it would have to withstand megavolts to keep the currents in the tether manageable while transmitting many hundreds of megawatts.)
With plumes over a km thick and several km wide, (dozens of km^2) the system could potentially power itself, or even produce a surplus.

Re:1000m 1000km

[Z00L00K]

Or we will get a ring of ice around Earth - just like Saturn.

That can probably also solve the problem, but it may actually cause the problem of an ice age instead if something goes wrong.

"What can possibly go wrong?"

Do you have such contempt

[publiclurker]

for empathic people of all bents, or just those that interfere with your own ignorant, self-serving actions?

ONCE AND FOR ALL!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Thus solving the problem, once and for all!

Maybe

[publiclurker]

you should pull your head out of your ass and actually read something. Not from your friends at fox, however, they've obviously damaged your brain enough.

Re:Maybe

[Anonymous Coward]

That's another thing we get: a bunch of wild-faced liberal jerks that think it's good to yell, denigrate, and persecute someone just because they don't agree... perhaps if you engaged in a decent, humane conversation or even debate we might be able to agree with you, instead of biting our heads off...

Re:Maybe

[Anonymous Coward]

Seems to me that you should pull your head out of Gore's ass. You so easily put people in a box.

This guy is asking for some data, or are you the type to shout down anyone who asks this type of question?

You are a freaking moron, and I suspect the type of person who you hate.

Re:Maybe

[Anonymous Coward]

You are a shill for climate-change deniers.

Re:Maybe

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, because conservatives always argue from the intellectual point of view, and never call people Nazis or terrorist sympathizers or secret Muslims for suggesting, for example, that maybe going to war based on a lie is not an A-1 strategy.

Cunt.

Re:Maybe

[publiclurker]

“Ridicule is the only weapon which can be used against unintelligible propositions. Ideas must be distinct before reason can act upon them; and no man ever had a distinct idea of the trinity. It is the mere Abracadabra of the mountebanks calling themselves the priests of Jesus.” Thomas Jefferson

Re:Maybe

[Anonymous Coward]

"Unintelligible" does not mean "disagrees with me". And yes, that IS how you're using it.

Man-made global famine?

[tp1024]

What those idiots don't seem to realize, is that the effects of volcanic eruptions and the associated decline of global temperatures has always had catastrophic consequences. Be it the year without summer 1816 because of the Mt. Tambora eruption, the famines of 536 or the the Hatepe Eruption of 180AD.

Re:Man-made global famine?

[0123456]

Indeed. The Global Warming Scare is moving from stupid to outright insane; they seem so hung up on their 'warming is bad, mkay' propaganda that they're eager to kill off much of the world's population through artificial cooling.

Re:Man-made global famine?

[Anonymous Coward]

Come, come, there are computer models. Computers do not lie. therefore the models are TRUE!

Be careful what you ask for.

Re:Man-made global famine?

[DeadCatX2]

What a pathetic strawman. "warming is bad mkay"? Are you for real? Go read some actual literature from climate scientists, not the caricature offered up by propaganda machines funded by parties with undisclosed conflicts of interest.

A true climate scientist would not say "warming is bad", but instead might say something more like there is a very narrow range of global climates in which humanity has prospered, and climates which are too hot or too cold could have devastating consequences on human societies around the globe.

For that matter, you seem to think that global warming is the only effect of climate change. I have another, much better example of climate change - ocean acidification.

Re:Man-made global famine?

[jameskojiro]

There have been some historical studies of CO2 levels over the last 65 million years, in the last 50 million years the CO2 level has been slowly trending downward....

At the rate it was going it was going in another 100 million years the CO2 would have been so low that plants would start having a very hard time growing.

Re:Man-made global famine?

[mbkennel]

So you admit that a couple of degrees of temperature change can have catastrophic consequences? But somehow when people do it on the hot side, there's no problem?

(Already in the USA crop yields for corn were down because nighttime temperatures were so hot---increase of nightime temperatures is precisely the effect from global warming).

Re:Man-made global famine?

[Sciros]

So what we should be working on is "climate stabilization"! >_>

We are talking about the idea of duplicating the effects of a volcanic eruption so as to "counter" ... warming. Not ocean acidification. Not cooling in some regions vs warming in others (climate change, indeed, is different in different parts of the globe). No. Particulates limiting the amount of sun that reaches the surface leads invariably to cooling.

Re:Man-made global famine?

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow, rebuking a strawman with an ad hominem. That's the ticket.

Re:Man-made global famine?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, I'm sure people who spend decades of their life studying climate models couldn't possibly have known this. Maybe they should post an "Ask Slashdot" to find out what the "experts" think.

This is basically a Hail Mary strategy, and people are well aware of the associated risks. If the climate models are right -- and as flawed as they are, I suspect they're closer to correct than I at least am comfortable with -- we're going to find ourselves in desperate times calling for desperate measures.

2CaOH + 2CO2 => H2O + 2CaCO3

[MillionthMonkey]

Balloons should detonate up there and spray calcium hydroxide particles everywhere. My idea my patent.

From The Article...

[Frosty Piss]

The long-term vision is to tether 20 kilometre-long pipes to balloons the size of Wembley stadium.

UN and legality?

[Anonymous Coward]

I know the UN was considering banning this kind of solution. Anyone know if they've changed their minds?

So how's their carbon footprint going to look?

