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Changing earth's albedo can cause unintended consequences.

• Beldin 6y ago
  Then we really should stop doing it. And work towards reverting the reduction of ice and snow in glaciers and on the poles.
  • Tomminn 6y ago
    The solar radiation at the poles is much smaller than at the equator, so the contribution of polar ice to the total radiation-weighted albedo of the planet is much smaller than the contribution of equatorial deserts.
    • Const-me 6y ago
      When the radiation happens, the sun ain’t shining anyway. What matters is the surface temperature, and the difference doesn’t look too bad, around 15%: 300°K in tropics, 250°K in arctic.
      • Tomminn 6y ago
        High albedo is important because of its effect on the net reflectivity of the planet, not its effect of the radiation of the surface. Emissivity is the material property involved in radiation loss, and ice is highly emissive, but so is almost anything non-conductive. Also radiation loss depends on T^4, so that 15-20% difference ends up being closer to one being double the other.
• Bedon292 6y ago
  The Sahara has grown something on the order of 10% over the last century [1]. So ~200 million of its 2.2 billion acres are new. Wouldn't we just be restoring the albedo to what it was? [1] https://www.livescience.com/62168-sahara-desert-expanding.html https://www.livescience.com/62168-sahara-desert-expanding.ht...
  • 29athrowaway 6y ago
    Yes but there are many knobs to play with, and if you make one change it better be a calculated one. Mao thought that sparrows ate people's grain, so ordered to kill them all. What Mao did not know is that those sparrows ate vermin such as crop-eating insects. Those insects ate all the crops triggering the Great Chinese Famine, and the ecological disaster that requires farmers to pollinate plants by hand. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Pests_Campaign https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Pests_Campaign