9 ms·

Short answer not really https://what-if.xkcd.com/84/ https://what-if.xkcd.com/84/

wolfram74 5y ago
That's more a "we haven't made enough paint to cover a large fraction of the planet" argument than a "what would the thermal ramifications of such an act be" argument. Which I was excited to read about, but alas.
- jschwartzi 5y ago
  You would need a really big roller with a lot of knap too. Although I suppose you could paint most of the midwest and avoid the mountains with a flatter roller.
- samatman 5y ago
  For an interesting toy model related to this, check out Lovelock's Daisyworld simulation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daisyworld https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daisyworld The argument (and the related Gaia hypothesis) has some important and subtle connections to the facts of climate change. Though even if it's correct, and the biosphere will tend to naturally reassert homeostasis, there's no guarantee we'll enjoy living through it.
Tade0 5y ago
This makes me think: Earth's energy imbalance is around 0.5W/m2, while such a paint sends how much, 40W/m2 through the transparency window? So we'd only have to paint 1/80 of the Earth. That's ~6.4mln km2, or 2/3 the area of the USA. Still a lot, but not impossible. I'm sure paint manufacturing scales better than li-ion batteries, and those more than doubled in production volume over the last decade.
- david-gpu 5y ago
  Interesting, but even if we solved the temperature problem, we would still have the issue of the acidification of the oceans due to excess CO2. In the end we must remove CO2 from the atmosphere one way or another.
- IgorPartola 5y ago
  All that would do is offset things so that we can pollute more. Not to mention the CO2 and other emissions from such a project. And it would ruin a huge amount of space because of course this would run into “not in my neighborhood”. It’s far better to fix the problem than to paint over it.

That's more a "we haven't made enough paint to cover a large fraction of the planet" argument than a "what would the thermal ramifications of such an act be" argument. Which I was excited to read about, but alas.

jschwartzi 5y ago
You would need a really big roller with a lot of knap too. Although I suppose you could paint most of the midwest and avoid the mountains with a flatter roller.
samatman 5y ago
For an interesting toy model related to this, check out Lovelock's Daisyworld simulation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daisyworld https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daisyworld The argument (and the related Gaia hypothesis) has some important and subtle connections to the facts of climate change. Though even if it's correct, and the biosphere will tend to naturally reassert homeostasis, there's no guarantee we'll enjoy living through it.

Tade0 5y ago

This makes me think: Earth's energy imbalance is around 0.5W/m2, while such a paint sends how much, 40W/m2 through the transparency window? So we'd only have to paint 1/80 of the Earth. That's ~6.4mln km2, or 2/3 the area of the USA. Still a lot, but not impossible. I'm sure paint manufacturing scales better than li-ion batteries, and those more than doubled in production volume over the last decade.

david-gpu 5y ago
Interesting, but even if we solved the temperature problem, we would still have the issue of the acidification of the oceans due to excess CO2. In the end we must remove CO2 from the atmosphere one way or another.
IgorPartola 5y ago
All that would do is offset things so that we can pollute more. Not to mention the CO2 and other emissions from such a project. And it would ruin a huge amount of space because of course this would run into “not in my neighborhood”. It’s far better to fix the problem than to paint over it.