[blair1q]

Pouring 10 million tonnes of material 1 km in the sky is going to require a fuckload of energy.

I know, "but they're using balloons!"

Balloons aren't free lift. You have to fill them with something, and you have to produce that something from something else.

Helium? Limited supply. If you think Carbon footprint is a big problem, you ain't seen Helium footprint yet.

The solution to greenhouse gas is to STOP PRODUCING THE STUFF.

Re:So how's their carbon footprint going to look?

[LWATCDR]

"The solution to greenhouse gas is to STOP PRODUCING THE STUFF."
You first.

Re:So how's their carbon footprint going to look?

[Mindcontrolled]

Have the fourth-graders completely taken over slashdot by now? Is that all the rhetorical skill you can muster?

Re:So how's their carbon footprint going to look?

[HGeek]

The energy required to get to the stratosphere (10km) is 10e6 tonnes * 9.8 (N/kg) * 10km =~ 10^15 joules. By my calculation that is more than twice the energy required for all 136 space shuttle missions (~4*10^12 joules each) over the entire duration of that project. Yes, they are balloons, but I would be that extracting hydrogen or helium takes some significant percentage of its lifting capacity.

Re:So how's their carbon footprint going to look?

[LWATCDR]

Naw just a sense of humor over a statement made by a person using a computer whose very creation involved making green house gasses, that uses power that is probably from a grid that produces green house gasses.

Re:So how's their carbon footprint going to look?

[Matheus]

Oops... I just farted.

Re:So how's their carbon footprint going to look?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, you first, stop breathing now.
Every breath you take adds more CO2 into the air.

Re:So how's their carbon footprint going to look?

[TheSync]

10 million tonnes * 20km * 9.8 kg/m^2 = 1.96 Ã-- 10^15J or 544GW*hr. So that would be about two hours of energy from all the nuclear power plants on Earth currently.

Re:So how's their carbon footprint going to look?

[Savantissimo]

In another comment on this article, I ran the numbers for a bigger version (much more efficient - you need a big pipe to get the friction losses down to a reasonable percentage, the water/pipe-wall mass ratio up to make efficient use of the lift, and a bigger balloon has a better surface/volume ratio and thus more lift for the mass). It came out to 1.25e8m^3 water per year and about the same for the envelope volume. If I've done my math right, that is only about 1000 tonnes of H2 at 20km altitude, or about 1.4e14J equivalent energy of combustion. That is only about the same energy needed in a single day to pump the water to that elevation, after figuring in pipe losses. Even with smaller balloons or lower flow rates the energy embodied in the hydrogen will be about 10-100 times less than that needed to pump the water for a year.

Re:So how's their carbon footprint going to look?

[Anonymous Coward]

>Balloons aren't free lift. You have to fill them with something

Hot air balloons!

Fill them with CO2, they'll trap the heat and rise all by themselves.

Re:So how's their carbon footprint going to look?

[Anonymous Coward]

There's a convenient thing called a volcano.

It is powered by this ingenius system of molten rock, that is rock that is liquid!!, no really stay with me it isn't crazy.

Anyway, there's all this flowing molten rock right, and its under our feet under really high pressure. What they are going to model with their crazy balloon experiment, is what might happen if we use this massive amount of stored energy in the molten rock and pressure beneath our feet, to shoot a load of crap into the sky!

I know rite!

And I got all this from just the summary! no RTFA'ing or anything!! amaaaazing!!

Re:So how's their carbon footprint going to look?

[riverat1]

Power can be produced in many ways that don't involve releasing greenhouse gases. It will just take a few decades to make the switch.

Re:So how's their carbon footprint going to look?

[riverat1]

You guys need to give up on that strawman. The CO2 you exhale doesn't matter because it comes from CO2 that was originally in the atmosphere already before it was absorbed by plants that become your food (including the plants that the animals you eat ate).

Re:So how's their carbon footprint going to look?

[AlterEager]

Power can be produced in many ways that don't involve releasing greenhouse gases. It will just take a few decades to make the switch.

Yeah, the 1970's, '80s and '90s.

Oh, you're not living in France. Sorry, you'd better get a move on.

Re:So how's their carbon footprint going to look?

[LWATCDR]

Yes but the orignal poster probably did contribute green house gases with his post. Even if some of his power comes from renewables some of that power on the grid was not. So his using the power meant that someone else had to use power that made greenhouse gasses.
My comment was meant to be a light hearted joke to what really was the 4th grade comment of "Just stop making them".
I had in error made the assumption that people would understand that "just stop making them" is a childish oversimplification of the problem but I was wrong.
1. To build solar, wind, nuclear, geo thermal, and I hope Polywell reactors to replace all the coal and natural gas fired plants will take decades.
2. To build a grid that can support even a good percentage of electric cars will also take at least a decade or two.
3. To developer electric cars that can be affordable and offer the range an recharge times that would be needed for at least 60% of the population will take at least a decade or two.
4. China and India are not going to cut there output of greenhouse gasses anytime soon. Every cut the US and the EU make will be used up by new output from China and India for a good long time to come.
We can not "just stop making them" for decades to come.
So yes I made a joke reply to a childish comment. The sad thing is that most people didn't get the joke and didn't see just how childish and overly simplistic the "just stop making them" comment really was.
I also skipped the details of how it really is the coal fired power plants that are the big problem vs cars which is what everyone targets. Natural gas fired plants are actually pretty frugal when you look at the carbon vs power but then you have the argument over fracking. So on and so on.
In the end I stick with my original comment, of "you first".

