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We Could Brighten Clouds to Cool the Earth
- lambdasquirrel 5y agoWouldn’t that reduce the available sunlight for photosynthesis? The problem is that we’re trapping more heat per photon. Reducing the amount of photosynthesis might reduce the carbon fixation by plants. Not sure if that’d be a good idea.
- merpnderp 5y agoThe extra carbon in the air has already made plants more productive so there’s some offset already.
- IntrepidWorm 5y agoThis seems plausible, but I'm curious if you have a citation?
- chrisco255 5y agohttps://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2016/carbon-dioxide-fertilization-greening-earth/ https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2016/carbon-dioxide-fer...
- ncmncm 5y agoInvasive weeds and vines, mainly. Poison ivy, kudzu, and virginia creeper grow faster. Most plants cannot use all the carbon they already get. Instead, they get less able to compete as the weeds choke them.
- chrisco255 5y agoNot true at all. Most plants can use additional carbon all the way to 1000+ PPM. Some all the way to 2000PPM. Quotes below, sources below that: - CO2 increased leaf area, water use efficiency, and harvest index (in tomatoes) [1] - Optimal levels for tomatoes may be 2 to 5 times the normal atmospheric levels (1000 to 1500 ppm CO2 versus ambient levels of 350 ppm) [2] - Combining increases in CO2 with fertilization and irrigation could greatly enhance leaf area which when coupled to observed increases in net photosynthesis as a result of elevated CO2 could greatly increase productivity of loblolly pine trees. [3] - demonstrating an optimal CO2 concentration of 889.6, 909.4, and 894.2 ppm for aboveground, belowground, and total biomass, respectively, and 967.8 ppm for leaf photosynthesis (in winter wheat) [4] [1] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0378377419320463 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S03783... [2] https://cals.arizona.edu/hydroponictomatoes/nutritio.htm https://cals.arizona.edu/hydroponictomatoes/nutritio.htm [3] https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s004680050111 https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s004680050111 [4] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26253981/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26253981/
- monort 5y agoElevated CO2 concentration favors plants with C3 pathway, because they appeared when CO2 ppm was much higher, than today. Plants with more recent C4 pathway (evolved around 25 million years ago), do not respond as much to CO2. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1978301916303400 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S197830191...
- ncmncm 5y agoFor reference, corn (maize) is C4. And sugar cane. High-fructose corn syrup and cane sugar happen to represent the greatest public health disaster since smallpox was eradicated and smoking started down.
- qzw 5y agoSounds like most of the brighter clouds generated would be over the ocean in this particular scenario, so shouldn’t affect plants too much.
- privong 5y ago> Sounds like most of the brighter clouds generated would be over the ocean in this particular scenario, so shouldn’t affect plants too much. Phytoplankton rely on photosynthesis and are the food for a large fraction of marine life (either directly or indirectly).
- robbedpeter 5y agoJust plankton and algae and the largest ecosystem on the planet, right? There's always a gotcha, because nature is a chaotic, complex system that is mathematically impossible to account for all the consequences of exercising leverage.
- qzw 5y agoI did think of that, but then also thought that since oceanic plant life move around with currents, they wouldn't be deprived of sunlight all the time. But yes, as you point out, nobody knows all the consequences. It sounds like they're actually doing research and experiments to validate their idea, so whatever model they use will hopefully take these kinds of secondary and tertiary effects into account.
- ratww 5y ago"Scientists estimate that 50-80% of the oxygen production on Earth comes from the ocean. The majority of this production is from oceanic plankton — drifting plants, algae, and some bacteria that can photosynthesize" https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/ocean-oxygen.html https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/ocean-oxygen.html
- davesmylie 5y agoTypically I can't find any reliable stats on the spot, but I recall the reduction in photosynthesis from ordinary heavy cloud cover alone can be up to 85% - with most photosynthesis happening whilst there is only light (or even no) cloud cover. Probably this would have minimal effect on light cloud cover and there is already not a great deal happening during heavy cloud.
- labster 5y agoPhotosynthesis is largely limited by water availability. Plants only uptake CO2 when they can open stomata, which is when they won’t dry out.
- bobbytit 5y agoPhotosynthesis is limited by the availability of light, water, co2 and warmth.
