"The target should be to prevent a new record low of sea ice extent next year (2013). This involves providing sufficient cooling power into the Arctic to offset the warming which has built up as the sea ice has retreated. This warming is due to the “albedo flip effect” and is estimated as being up to 0.4 petawatts averaged over the year. This warming has to be countered by an equal cooling power, if the target is to be met.
This is a colossal engineering and logistics challenge. A war effort on developing, testing and deploying geoengineering techniques would be justified to meet the target.
Cloud effects that could be exploited to cool the Arctic
Clouds have effects in opposite directions: reflecting sunshine back into space and reflecting thermal radiation back to Earth. The former cools, the latter heats. Geoengineering tries to enhance the former and/or diminish the latter, to alter the balance towards cooling. The balance is critically dependent on the droplet size: there is an optimum size for reflecting sunlight, as for the particles to make white paint. Particles much larger than this will reflect thermal radiation strongly.
When the sun is high in the sky, the balance is towards cooling by reflection of sunlight; but when the sun is low in the sky, the balance is towards heating by reflection of thermal radiation. Thus techniques for cloud brightening tend not to work well in winter at high latitudes.
Clouds also can produce snow which will generally increase albedo to around 0.85 where it falls; whereas rain will generally reduce albedo by melting any snow and by forming puddles or pools on land or ice surfaces. However, rain or snow falling through a dusty atmosphere can darken the surface on which it falls. Hence the black carbon from tundra fires may have some sunshine reflecting effect while in the atmosphere, but then reduce albedo when it’s washed out.
There are a number of different things to do with clouds: create them (typically as a haze), brighten them, extend their life, reduce them by precipitation (rain or snow), or reduce them by evaporation.
Perhaps the simplest form of geoengineering is to create a haze. Particles or fine droplets of haze in the troposphere tend to get washed out of the air within days or weeks, whereas if they are in the stratosphere they can last for months or even a few years, depending on their initial altitude and latitude. The stratosphere Brewer-Dobson meridional circulation has air slowly moving in an arc from lower latitudes to higher latitudes, see
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brewer-Dobson_circulation By judicial choice of quantity, altitude and latitude for injection of aerosols, one can obtain a much longer cooling effect in the stratosphere than in the troposphere. Thus one needs much less aerosol in the stratosphere to produce the equivalent effect in the troposphere. Note that the eruption of Mount Pinatubo in 1991 produced a global cooling of 0.5 degrees C over a period of two years.
Providing cloud condensation nuclei (CNN) of the right size can brighten clouds without significantly affecting their lifetime. Sulphate aerosol in the troposphere produce both a reflective haze and CNN. These combined effects from aerosol ‘pollution’ have masked global warming by as much as 75%. If all coal-fired power stations were shut down, there would be a significant decrease in aerosol cooling and an upward leap in the rate of global warming.
Three preferred cooling techniques
A combination of three cooling techniques is proposed, to give flexibility in deployment and maximise the chances of success:
stratospheric aerosols to reflect sunlight;
cloud brightening to reflect more sunlight;
cloud removal to allow thermal radiation into space.
The first technique mimics the action of large volcanoes such as Mt Pinatubo which erupted in 1991 and had a cooling effect of 0.5 degrees C over 2 years due to the sulphate aerosols it produced in the stratosphere. However larger particles in the aerosol are liable to reflect thermal radiation from the planet surface, hence having a warming effect. To avoid this, there is an advantage in using TiO2 particles, as used in white paint. These can be engineered to a constant size, and coated to produce required properties, such as not sticking to one another. Large quantities could be dispersed at high latitudes in the lower stratosphere either using stratotankers or balloons, to have an effect lasting a few months during spring, summer and early autumn. Due to circulating winds, the aerosol will spread around the latitude where it has been injected.
Cloud brightening is a technique whereby a very fine salt spray is produced from special spray nozzles mounted on a ship, and gets wafted up to clouds where it increases their reflective power. Whereas stratospheric particles can provide blanket cooling at particular latitudes, the brightening technique can be used to cool particular locations, using sophisticated modelling to decide when and where is best to do the spraying.
The third cooling techniques involves removing certain high clouds during the months of little or no sunshine when they are having a net blanketing effect – reflecting heat back to the ground.
Additional techniques should be considered for more local cooling, especially by increasing surface albedo; for example one could increase snowfall over land or brighten water by injection of tiny bubbles. Another technique is to break up the sea ice in autumn and winter, which has the effect of thickening the ice and producing what looks like multi-year ice. A very promising approach is to reduce currents carrying water into the Arctic Ocean, in particular the partial damming of the Bering Strait.
Note that all the above techniques are expected to enhance the Arctic ecosystem, which is in danger of sharp decline as a result of sea ice collapse.
Local measures to save the sea ice
There are a number of physical ways to reduce loss of sea ice:
corral the ice when it is liable to break up and float into warmer waters
reduce wave action at the edges
replace or cool warmer surface water using colder water from beneath
thicken the ice by shoving ice on the water onto other ice
thicken the ice by adding water on top to freeze
thicken the ice by adding snow (which may also brighten it)
add a layer of white granules or reflecting sheet.