Re:So how's their carbon footprint going to look?

[blair1q]

I drive a Prius. Probably a Leaf, next. And I use and promote Nuclear Power.

Your turn.

Re:So how's their carbon footprint going to look?

[blair1q]

Doesn't count unless you're a cow.

Re:So how's their carbon footprint going to look?

[blair1q]

Yes, but every sandwich I eat sequesters even more.

I.e., where do you think the C in that CO2 came from? Photosynthesis?

Re:So how's their carbon footprint going to look?

[LWATCDR]

So you contribute green house gasses stop it!
Do I really need to explain just how childish the statement just stop producing green house gasses is? I guess I do again.
1. To build solar, wind, nuclear, geo thermal, and I hope Polywell reactors to replace all the coal and natural gas fired plants will take decades.
2. To build a grid that can support even a good percentage of electric cars will also take at least a decade or two.
3. To developer electric cars that can be affordable and offer the range an recharge times that would be needed for at least 60% and to replace at least 60% of the population will take at least a decade or two.
4. China and India are not going to cut there output of greenhouse gasses anytime soon. Every cut the US and the EU make will be used up by new output from China and India for a good long time to come.
We can not "just stop making them" for decades to come.
So yes I made a joke reply to a childish comment. The sad thing is that most people didn't get the joke and didn't see just how childish and overly simplistic the "just stop making them" comment really was.
I also skipped the details of how it really is the coal fired power plants that are the big problem vs cars which is what everyone targets. Natural gas fired plants are actually pretty frugal when you look at the carbon vs power but then you have the argument over fracking. So on and so on.
In the end I stick with my original comment, of "you first".
Yes if you have a huge bleeding wound the solution is to not cut yourself. If you are already bleeding then it is time for a bandage.

Re:2CaOH + 2CO2 = H2O + 2CaCO3

[Megahard]

And presumably you get your CaOH by heating limestone.

The water is just for the test

[jfengel]

This is just a first test of the technology. If they were really going to use this for climate engineering, they'd use "clay, salts or metallic oxides suspended in liquid" (according to TFA) to reflect some sunlight back into space before it hits the earth.

As you can imagine, just figuring out whether you can pump millions of kilograms of stuff 1,000 meters into the air (not 1,000 km, as the submitter wrote) is an open question. Their ultimate goal is to get it 20 km up. For the first test, you use what's cheap: water.

The water itself is a greenhouse gas, but water molecules condense and fall as rain. It quickly returns to the existing equilibrium. The goal is to put up particles that would stay there for a while. Unlike water, they don't condense and fall out as quickly.

Before it fell, the water would reduce sunlight a bit. Water vapor is a greenhouse gas, but water in clouds isn't vapor; it's condensed droplets. Those droplets can reflect light; that's why cloudy days are dark. The goal isn't to produce water clouds, which would only be temporary and would be too much darkening. The goal is to put up enough particulates to get a slight reduction of incident light without having to continually pump new particles into the atmosphere.

(Note: I'm not crazy about geoengineering as a solution to climate change, but the experiment is still interesting.)

Re:The water is just for the test

[Anonymous Coward]

Or you could just paint your roof white and save on fuel cost of getting those reflective particles up into the statosphere.

Re:The water is just for the test

[wagnerrp]

Yes. Because changing the albedo for the total surface area of all the roofs in all the world would have any significant effect on a global scale... (hint: it wouldn't)

You'll end up with lower cooling bills in the summer, and higher heating bills in the winter. City temperatures will drop by a couple degrees, and in turn that will cause some localized changes in weather patterns, but that's about it.

Why are they using potable water?

[CCarrot]

Potable water is way too precious a resource to be feasible for such an 'experimental' (read: crack-pot) idea:

FTFA:

''We're going to try to pump tap water to a height of one kilometre through a pipe as a test of the technology.'' ...
Pouring 10 million tonnes of material into the stratosphere each using 10 to 20 giant balloons could achieve a 2C global drop in temperature, the scientists believe.

also:

Experts believe particles of clay, salts or metallic oxides suspended in liquid would prove more effective than the sulphates produced by real volcanoes.

So, why aren't they starting with salt water, again? If their experiment achieves everything they ever hoped for, they're still going to have to do it all over again with sea water anyways...and see if the resulting salt-water rains affect anything (gee, you think it would?) Or they're going to have to start building some big-ass desalination plants...and I just bet they won't be solar-powered, either....

(FWIW, '10 million tonnes' of water = 10 million cubic meters = 10 billion litres of fresh water...)

Re:Why are they using potable water?

[Anonymous Coward]

On the bright side if they build the desalination plants and manage to run them off solar power, the technology could be used to give more people access to drinking water.

Re:Why are they using potable water?

[CCarrot]

On the bright side if they build the desalination plants and manage to run them off solar power, the technology could be used to give more people access to drinking water.

Or, as would be more likely, they'll only build half the desalination capacity they need, and 'appropriate' the rest from existing plants to save money...although, to be fair, I suppose this scheme may also double as a fresh water transportation medium, since one would expect rain downwind of the balloons...if they set it up correctly and prevailing winds are more or less constant, that is.

Re:Why are they using potable water?

[Anonymous Coward]

FTFA: "The aerodynamically designed suspended pipes would probably be sited far out to sea."