- willis936 5y agoThis is like saying my computer's performance in a game is limited by CPU, GPU, and RAM while my CPU is maxed out 90% of the time.
- bobbytit 5y agoSo CO2 is the equivalent of your CPU. It is currently nowhere near what is needed to run at full efficiency. Look at the lower levels of a forest or the inside of a thick bush and then try and tell me that light is not a limiting factor.
- bobbytit 5y agoPrecisely. A plant is unable to perform to its full potential unless it is raised in an enclosed environment with supplemental CO2 at the ideal temperature and with adequate light and water. Plants outside never have enough carbon dioxide, though they often have more than they need of the other factors.
- marcosdumay 5y agoIf you go and reduce your RAM because the limit is elsewhere, you may find out that it quickly becomes the bottleneck.
- chrisco255 5y agoMost species experience fertilization effect from CO2 all the way to 1000+ PPM, some to 2000PPM. Higher CO2 concentration reduces the loss of water, since the stomata don't need to be open as long. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stomatal_conductance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stomatal_conductance
- TillE 5y agoI think I'm a relative optimist about global warming because there are a number of possible climate engineering interventions which seem fairly cheap and could plausibly buy us another decade or so. I can imagine a future where perhaps India or China decides to act on their own to this effect, risks be damned.
- merpnderp 5y agoWas reading about food and economic disaster in Sri Lanka and how much of their problems would be solved with cheap coal electric and fertilizer plants. If we had an easy way to counter global warming, maybe countries could more easily borrow funds for such projects.
- immmmmm 5y agocheap coal electricity for the environment? i assume you are joking?
- aaaxyz 5y agoThat's one of the main plot elements of The Ministry for the Future.
- ncmncm 5y agoAll of the "climate engineering interventions" people keep trotting out that don't actually remove carbon from the air end up making things radically, disastrously worse. We know how to remove carbon from the atmosphere, in bulk, with super-plentiful olivine. Cutting off emissions and deploying olivine works. Almost anything else ends up doing no net good, at best, and funnels us deeper into the hole. Soluble iron compounds scattered over the open ocean could help. Any way to get the sulfur hexafluoride and HFCs out of the air would be an important contribution, because even getting CO2 content down to pre-industrial level would not be enough; those other manufactured gasses trap heat thousands or tens of thousands of times better than CO2 does, and are already a big part of the Problem.
- bobm_kite9 5y ago
- victorbstan 5y agoEverything but taking care of the cause? Pollution. Deforestation. Etc. Here’s a good start: https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/global-greenhouse-gas-emissions-data https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/global-greenhouse-gas-emiss...
- senectus1 5y agoyeah most that pollution is toxic still... so cooling isn't the only thing we need to fix.
- labster 5y agoTaking care of all of the causes is not enough to fix the problem of climate change. If we hit net zero today, it would still continue to warm for decades, which means more deforestation and desertification through fires. Your proposal is far too conservative to avert disaster.
- galangalalgol 5y agoAmd more to the point, it has already been made quite obvious we as a species don't have the will to tackle the cause, so we are left with quick fixes with side effects, or just trying to adapt. It doesn't really matter what the right course of action is (or was really) if no one will do it.
- eloff 5y agoSource? I think we would avert disaster if we got net zero today. We wouldn't avoid change and things would continue to warm as you say. But it wouldn't be the end of civilization, just very inconvenient. In the other hand if we don't stop making the problem worse we will eventually activate feedback loops that can't be stopped and that do end civilization, kill the majority of humans and other species, and make huge parts of the Earth uninhabitable by us.
- epistasis 5y agoThe IPCC special report on limiting warming to 1.5C is probably the best summary of ways to avoid catastrophe: https://www.ipcc.ch/sr15/ https://www.ipcc.ch/sr15/ In particular, the figures in chapter 2 are particularly informative. We are going to need to start sequestering carbon in the later part of this century, with as of yet unknown methods, but it's doable. I would caution that climate scientists have been generally too conservative in their predictions, and there's substantial risk that they have missed something that could make warming much worse than we expect. (I would consider a 1% chance of much worse warming to be a substantial risk, I purchase insurance for far rarer risks than that.) Additionally scientists have been overly optimistic about how much and how rationally society responds to the risks. So in general I would say we are in somewhat worse shape than the SR1.5 report says, but there's no evidence of that, it's just analyzing the situation using standard risk modes rather than getting point estimates and confidence intervals on the best evidence.