The last of these can also be used for retaining snow. It could be used on the Greenland Ice Sheet to preserve snow and ice. (AMEG founder member, Professor Peter Wadhams, has co-authored a paper on the subject, to be presented at AGU. He has also done work on how tabular icebergs break off at the edges.)
Pulling out all the stops, whatever
There is one thing that we do know can produce an appropriate amount of cooling power: the sulphate aerosol in the troposphere, as emitted from coal-fired power stations and from ship bunker fuel. This aerosol has offset CO2 warming by around 75% in the past century. There should be a temporary suspension of initiatives and regulations to suppress these emissions, while they are having a significant cooling effect in the Northern Hemisphere, unless human health is at risk.
Much attention should be given to short-lived climate forcing agents, such as methane. There should be a moratorium on drilling in the Arctic, as proposed by the UK Environment Audit Committee in their report “Protecting the Arctic”, September 2012.
Measures to reduce black carbon should be taken. There should be teams of fire-fighters set up to take prompt action on tundra fires, which produce black carbon, methane and carbon monoxide – all undesirable.
More direct means to deal with weather anomalies
Cloud brightening and wave pump technology can be used to cool the surface of the sea in specific areas. This technology holds promise to reduce the power of hurricanes and other storms, but might also be used to produce precipitation where needed or dampen oscillations of the planet’s climate system, e.g. ENSO (El Nino Southern Oscillation).
More direct means to deal with methane emissions
AMEG realises that there is a problem of growing methane emissions from the high latitude wetlands and from permafrost which is thawing, both on land and under the sea bed. Methane is a potent greenhouse gas, so we have been investigating how to suppress methane and methane production. We have some valuable ideas, based on use of diatoms in water treatment. The water treatment means that fish can thrive where previously the water was brackish. Thus, not only is methane suppressed, but fish farming becomes possible on a very large scale at very low cost. Increasing food production is going to become paramount in a warming world with a growing population.
Modelling and monitoring
Essential to all geoengineering deployment is good modelling of the climate system. Unfortunately, none of the global climate models deal with the speed of events in the Arctic. It is essential to have a good understanding of the processes at work. Part of the war effort to meet the geoengineering target must be devoted to improving the models.
Similarly there must be adequate monitoring facilities to ascertain the effects of geoengineering, and prevent inadvertent negative impacts. Some satellites which could supply appropriate monitoring are nearing the end of life or coming out of service, so must be replaced as quickly as possible.
Not an end to the story
Cooling the Arctic is not the only step that is required to save civilisation from fatal consequences of mankind’s interference with the Earth System, but it is prerequisite. Assuming the sea ice is restored, global temperatures could still rise too high, oceans acidify too much or rainforests dry out and burn down. AMEG supports efforts to deal with such matters.
But cooling the Arctic is the first emergency response strategy.
ACTION PLAN
This is in two parts: firstly interventions for adjustment/restoration/repair of critical Earth System components, especially in the Arctic; and secondly the food crisis, especially the politics of dealing with the situation such to avoid vicious cycles that could jeopardise stability of food production or lead to panic among peoples.
Something akin to a war room needs to be set up, bring experts from all the relevant fields, in order to brainstorm on the problems and possible ways forward.
Interventions in the Earth System
These interventions can be viewed as adjustments, restoration and repair of critical Earth System components. Examples include cooling the Arctic, restoring the sea ice and returning polar jet stream behaviour to a more acceptable mode.
For each intervention there may need to be modelling to predict effects and effectiveness and to anticipate problems arising. Correspondingly there needs to be observations, monitoring and measuring of results. The observation of process and the measurement data obtained should be fed back into the models to improve them.
As for appropriate interventions, there are a number of things to do immediately in parallel:
Consider practices and regulations that are having, or risk having, a heating effect on the Arctic. A postponement of drilling in the Arctic would be sensible, because of inevitable escape of methane but also because of the risk of blowout with or without oil spill.
Try to maintain or even enhance the current cooling effect from currently emitted sulphate aerosols in the troposphere at mid to high northern latitudes. For example the regulation to ban bunker fuel for ships should be relaxed while encouraging continued use of bunker fuel where the resulting aerosol emissions might be beneficial. Reduction of sulphate aerosol ‘pollution’ will be unpopular with many environment groups, but the priority to cool the Arctic has to be established.
Establish the positive and negative net forcing from contrails, and encourage flight paths of commercial airplanes to reduce positive or increase negative net forcing. The ban on polar flights, lifted recently, should be reintroduced.
Reduce black carbon into Arctic. Make for preparedness to fight tundra fires in Arctic and sub-Arctic.
Find ways to remove black carbon from coal fired power stations, while allowing or compensating for the cooling effect that their aerosol emissions would be producing without the scrubbing out of sulphur compounds.
Geoengineering actions for enhancing the reflection of sunlight back into space and for increasing the thermal energy emitted into space.