"using a dirigible ''blimp'' balloon of the type commonly used to carry adverts or take photos.
Water will be forced up the pipe using an ordinary pressure pump available from hardware stores."

10 billion litres 1 km into the air using one ordinary hardware store pressure pump...... probably not.

This is a small scale test, they are not pumping 10 M m3 at this point, that is the final geoengineering scale.

Please read all TFA or just do the normal thing and ignore and speculate. Halfway in between is just silly.

Re:Why are they using potable water?

[CCarrot]

This is a small scale test, they are not pumping 10 M m3 at this point, that is the final geoengineering scale.

Please read all TFA or just do the normal thing and ignore and speculate. Halfway in between is just silly.

Yess...but my actual point was that if they (likely) won't be able to use fresh water at the geoengineering scale, why on earth are they using it for testing? Shouldn't they be testing with the final resource that they would expect to be using, especially if dissolved salts are *believed* to be more effective? If this does prove out and they do move ahead using fresh water...well, they will have to generate a massive amount of fresh water first, which likely won't be achieved using energy from renewable resources...

Please read all of a comment before replying ;)

Re:Why are they using potable water?

[Anonymous Coward]

Potable water is way too precious a resource to be feasible for such an 'experimental' (read: crack-pot) idea:

FTFA:

No.

Just like food there is an excess of it on earth compared to the number of people. The reason some people are without water and food is just because of logistics.
In the area where I live it is a lot easier and cheaper to use potable water. (More or less walking distance from a large fresh water lake with about 153 billion cubic meters of fresh water. The 10 million cubic meters is a drop in the ocean compared to that.)

Transporting that amount of salt water here would not only be very expensive, the salt would also cause a lot of problems.

Re:Why are they using potable water?

[Shotgun]

Would you believe that in some parts of the world, there are literally whole rivers of fresh water that are allowed to run unfettered right into the ocean. Crazy, I know, but it's true!!

Re:Why are they using potable water?

[CCarrot]

Potable water is way too precious a resource to be feasible for such an 'experimental' (read: crack-pot) idea:

FTFA:

No.

Just like food there is an excess of it on earth compared to the number of people. The reason some people are without water and food is just because of logistics.
In the area where I live it is a lot easier and cheaper to use potable water. (More or less walking distance from a large fresh water lake with about 153 billion cubic meters of fresh water. The 10 million cubic meters is a drop in the ocean compared to that.)

Transporting that amount of salt water here would not only be very expensive, the salt would also cause a lot of problems.

Excellent! Hope you like Seattle-type weather, then! Sounds like there's a whole lot of artificially-generated rain and cloud cover headed your way, if this thing pans out!

Re:Why are they using potable water?

[CCarrot]

Would you believe that in some parts of the world, there are literally whole rivers of fresh water that are allowed to run unfettered right into the ocean. Crazy, I know, but it's true!!

Yeah, and sapping their flow by adding the equivalent of a medium-sized city's water usage overnight will have absolutely no effect on the environment or agriculture or freshwater / marine ecology at all! Cool, thanks for pointing that out!

BTW, why aren't y'all busy building hydro'lectric dams across all this free-running water, to supply the whole world with 'free' energy, then? Wouldn't that do more to cool the planet through reducing CO2 emissions than mile-high sprinklers ever could? ...oh, wait. It does no good to produce all that power in one place, we need it in places where they don't have wild flowing rivers, too, and the transportation costs/losses are simply not practical. Same thing goes for this theoretical 'global misting' program, I suppose. Darn, there goes that theory...unless we want to unevenly cool the planet and set up some really interesting weather patterns, that is...

Re:Why are they using potable water?

[Anonymous Coward]

You can't move it around if it isn't potable. Sheesh.

Mod parent up

[eparker05]

PS: mod parent up.

I may disagree with him, but the guy has a good point (if only he had some karma)

Climate physics fail.

[mbkennel]

Argh, blargh. I really hate it when people are so sure about completely wrong science, especially as their aggressive misinformation is being exploited by civilizational sociopaths.

I am usually nice on the internet, but this will be an exception.

Slashdot posters usually have some knowledge of Newtonian mechanics 101 and will rightly laugh at those who don't believe in say, conservation of momentum.

Well, this is the same level of blunder, so here goes the explanation, as nice as I can make it without wanting to strangle internet ignoramuses.

Yes, water is a greenhouse gas, and yes every climate scientist since 1900 or whatever has known this, and there has never been any conspiracy to "suppress" this, especially given that the water cycle is at the core of every weather and climate model and observational data set.

And human "emissions" of water are completely and totally irrelevant (say like the post above) because the planet is in statistical equilibrium with those very large sources of water known as "oceans". Water, namely vapor and clouds, are *feedbacks* with timescales of two weeks, vs dozens to thousands of years for carbon dioxide. For example, if you magically took all the water out of the atmosphere, how long would it take to get back to normal? A few weeks. If you magically saturated the atmosphere completely with water, how long would it take to get back to normal? A few weeks. If you magically took all the CO2 out of the atmosphere, how long would it take to get back to normal? Many, many millions of years.

The amount of water in the atmosphere is determined in large measure, by,what---yes the temperature! Hotter air absorbs more water, and yes, the water vapor will add its own greenhouse effect. The water vapor amplifies global warming which was induced by the excess of long-lived greenhouse gases like CO2 (and others) introduced by human activity. (Clouds are less certain---they may go both ways for heating/cooling in various cases, this is a complex area of current study---but the base level effect of vapor {clear, humid air} is undisputed and significant)

The scientists who have been studying this for decades know what they're talking about.