- kodyo 5y agoWe also need a cloud darkener in case the cloud brightener makes things worse.
- speed_spread 5y agoCue the Animatrix - The Second Renaissance Part II
- _Microft 5y agoThe nice property of marine cloud brightening is that its effect goes away within weeks once you stop doing it. So if it turns out to have unexpected and unwanted side effects, we could just stop.
- ncmncm 5y agoAnd then get even sharper temperature rise, which would be an even worse disaster. Meanwhile, ocean acidification, unchecked, would go on to collapse the whole ocean ecosystem.
- wskish 5y agoonce the global climate gets sufficiently inconvenient we will definitely figure out a way of regulating ocean albedo via microorganisms or micromachines or something similar. human ingenuity will find a way. yes it might be a bit messy for a while...
- idiotsecant 5y agoWhat could possibly go wrong...
- wskish 5y agothe bar is "less wrong"
- warlog 5y agoDo you think magical thinking is capable of solving all problems once sufficiently experienced by the 1%?
- goldforever 5y agoJust leave it all alone. If the "upcoming climate disaster" (lol) eliminates us all, then so be it - it is what it is!
- ericlavigne 5y agoThe most damaging hurricanes rely heavily on warm water over their last 2-3 days before landfall. Suppose we focused these bright cloud emitters on the water in front of a tropical storm, as a way to prevent it from strengthening into a hurricane? Imagine the city of Miami deciding that eliminating local hurricanes would benefit its local real estate market. They invest in a fleet of hurricane blockers to be deployed off their coast during hurricane season to reduce the odds of getting hit by any hurricane, and almost guarantee no more cat 5 hurricanes. This project is worth it for Miami because it has a dramatic effect on home values and insurance costs... And the world also benefits from the cooling that Miami's hurricane shield produces.
- vmception 5y agoprotip: New York City gets hit by hurricanes more than Miami but its just a tiny current consistently protecting Miami at the last minute, for now
- metaphor 5y agoCite? Prevailing building code design criteria[1][2] suggests otherwise. [1] https://cdn-codes-pdf.iccsafe.org/bundles/document/new_document_images/1026/Fig_R301_2-4.jpg https://cdn-codes-pdf.iccsafe.org/bundles/document/new_docum... 2017 Florida Residential Code Fig 301.2(4) Ultimate Design Wind Speeds V_{ult} [2] https://cdn-codes-pdf.iccsafe.org/bundles/document/new_document_images/1552/FIGURE%20R301.2(5)B.jpg https://cdn-codes-pdf.iccsafe.org/bundles/document/new_docum... 2020 New York Residential Code Fig R301.2(5)B Regions Where Wind Design is Required
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- fnord123 5y agohttps://www.groundworkscompanies.com/about/articles/worst-us-cities-for-hurricane-damage/ https://www.groundworkscompanies.com/about/articles/worst-us... I don't know GP is measuring, but indeed the value at risk in NYC is higher than Miami. But the way they wrote it, they weren't saying that, and there are more properties at risk in Miami.
- FriedPickles 5y agoHa, "brighten clouds". The clouds would be brighter for the ten lucky occupants of the ISS. For the rest of us, this would more aptly be called "sky darkening".
- Tepix 5y agoWe're talking about clouds that are located above major shipping routes.
- letitbeirie 5y agoWasn't this the plot to kill the machines in the Animatrix?
- computador 5y ago"Operation Dark Storm"
- tempfs 5y agoI am counting on there being enough Starlink satellites to block out the Sun. Problem solved.
- mdavis6890 5y agoI know you're joking, but your comment inspires me to imagine a blanket of orbiting solar panels that simultaneously generate a lot of electricity, and also shade the Earth. One can dream!
