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I am a little out of the loop and so I have a few questions: 1. At what point in time can we arrest ocean temperature rise purely by reducing emissions? 2. Ev

I am a little out of the loop and so I have a few questions: 1. At what point in time can we arrest ocean temperature rise purely by reducing emissions? 2. Even if we stopped further rise in temperature, is the current temperature (land and ocean) sustainable, or is a chain reaction already underway that will increasingly lead to more and more turbulent weather? 3. Are there viable ways to extract greenhouses gasses from the atmosphere? Will extraction necessarily lead to lowering of temperature? 4. Are there risk factors in extracting greenhouse gasses? Could we trigger excessive cooling? 5. Alternatively, is the Futurama approach of dropping a massive icecube in the ocean a viable approach? 6. Are there long term benefits of warming?

StavrosK 8y ago
How are we going to make the ice cube? Where's all the heat from cooling the water going to go? Back in the atmosphere? Maybe we should just make a massive solar array, power a large laser with it, and shoot the beam into space.
- pjc50 8y ago
  There was actually a very clever paper on nano materials which, instead of emitting IR on the blackbody spectrum, emit it in a band the atmosphere is transparent to. Reversing the greenhouse at ground level.
  - StavrosK 8y ago
    Oh huh, that's interesting... So we could just lay down large sheets of that material on a desert or something?
    - marmadukester39 8y ago
      Or cover all non- solar generating roofs with it, and all roads...
- Bouncingsoul1 8y ago
  We could get it from Europe (moon),anyway this would result in further rise of the sealevel.
WorldMaker 8y ago
A good book on the subject is Hot Earth Dreams: https://smile.amazon.com/Hot-Earth-Dreams-climate-happens/dp/1517799392 https://smile.amazon.com/Hot-Earth-Dreams-climate-happens/dp... Frank Landis did a ton of research to try to find the best comparable models of what's happening, what's about to happen, and the book is still extremely easy to read (well analogized) despite trying to get to hard science answers for most of it.
PeterisP 8y ago
1. I'm not sure - 20 years ago maybe? 2. No, not anymore, in the current situation emission reduction is about reducing the future consequences, not about preventing them. The current accumulated greenhouse gases are sufficient to continue warming for some time even if we didn't emit anything starting today, and also there are two positive feedback loops started already - methane emissions from melting permafrost and increased Arctic sunlight absorption because there's more dark water and less reflective ice. 3. Maybe - it likely could help, but it'd need a lot of investment and we're not ready to even start 4. Yes, probably. 5. Only if we had a magical source of massive icecubes, but we don't. 6. Depends on your viewpoint - if humans get eliminated, then after a few million years there might be more biodiversity, that may count as a benefit to some.
lsiq 8y ago
I can only speak to some of your questions. 2. Well the current temperature is somewhat sustainable because we haven't yet destroyed the Earth.. but that's not really what it's about. The condition of the Earth is not the present temperature, but the present condition of the atmosphere which is becoming increasingly filled with these gases; higher temperatures are merely the consequence. The higher temperatures themselves don't contribute much to a snowballing effect, except in the case of wildfires. If tomorrow, we magically stopped emitting a net positive amount of greenhouse gases, the Earth would stabilize and return to a previous cooler state because of carbon absorption from forests and so on, but this is impossible because it would require a commitment from 7 billion people. 3. The are plenty of ways to extract gases directly but many are fairly costly and only a few hold promise of being economically profitable. Extraction of the CO2 (and other gases like methane) would certainly lower temperatures, as they trap the heat in the atmosphere that would otherwise radiate back into space. The most clear empirical evidence we have of this on a planetary scale is Venus, which has a truly hellish climate because of it's C02 atmosphere. 5. This can't be a serious question. But, actually, there is the idea of iron fertilization of the ocean where dumping granulated iron into presently lifeless tracts of would cause massive blooms in ocean life and would have a substantial carbon capturing effect. It's likely to be a very cheap solution, relative to the outsize effect it would have. 6. Biggest benefit to warming is an increase in arable land as the climate is warmer towards the poles, which should more than make up for some losses to desertification. The other benefit is increased crop yields due to more CO2 in the air. Not much of a consolation tbh.

StavrosK 8y ago

How are we going to make the ice cube? Where's all the heat from cooling the water going to go? Back in the atmosphere? Maybe we should just make a massive solar array, power a large laser with it, and shoot the beam into space.

pjc50 8y ago
There was actually a very clever paper on nano materials which, instead of emitting IR on the blackbody spectrum, emit it in a band the atmosphere is transparent to. Reversing the greenhouse at ground level.
- StavrosK 8y ago
  Oh huh, that's interesting... So we could just lay down large sheets of that material on a desert or something?
  - marmadukester39 8y ago
    Or cover all non- solar generating roofs with it, and all roads...
Bouncingsoul1 8y ago
We could get it from Europe (moon),anyway this would result in further rise of the sealevel.

WorldMaker 8y ago

A good book on the subject is Hot Earth Dreams: https://smile.amazon.com/Hot-Earth-Dreams-climate-happens/dp/1517799392 https://smile.amazon.com/Hot-Earth-Dreams-climate-happens/dp... Frank Landis did a ton of research to try to find the best comparable models of what's happening, what's about to happen, and the book is still extremely easy to read (well analogized) despite trying to get to hard science answers for most of it.

PeterisP 8y ago

1. I'm not sure - 20 years ago maybe? 2. No, not anymore, in the current situation emission reduction is about reducing the future consequences, not about preventing them. The current accumulated greenhouse gases are sufficient to continue warming for some time even if we didn't emit anything starting today, and also there are two positive feedback loops started already - methane emissions from melting permafrost and increased Arctic sunlight absorption because there's more dark water and less reflective ice. 3. Maybe - it likely could help, but it'd need a lot of investment and we're not ready to even start 4. Yes, probably. 5. Only if we had a magical source of massive icecubes, but we don't. 6. Depends on your viewpoint - if humans get eliminated, then after a few million years there might be more biodiversity, that may count as a benefit to some.

lsiq 8y ago

I can only speak to some of your questions. 2. Well the current temperature is somewhat sustainable because we haven't yet destroyed the Earth.. but that's not really what it's about. The condition of the Earth is not the present temperature, but the present condition of the atmosphere which is becoming increasingly filled with these gases; higher temperatures are merely the consequence. The higher temperatures themselves don't contribute much to a snowballing effect, except in the case of wildfires. If tomorrow, we magically stopped emitting a net positive amount of greenhouse gases, the Earth would stabilize and return to a previous cooler state because of carbon absorption from forests and so on, but this is impossible because it would require a commitment from 7 billion people. 3. The are plenty of ways to extract gases directly but many are fairly costly and only a few hold promise of being economically profitable. Extraction of the CO2 (and other gases like methane) would certainly lower temperatures, as they trap the heat in the atmosphere that would otherwise radiate back into space. The most clear empirical evidence we have of this on a planetary scale is Venus, which has a truly hellish climate because of it's C02 atmosphere. 5. This can't be a serious question. But, actually, there is the idea of iron fertilization of the ocean where dumping granulated iron into presently lifeless tracts of would cause massive blooms in ocean life and would have a substantial carbon capturing effect. It's likely to be a very cheap solution, relative to the outsize effect it would have. 6. Biggest benefit to warming is an increase in arable land as the climate is warmer towards the poles, which should more than make up for some losses to desertification. The other benefit is increased crop yields due to more CO2 in the air. Not much of a consolation tbh.