Re:Climate physics fail.

[Mindcontrolled]

Don't bother. This is about the only thing tmosley posts over and over. He is absolutely fact resistant, preferring to wallow in his own ignorance which he manages to twist into preceived superiority and then, to top it off, into a persecution complex. You know, that world wide conspiracy of scientists hooked on the mythical "funding" being out for all of us.

Re:Climate physics fail.

[Anonymous Coward]

[[The scientists who have been studying this for decades know what they're talking about.]]

I dunno - they may not have thought about something that some Slashdot commenter brings up.

Re:Climate physics fail.

[flaming error]

Probably that same slashdot commenter didn't think about it either.

Re:Climate physics fail.

[riverat1]

The thing you're not getting is that because of the physics of water humans can not significantly affect the level of water vapor in the atmosphere except on a local basis. Any excess of water vapor is quickly precipitated out. The level of water vapor in the atmosphere is strictly controlled by temperature and the availability of water to be evaporated into the atmosphere. In a thought experiment some scientists calculated what would happen if you removed 100% of the water vapor from the atmosphere. It took less than 60 days for the level to return to normal. You can't deny the physics of water.

Re:Climate physics fail.

[riverat1]

The thing you're not getting is the physics of water. Humans can do very little to directly change the level of water vapor in the atmosphere. It is strictly limited by air temperature and the availability of water to evaporate into the atmosphere. If you pump more of it into the atmosphere it will quickly precipitate out. In a thought experiment some scientists calculated what would happen if you removed 100% of the water vapor from the atmosphere. They found it would take less than 60 days for it to return to normal. The same would be true if you put 100% humidity in the atmosphere. You can't deny the physics.

Morons all of them!

[jameskojiro]

CO2 is not the issue it is the sulfur dioxides and nitrogen oxides that are killing the plants, and plants eat CO2. In the united states the problem has pretty much been solved in terms of how bad it was in the 60's - 80's.

However in china they don't give a rats arse about the sulfides and nitrogen gasses that they spewing and there is a bad acid rain problem and REAL plant and animal KILLING pollution. Of course dead plants and animals decompose and release CO2 as bateria break them down so that makes it even worse, plus with fewer plants there are fewer carbon sinks.

CO2 is not as big a boogey man when it comes in terms of life. We get more heating from roads and rooftops in metro areas than CO2. If the CO2 was an issue the snow in the suburbs would melt as fast inthe winter as the snow 10 miles out inthe country. We are panicing over microclimates.

Re:Morons all of them!

[DeadCatX2]

CO2 is plant food argument, huh?

http://www.skepticalscience.com/co2-plant-food.htm

We already struggle to meet the agricultural need for water with irrigation. The boost in CO2 would be useless if there wasn't a commensurate boost in every other resource that plants use.

As far as your claim that roads cause more heating than CO2, excuse me for being skeptical about that until you provide some substantial evidence. In the mean time, I suggest comparing the albedo of asphalt (0.04 to 0.12) to your average conifer forest (0.08 to 0.15). In other words, heat trapped by roads is comparable to heat trapped by trees.

Re:Morons all of them!

[Mashiki]

The only reason why we 'struggle' for water, at least in some places is because no one wants to build desal plants. This really holds true in places like California. Well whatever, the leftist state full of nimbyists that it is.

Re:Morons all of them!

[Anonymous Coward]

Nobody builds desalination plants because it's not cost effective in most parts of the world. The environmental footprint is exceedingly low, even the most wacked out environmentalist isn't opposed to them. Seriously, do you actually bother to look into things before you spout of ideas?

Re:Morons all of them!

[drinkypoo]

We're struggling for water in California because there's 15-25 million people (depending on who you ask) living in a fucking desert. Los Angeles just had flash floods. The land is covered with asphalt so the water has to be channeled into viaducts and then sent directly out to sea. Normally water is stored in the land but when it's a bunch of sand if you let it into the ground you're going to liquefy your city. So while more water than Los Angeles needs falls on the city every year, we still have to send nearly all the water they use from Northern California so that they get it at a usable rate.

California's water problems are due basically to three factors. One, deforestation. This creates numerous problems with retention of water. Two, simply unsustainable growth. Los Angeles is utterly unsustainable as it has been built. In theory if every building sat atop a catchment you could retain most of what you need, but the cost of actually doing that would be beyond astronomical. Also, if we do wind up getting any significant sea level rise, Los Angeles will have to be renamed Blub Blubblubblub anyway. Three, abuse for profit. This takes two primary forms. One, agricultural water rights are based on usage. Stop using it, and the water is taken away. So people maintain their water rights either by simply wasting water, or illicitly loading water into trucks and selling it. Two, lots of water is now being bought by private companies (notably Nestle, under the Calistoga brand) and bottled, and people are actually being taken off of springs their homes have been connected to literally for generations, and being put on city water — usually poorly treated and in any case full of chlorine and chloramines that serve a useful purpose but which are undesirable in the water the customer actually uses.

California is not in water trouble because of nimbyism, but because of simple greed and capitalist economics.

Re:Morons all of them!

[riverat1]

Ground level ozone is also hard on plants and other living things.

The "Bronx Cheer" Solution?