- morsch 5y agoYou're going to want to put them closer to the sun. Feasibility of cooling the Earth with a cloud of small spacecraft near the inner Lagrange point (L1) https://www.pnas.org/content/103/46/17184 https://www.pnas.org/content/103/46/17184 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_sunshade https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_sunshade
- wnkrshm 5y agoWhile it's a carbon neutral-ish way (except launch options and production of the satellites) to get power, the energy that the solar panels beam down is going to heat up the Earth as well. The better the efficiency of the solar panels, the worse the shadowing effect. Even worse, the solar array in orbit also reflects heat back at Earth! If the size of the array is significant enough to shadow Earth from the sun, it's obviously significant enough to impact this flipside of the balance of radiative transfer. Keeping it on the day side always would offset that ... maybe - but for that it would have to be in solar orbit. Any energy you transfer to Earth (fusion reactors in orbit, off-planet solar arrays, whatever) is part of it, the form of energy does not matter much, almost all of it is heat in the end and affects the thermodynamic equilibrium of the planet. As an exaggerated example, if you put a giant solar array into solar orbit and beamed the converted power to Earth, it's like Earth suddenly having a larger surface but just for receiving solar radiation. For the purposes of Earth radiating heat back into space, the solar array does nothing. Sure, the effects wouldn't be multiplied as with an atmosphere with too many far IR-scattering molecules that we have now but the power wouldn't come for free.
- hypefi 5y agoEngineers think of Earth as an automaton, while it is a living being, the day we start seeing Earth as a living being with living organs is the day we will get in phase with its needs which are ultimately ours.
- widescape 5y ago…or we could simply stop emitting greenhouse gases. Like, right now.
- boublepop 5y agoStanley wrote on his greenhouse gas powered device from the comfort of his greenhouse gas powered office environment at his greenhouse gas powered employer that his favorite greenhouse gas powered transportation vehicle had brought him to, while slacking of from his day job which was to significantly increased the life quality of millions of people while emitting greenhouse gases. I think you’ve found a great solution. Unfortunately it only works for spherical cows in a vacuum.
- gefhfff 5y agoWell, generate the gas with renewables
- myrmidon 5y agoWhat a load of crap. Sure, everyone reading and responding to this did profit from CO2 emissions for sure, but reducing emissions without going back to the stone-age is perfectly possible and this should be clear to anyone: We could simply start taxing Co2 emissions, which would boost renewable energy buildout INSTANTLY: One example: Right now, electricity (and concrete) are DIRT cheap-- my electricity bill is a complete joke compared to e.g. groceries (or mobile data, even). Significant electricity costs (like 1$/kwh) would definitely help reduce emissions, and this could easily be done in a way that would not completely ruin the poorer half of the population by moving other taxes correspondingly. This is just not done because people (and their governments) simply don't care enough (still!).
- FredPret 5y agoUhhhh, no. What about electricity that goes into mining and manufacturing? If you raise the price of that, all goods become more expensive, from the simple Mars bar up to construction. The poor will be decimated.
- alexgmcm 5y agoWhat concerns me about almost all of the Solar Radiation Management (SRM) proposals is that they don't address the root issue of high Greenhouse Gas (GHG) concentrations. This means that we would have to continue them indefinitely, forever, without fail. (I'm assuming that we would just use the SRM measures to continue with business as usual, but having seen our progress against GHG emissions so far, that doesn't seem an unfair assumption.) And should we fail to do so then the protective effect would dissipate leaving us with full solar radiation on a planet with presumably much higher GHG concentrations. This would not only cause temperatures to soar to hitherto unseen heights, but to do so in an incredibly rapid manner. It's not clear that our ecosystems would be able to withstand such a drastic and sudden change.
- willis936 5y ago>This means that we would have to continue them indefinitely, forever, without fail. This kind of all or nothing rhetoric is damaging to actual progress. Solutions are not mutually exclusive. We can do both. One treats the symptom and buys us a few decades without having to suffer a 4C air temperature rise (and the billions of needlessly lost lives and indeterminate human suffering). The other fixes it in the long term.
- black_puppydog 5y agoFairly sure GP wasn't implying it's not possible, but also venting the sentiment (shared by me) that availability of effective mitigation will preclude any actual solution by taking the pressure for change off the societal systems.
- yvdriess 5y agoThus, solving the problem once and for all. https://youtu.be/0SYpUSjSgFg?t=86 https://youtu.be/0SYpUSjSgFg?t=86
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- 5y ago
- amelius 5y agoPerhaps if we made plastic more reflective, then the Great Pacific Garbage Patch could cool down Earth.