Prepare the supply and logistics for spraying aerosol precursor in large quantities, preferably into the lower stratosphere, for deployment by next March or April (not sooner because the risk of ozone depletion). Of course, possible negative impacts have to be considered before large scale deployment, but it is worth being fully prepared for such deployment on the assumption that this technique can be made to work effectively.
Develop and test the deployment of suitably reflective particles, of such materials as TiO2, as alternative or supplement to sulphate aerosol. Prepare for large scale deployment.
Finance the development of, and deployment capability for, marine cloud brightening, with a view to deployment on a large scale in spring 2013 - assuming that is the earliest conceivable time. The main technical problem seems to be with the jets, so experts from major companies in the ink-jet technology field need to be brought in. Boats and land installations need to be kitted out.
Finance the development and deployment capability for cirrus cloud removal, since this is a promising technique. Suitable chemicals need to be identified/confirmed, with stock-piling of these cloud seeding chemicals. Aircraft need to be kitted out to spray these chemicals.
Finance brainstorming sessions for geoengineering, with top scientists and engineers, such as to suggest further measures, improvements to above techniques and the development of other intervention ideas.
Finance the research and trials of all promising techniques for helping to cool the Arctic, including the three geoengineering techniques above. Update Earth System models to deal with the actualities of sea ice retreat, such that the effects of different techniques can be modelled and optimum joint deployment strategies established.
Measures to reduce more specific risks from Arctic warming:
Finance the research and trials of promising techniques for dealing with methane, especially the reduction of methane from wetlands draining into the Arctic. Use of diatoms to promote methanotrophs (and healthy conditions for fish) is one such technique.
Finance the research and trials of promising techniques for dealing with surface melt of the Greenland Ice Sheet (GIS) and for reducing the speed of ice mass discharge. The latter is accelerated by warm water at the sea termination of glaciers; therefore consideration should be given to techniques to cool this water.
Consider techniques for reducing Arctic storms and their strength. Techniques should be developed for reducing the frequency and severity of tropical storms, such as to minimise damage, especially to agriculture and low-lying conurbations.
Consider techniques for un-sticking of blocked weather patterns.
Consider techniques for improving surface albedo of sea, lakes, snow and ice by brightening water with bubbles, covering snow and ice with white granules or sheets to prolong albedo, draining pools on ice, forming ice on pools, depositing snow on ice (as fresh snow has a higher albedo) and on land, discouraging growth of plants with low albedo, etc.
Note that a new idea for improving surface albedo has been suggested in a paper to the AGU 2012, supported by AMEG founder member, Peter Wadhams.. His research on iceberg calving has led to ideas for reducing discharge of ice from the GIS.
A word of warning about finance of research, development and field trials: it is important that the results of such activities are independent, unbiased and free from financial interest.
Food security actions
Immediate actions to be initiated:
Overall there is an immediate requirement for all major governments to establish an emergency ‘watchdog’ committee for internal and world food security issues. This committee should have direct access to the leadership of individual nations and include their UN Ambassador. The associated costs, in terms of humanitarian impacts alone, should warrant this move. When the assessed cost of the potentially associated national economic factors are weighed, there should be little disagreement regarding the necessity for establishing this ‘watchdog’ committee.
The US Renewable Fuels Standard (“RFS”), a provision of the US Energy Policy Act of 2005, should be evaluated for a temporary stay. Depending entirely on the US corn harvest, this could transfer between 4 to 5 billion bushels back to the food market. That would reduce upward price pressure in the cereals markets and further assist by suppressing speculation in that area of food commodities.
The European Renewable Energy Directive 2009/28/EC should similarly be reviewed and measures put in place to temporarily divert all relevant crops from the fuel to the food market.
In both cases outlined in points 3 & 4 the emphasis should be on ‘temporary emergency measures’ and should only be applicable to crops that can be diverted to the food chain.
A general directive should be agreed between all nations at the UN to prohibit the sale of OTC derivatives, in any nation, by any ‘seller’, that have any content relative to food commodities. This action will assist in dissuading institutional investors speculating in food commodities.
If the crisis deepens point 4 should be further reinforced by prohibiting futures contracts in food commodities being sold to any entity who will not take actual delivery of the contracted goods. Great care will be necessary with this proposal as it is known that hedge funds, and investment banks, have established warehousing to control certain commodity pricing. Typical examples are the attempted 2010 cornering of the world cocoa market by a UK hedge fund and the current Goldman Sachs control of the US aluminium market.
An alternative international seed bank must be created to provide seeds for subsistence farmers; ones that are devoid of the ‘terminator’ gene. In periods of high crop failure the inability to harvest seeds for the coming year has a crippling impact on subsistence farmers. Note that it is estimated 160,000 Indian farmers alone have committed suicide since 1967 due in part to this situation.
Following the launch of AMEG’s ‘Strategic Plan’ the above actions will be communicated to all world leaders and relevant parties in the form of an ‘Essential Action Plan’ to match the pending circumstances of the change in the world’s weather patterns.
For further details, see the website of the Arctic Methane Emergency Group at AMEG.me or contact AMEG Chair John Nissen at: johnnissen2003@gmail.com
Posted by Sam Carana at 7:50 PM"
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