[PolygamousRanchKid]

Couldn't we achieve the same effect, if all 5 billion+ of us on the planet go outside and blow a raspberry http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blowing_a_raspberry ? Ya know, like, spraying water particles in the air? It would certainly be a lot of fun if we had a World Bronx Cheer Day.

. . . augmented by World Spit-Take Day . . .

Re:2CaOH + 2CO2 = H2O + 2CaCO3

[Anonymous Coward]

That's what the sharks with frickin laser beams are for!

Re:what could possibly go wrong

[tp1024]

Exactly.

We're already seeing the fallout of this ideology in the form of mandatory burning of food in Europe and the USA as biofuels. Not to mention that this debate is hiding the fact that the developing countries are catching up to our economies while the production of energy resources cannot be expanded indefinitely. In other words: The industrialized countries will have to share those resources with the developing countries, which is something they are perfectly unwilling to admit to the public. And now they are trying to pull out any argument they can find to limit the use of those resources, without having to admit that this is what they are doing. The problem with that is the distortion of science through politics pushing scientific inquiry away from "politically sensitive" studies (those studying negative feedback mechanisms of climate) into ones that are more compatible with prevailing notions (those studying positive feedbacks).

If you are not looking for negative feedback mechanisms - or don't fund research on negative feedback mechanisms - guess what, all you'll find are positive feedback mechanisms that will inevitable support your preconceived conclusion that the positive feedback far outweighs the negative. And this is much worse than ignorance - it is selective ignorance.

ummm

[alienzed]

should we really be messing with mechanics we can't even pretend to understand yet? This sounds like an idea that could have catastrophic consequences.

Re:ummm

[Fned]

should we really be messing with mechanics we can't even pretend to understand yet?

No, we shouldn't. Hence: Science!

This sounds like an idea that could have catastrophic consequences.

As opposed to what we're doing now. ._.

Money Saver

[Anonymous Coward]

Just eat at Taco Bell, you'll get all of the artificial volcano you need.

Re:Money Saver

[ilsaloving]

Except then you'd introduce the additional variable of a worldwide shortage of clean pants.

The plan?

[Pino Grigio]

The only plan I see here is one to sequester millions of pounds of tax-payer's money into yet another unbelievably stupid mitigation scheme.

And look how they complained about the oil spill

[Quila]

It was the equivalent of putting a drop or two of oil in an olympic-size pool. In the long run it was insignificant.

The bias is quite evident

[Quila]

Any scientist who is a proponent of AGW theory is pure as the driven snow, honest, no ulterior motives, and with no allegience to those writing the paychecks. His goal is purely the science.

Any scientist who is a skeptic of AGW theory is an evil troll, dishonest, greedy, wants to destroy the Earth with his SUV and other wasteful habits, and will produce any result those who are funding him dictate.

At least that's how it appears the true believers see it, the ones who have lost the ability to be skeptical.

Re:The bias is quite evident

[Anonymous Coward]

Having worked both in industry and in academia, my experience has been that the "push" from one's funding source to influence results is orders of magnitude stronger in the former. This has been the experience of everyone I know regardless of field. I'm sure there are plenty of AGW skeptics who are well-intentioned. The fact that outside of industry-funded researchers (or shills, depending on your point of view) very few of them have relevant background in the field is, I think, telling. There are plenty of unrelated positions where computational modeling skills are applicable, so there's no reason to believe everyone with a degree in the field is working on climate models.

Re:2CaOH + 2CO2 = H2O + 2CaCO3

[SixDimensionalArray]

Presumably a balloon would not even need to be detonated - it could be made to explode from the pressure changes in the atmosphere as it ascends - although it may not release its particles at a desirable altitude in that model. Then there is the release of whatever gas was used (helium) in the balloon, although I don't know what effect that would have on the atmosphere.

Re:2CaOH + 2CO2 = H2O + 2CaCO3

[MillionthMonkey]

Just go to an environmentally sensitive area in a suit and good hair, point to the ground, and say to the TV cameras, "We need that calcium hydroxide."

Goodbye, earthbound astronomy

[judoguy]

Goodby moon, goodbye stars...

Bad idea, bad, bad idea

Changing Nature

[HTH NE1]

"And taking a look at the long range forecast, continued snow, darkness, and extreme cold. This is Howard Handupme, saying goodnight... and goodbye."

I have seen this episode

[warp_kez]

Don't they end up mining Haley's Comet to get ice cubes? After all, it is the only source of bug free ice cubes.

100% all natural solution

[confused one]

Why use an artificial volcano. Just wake up one of the slumbering super volcanoes and be done with it...

Cold water

[Anonymous Coward]

Isn't this just pouring cold water on the global warming debate?

Re:2CaOH + 2CO2 = H2O + 2CaCO3

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly. And limestone is a cheap and abundant material. And as a byproduct, heating the limestone to produce CaOH would also produce plenty of ... wait a second! I see what you did there :-) :-)

Nice try, Parrot

[Anonymous Coward]

"Panicing[sic] over microclimates"? facepalm

Re:what could possibly go wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

The blog post you linked above was an awesome piece of writing. You perfectly explained something I've consistently struggled to describe although usually whilst I'm being shouted down. Apparently I'm a denier, don't understand the science (typically I'm the only person that's worked through any of the published papers) and can't raise questions about the consensus because I'm not a climate scientist.