- immmmmm 5y agoyes, spaying sulphuric acid in the stratosphere is great too
- lm28469 5y agoAll these half assed solutions perpetuate the idea that we can stay on our exponential quest for growth/energy and just find "solutions" later. Climate change is only a small part of the equation; pollution, deforestation, destruction of biodiversity, &c. are all equally problematic. As long as we produce and consume more and more we won't get away from the inevitable. At some point we'll run out of half assed solutions and we'll have to face the consequences. So yeah, make the clouds brighter and paint the rooftops of buildings white, I'm sure it'll help a loooot.
- beervirus 5y agoHalf assed solutions are still better than nothing.
- lm28469 5y agoAre they ? If your house is on fire and you use an ice cube to cool your neck it'll feel good for a bit too, but you would achieve nothing, or even worse, you'd be under the impression of doing something while losing precious time. We know what the right solutions are, but doing the right things is hard, hence we focus on meaningless half assed solution which are, in the end, only aggravating the situation. Notice how all these solutions always are about adding things to the system, never about slowing down, using less, producing less. At the end of the day every single metric point to the fact that we're fucking up big time and that our slow incremental half assed solutions are nowhere near enough. The best case scenarios of our best current solutions are still not enough, and we're never meeting our own "not enough" goals. You don't fix a problem by fixing it's final symptoms
- beervirus 5y ago> We know what the right solutions are, but doing the right things is hard Not hard. Impossible.
- koksik202 5y agoSnowpiercer
- m0llusk 5y agoThis assumes that global warming is the problem, but arguably the most pressing aspect of carbon pollution is the acidification of the oceans which this plan would not address. It might make more sense to focus on capturing carbon pollution than to mitigate some of the side effects of rampant carbon pollution.
- spywaregorilla 5y agoI'm not sure I buy that, but sure, both are important problems. Question, what do we know about the ocean as a carbon sink? Is it's capture rate variable with anthing? Is it easier to capture carbon from the ocean than in the air? Could we try to increase the capture rate into the ocean and then extract rapidly from the same area?
- R0b0t1 5y agoIt's "easier" to capture from water in chemical terms but harder to actually move the water. I think the economy of moving the weight of water makes this a nonstarter. Also yes, ocean acidification is likely to be the bigger immediate problem. People depend heavily on fish protein and other sealife. That plus poor farming yields will be bad.
- SllX 5y agoMechanical and electrical engineering aren’t going to do you enough good quickly enough. But can you think of any forms of life on the bottom of the food chain that depend on carbon inputs as part of its own metabolic processes in order to reproduce itself? Because if you want a self-sustaining ocean-based carbon capture solution, that’s where I would look.
- sleepydog 5y agoSo like a smaller version of this? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azolla_event https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azolla_event e.g, instigate some large bloom of plant matter or algae, and engineer/find the right conditions for the matter to sink to the bottom of the ocean without decomposing.
- datavirtue 5y agoWe could also plant trees. The goofy things turn sunshine into shade.
- nenadg 5y ago<joke> Well, well, well it turns out the chemtrails are real </joke>
- john579 5y agoThe biggest threat to the climate is man. All these proposals will end up turning the planet into a giant snowball. Grow a brain.
- riffraff 5y agoI'm pretty sure this is a plot point in the Mistborn trilogy [spoiler] the planet is getting hot because the all-powerful entity messed up, so it makes big clouds, which in turn kill all the plants, so he makes all plants able to run with less light ..
- sdze 5y agoWhat could possibly go wrong. It really amazes me that humans think they have everything under control. Mao Zedong thought so too (sparrow killings) and produced hunger and suffering.
- 734129837261 5y agoTreating the symptoms, no matter how clever, isn't going to cure the disease. But it might give us enough time to actually get to the cure. I always wondered how large a satellite we would need at the ideal spot between the earth and the sun to block a portion of the sunlight in order to cool the planet down a few degrees. Not that it would solve humans being a cancer to the planet, but it would give us a few hundred years to get to a solution before billions of us find ourselves in some sort of post-apocalyptic world.