It's a sad fact that fewer statistical gymnastics than employed by the IPCC would allow "Christian scientists" to arrive at "scientific consensus" on the existence of God.

I agree, except this time it could be bad...

[Anonymous Coward]

..to us. Whatever we do, change it back or to something else, or find a way to prevent it, we must preserve ourselves.

Idiots

[Tjp($)pjT]

The period after the Dark Ages was the height of productivity in Western Civilization in terms of arable land and agriculture. It was warmer then! If we actually mess with things and cool them down then we are trusting people who's models are vague and imprecise and shown to be filled with errors in the past. If Global arming is as some suspect the approaching of the tipping point for an ice age, do we really want some scientists to push us past the inflection point into a wild ride down the other side. It would eventually solve the Detroit blight problem, but at the expense of all of Canada. If as they have noted a single volcano can have orders of magnitude greater effect than all of humanity under normal circumstances, then why for raving flying pasta would they try to exert a greater influence in a field wrought with contention when the possible outcome is "really really bad"(TM).

Re:Idiots

[AlterEager]

The period after the Dark Ages was the height of productivity in Western Civilization in terms of arable land and agriculture.

No it wasn't you ridiculous loon. Are you seriously trying to claim European agricultural production in the 14th century was greater than it is today?

. It was warmer then!

Oh yeah?

Hands off the thermostat!

[Anonymous Coward]

I remember the summer of 91/92 - almost froze to death......rainy, cold, crops didn't do worth a cent...and let's not forget the midwest floods of '93. If that would have kept up for many more years, there would have been wide-spread crop failure. I shudder to think what 2C would do if that was only 0.5C.

I say keep your dang hands off the thermostat!

Each what?

[Anonymous Coward]

Pouring 10 million tonnes of material into the stratosphere each using 10 to 20 giant balloons could achieve a 2C global drop in temperature, the scientists believe.

Does anyone get the semantic reference of "each"? How many giant balloons does this involve in total?

crime against humanity

[Anonymous Coward]

No one has a full proof climate model, we barely understand what caused climate changes. Now some conscience-lacking dicks wants to play with climate, no good can come out of this. Even in the very improbable chance that it does work the world will have to pay this company a fortune so they maintain their climate solution, or some evil leader will start using these shit for warfare.

Bottom line, crime against humanity, even more than a genocide.

What could

[wesleyjconnor]

possibly go wrong?

I read about this

[Anonymous Coward]

The ideas was covered in Super Freakonomics. I'm glad to see someone is putting it to the test.

Playing god with Earth

[Oceanplexian]

How would you feel now if the scientists of the 1970s started a campaign to inject large amounts of CFCs to "fix" the global cooling problem? History has consistently shown us that messing with our environment ends in bitter failure. We can't even create a self-sustaining garden if our lives depended on it (see Biosphere II)

Scientists regularly see theories in different ways, our understanding changes, and we adapt. Maybe the science behind this is has some basis. Unfortunately, we jump straight to the solution and start testing hacks to our atmosphere to "fix" a problem that we've barely understood.

I don't like where this is going

[endymon]

Sounds to me like we are getting a head start on blotting out the sun to stop those pesky solar powered robots from wiping us out. They will never find a power source as abundant as the sun. What could go wrong?

Re:Real solution

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh Snarfy, I think you've outdone yourself this time with your "we need to eliminate all humans" strawman.

Less energy into the system, good plan.

[jimthev]

Umm, nothing can go wrong if you intentionally try to reduce the amount of energy that reaches the surface. Nothing at all.

Ocean Acidification

[Anonymous Coward]

While it's an interesting experiment, as a "systems" solution to global warming it is incomplete - it only focuses on temperature. There will still be continued acidification of the world's oceans due to the ongoing atmospheric carbon release.

It makes me think about Nike's Motto

[cnxsoft]

Just Don't Do It !

Winter bills wouldn't change

[Anonymous Coward]

Because the sun is pretty damn impotent in winter and snow is, like, white, yeah?

And if changing the colour of the roofs would cut the change by 1%, that's 1% you don't have to cut by reducing your air travel (3% worldwide emissions, IIRC).

Yup. 280ppm to 390ppm

[Anonymous Coward]

Or is your maths defective?

Re:Evidently they never saw the second highlander

[voidphoenix]

"Second highlander"? No such thing. There can be only one.

Limits

[ResidentSourcerer]

ancestor poster said that sunlight is limiting in rainforests. Perhaps under the top canopy, but I'm skeptical about it being limiting at the top of the rain forest.

In my bio class, many years ago, so the guestimates may have changed, the prof said that few plants increase photosythesis at all above insolation levels of about 25%. Of course in a Rain Forest it's frequently heavily cloudy. Perhaps on cloudy days, light is limiting. Hmm.

For most plants CO2 is limiting. Commercial greenhouses will run CO2 up to levels of 10000 ppm (1%)

Temperature is often limiting too. Lots of plants basically shut down at temps above 90 F, by closing their stomata to reduce water loss. Sure, in a rain forest there is lots of water, but you have to pump that water from the roots to the leaves. Water loss is highly non-linear with temp, so at some point you can't generate enough energy to replace the water.

Reducing the amount of sunlight is unlikely to reduce photosynthesis directly, unless it forms a lot of dense cloud.

***

One Discover channel doc pointed out that the amount of aerosols produced by China and India has masked the warming substantially. And with increasing prosperity, these countries are cleaning up their air. It is likely that we are going to see a rebound effect with much faster global warming for a year or so.

***

Ancenstral poster commented about melting ice caps reducing the temperature difference the drives the winds. Possibly, but not by much. The equator still gets a lot more radiation per square meter than the polar regions. They are also a lot larger. Melted north polar ice cap reveals a lot of water, which with low angles of incidence is still a pretty good reflector. However vapour pressure of water/air is large compared to ice/air. This may result in warmer, wetter sub-arctic regions. The circumpolar tundra's climate may become more like Sweden's with much heavier snowfall. (Much of the tundra is cold desert -- less than 10 inches annual precipitation)

Back to wind: The equator receives about 1.4 times as much radiation as does latitude 45. If mass transport didn't haul the heat away, it would have to radiate. To radiate 1.4 times as much heat it would have to increase in temp by a factor of the 4th root of 1.4, or about 1.09. Increasing the absolute temp by 9% works out to about 26 C temp rise.

Obviously this model is very flawed. I've ignored a bunch of things. Long before the temp rises that much you will get convection cells. They just run at a higher temp.

Re:Limits

[riverat1]

Interesting post.

One factor that seldom gets mentioned when talking about warming in the Arctic is the methane that is released when permafrost melts. That could drastically increase the warming curve.

whoooooosh

[luis_a_espinal]

Well, when someone implies that climate scientists don't know how to account for water vapor (which guess what, they do) ... and blah blah blah ...

I mean, like, dude, talking about taking someone's comment (originally part of a sarcastic comment with a bit of truth followed by a very funny comment) completely out of context. Here, the following will help remove the sand and soap-boxed centipedes out of your irritated, self-righteous whining/indignant private areas:

take this as needed.

Re:whoooooosh

[Anonymous Coward]

Self-righteous indignation is an appropriate response to dealing with people who are willfully and aggressively stupid. I get that way when dealing with ID proponents. No matter how many times you refute a claim, ten minutes later they're back to the same claim. It's like they're arguing against some weird misunderstanding of science they have in their heads. There's days I want to forcibly resynchronize their brains with reality using an aluminum baseball bat.

Re:whoooooosh

[luis_a_espinal]

Self-righteous indignation is an appropriate response to dealing with people who are willfully and aggressively stupid. I get that way when dealing with ID proponents. No matter how many times you refute a claim, ten minutes later they're back to the same claim. It's like they're arguing against some weird misunderstanding of science they have in their heads. There's days I want to forcibly resynchronize their brains with reality using an aluminum baseball bat.

What does ID has to do with what is being discussed here, or with the post you gratuitously attacked? Strawmaning much?

Liability will prevent this from ever happening

[Anonymous Coward]

If the "government" (any government) tried to do this, they'd be tied up in international courts forever. Changing the climate in this way affects many people, and not all positively. The Russians are preparing to take full advantage of Arctic shipping once it's possible, and you can be sure the Chinese won't be far behind. Why would they allow anyone to cool things back off? Canada's growing season will get longer and they will require less energy to stay warm, not to mention those new Arctic seaports.

I believe in climate change, and I believe some of it may likely be caused by our obscene disregard for our environment. At the very least it's a mind-bogglingly foolish open-ended experiment we're running here. But either way, climate change has winners and losers (whether short- or long-term) and at some point when real action needs to be taken to "fix" things, some of the winners might not take kindly to it. Another good argument to make the small changes now that could help stave off the need for huge action later.

How about 5km?

[dj245]

If the goal is to put particles into the air at high altitude, why not dump carbon black into the discharge of airline engines?

Hey, if you really wanted a permanent solution, maybe you could even come up with an inert fuel additive which had the property of being unburnable at turbine temperatures, and doesn't deposit on the turbine blades. It would have to be relatively cheap too. A miracle compound? Sure. But it beats pumping brazillions of gallons 20km into the air.

Re:How about 5km?

[jfengel]

I suspect that cost-per-pound, it's cheaper to pump it than to send it up in an airplane. Still, airlines are already up, reducing the overhead costs, so it's an idea they should probably consider.

Re:How about 5km?

[riverat1]

Don't get the chemtrail crazies going.

Posting fail

[riverat1]

Sorry about the double (and now triple) comment. I thought the first had got lost.

Grow up son...

[publiclurker]

Just because you think you are special does not mean that your ramblings automatically have any legitimacy.

Re:Grow up son...

[Anonymous Coward]

Nothing that I said indicated that I think I am special. You made that up as a strawman. You did this because you knew that you could not refute what I actually said.

Test of balloon technologies

[RockDoctor]

This test is mostly a test of balloon technologies - tethering, manoeuvring, deployment and recovery, with the pumping sulphates being a relatively minor part of the question.

At (say) 20km height and 100atmospheres per km (of water), the implied pumping technologies are a step forward, but not a major one. 20,000psi (1300 atmospheres) pumping in considerable volumes is an off-the-shelf technology. Another factor of a dozen is likely to be no major deal, given that simultaneous improvement in balloon-supported platforms are implicit in the package.

What interested me more in the story was that balloon-mounted Metropolitan-Area-Networks is one of the communications technologies touted for improving local connectivities without needing to lay lots and lots of new fibre. A balloon technology that can adequately support multiple tons of machinery for months or years is ... well, a balloon technology that can support multiple tons of machinery for months or years. Which will have other uses.