5 ms·

The ice levels this year are definitely a cause for concern. There's good evidence that 2023 is trending to be the hottest year on record because of reduction

The ice levels this year are definitely a cause for concern. There's good evidence that 2023 is trending to be the hottest year on record because of reduction of sulfur in cargo ship fuels. Sulfur is a pollutant that reduces air quality but on the flip side, it can increase cloud formation (which prevents heat being trapped in the atmosphere). https://www.nasa.gov/feature/esnt/2022/nasa-study-finds-evidence-that-fuel-regulation-reduced-air-pollution-from-shipping https://www.nasa.gov/feature/esnt/2022/nasa-study-finds-evid... Some folks see this as an argument in favor of continuing to use high-sulfur fuels, and perhaps, intentionally disperse sulfur in the atmosphere. That's a bad idea for a number of reasons, one of which is acidification of rain. The biggest and most alarming takeaway imo, is that high-sulfur fuels have been obscuring the severity of climate change.

mort96 3y ago
Others see it as an argument in favour of continuing to pump stuff into the atmosphere to increase the albedo of the earth, but using less harmful materials than sulfur. That really seems like the obvious next step in my opinion.
- myshpa 3y ago
  https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jul/30/radical-ways-to-fix-the-earth-are-they-magic-bullets-or-just-band-aids https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jul/30/radical-... Dismissing SRM technology, Prof Joeri Rogelj of Imperial College, London, called it “irresponsible, dangerous and a threat to the manageability” of our survival, saying: “It is not a solution but an extremely dangerous band-aid that covers up the global warming problem without healing it, creating a false and unwarranted sense of climate safety while the core of the problem continues to fester.” https://phys.org/news/2023-08-viewpoint-guardrails-geoengineering-gamble-potentially.html https://phys.org/news/2023-08-viewpoint-guardrails-geoengine... Viewpoint: Without more research and guardrails, geoengineering is a costly gamble, with potentially harmful results While theoretically capable of cooling the planet, solar radiation management could have drastic side effects by shifting patterns of global atmospheric circulation that can lead to more extreme weather events. It also does nothing to reduce harms of excess greenhouse gases, including ocean acidification. A 2022 study published in the scientific journal Nature predicted that stratospheric aerosol injection could alter global precipitation patterns and reduce agricultural productivity. Beyond safety, another important question involves accountability. There's a good chance that geoengineering meant to help one region would harm others. That's because ocean and weather systems are globally interconnected. As Riley Duren, a systems engineer from NASA, said in an interview with the space agency: "Geoengineering is not a cure. At best, it's a Band-Aid or tourniquet; at worst, it could be a self-inflicted wound."
  - mort96 3y ago
    Thing is, we've been doing it for many decades already, and we're currently dealing with termination shock because we stopped.
    - myshpa 3y ago
      You're aware, I'm aware, and they are too. The thing is, it's not a solution; it's just temporarily masking/hiding the root problem, allowing it to grow larger and larger until it may become unmanageable.
briandear 3y ago
[flagged]
- rybosworld 3y ago
  Are you asking me to google for you? Throwing out lots of questions doesn't assert anything at all.
- mort96 3y ago
  Reality has a left-leaning bias.
- travisporter 3y ago
  I have to assume good faith intention to these questions. Here’s literally the raw data showing high resolution temp data of temperature since 1850s. The heat island effect pushed by watt has been debunked since 2011. https://climatedataguide.ucar.edu/climate-data/global-surface-temperatures-best-berkeley-earth-surface-temperatures https://climatedataguide.ucar.edu/climate-data/global-surfac...
  - nvm0n2 3y ago
    It was never debunked. Like a lot of stuff in climate climatologists simply referred back to their own totally corrupted data and then asserted there was no problem. You link to BEST, but BEST is a good example of their strategy. BEST's list of "very rural" weather stations include weather stations in the middle of international airports and cities. Climatologists don't collect their own data, they just scrape stuff from the internet and whatever other random datasets they can OCR so their data is often GIGO. Obviously if you classify weather stations as rural when they're not, you will conclude UHI isn't important, but this just means you're bad at science, not that the effect doesn't exist. Anyone who has ever driven through a city into the countryside knows that UHI exists and has a significant effect. https://climateaudit.org/2011/12/20/berkeley-very-rural-data/ https://climateaudit.org/2011/12/20/berkeley-very-rural-data... The Berkeley classification in Thailand also looks very suspect. As in Peru, many of the “very rural” sites are small cities. Some locations look suspicious. “Bangkok Pilot” is shown as “very rural”, but when googled is associated with Suvarnabhumi, the name of the very urban Bangkok airport (data is sparse, so it may be something else, but anything associated in any way with Bangkok can hardly be “very rural”) This isn't the only example either. They loooooove to pretend that weather stations sited right next to jet aircraft engines reflect the temperature in the nearest tiny village.
selimthegrim 3y ago
Another reason it’s a bad idea is the effect on ozone. It’s not known.
jvm___ 3y ago
It sounds like you can just spray seawater into the air. The salts will seed/form clouds and then just fall back into the ocean. Not sure if making enough salt spray boats is easier or harder than just reintroducing sulpher fuels.
- rybosworld 3y ago
  I'm not saying this will or won't work, but any solution that avoids fixing the original problem seems like a band-aid. Might not be the perfect analogy, but I think of it as akin to software that exclusively relies on automated garbage collection for memory management.
  - Gud 3y ago
    At this stage we might very well need both. However I suspect rather than fix the root cause of the problem (CO2 emissions), our so called leaders will think bioengineering is a wonderful idea. In Dubai they’re already doing it quite successfully with cloud seeding, I always wondered what that did to the inland climate.
- nvm0n2 3y ago
  No, because a competing theory is that heat this year is due to the eruption of a large underwater volcano at the start of last year, which expelled a truly astounding amount of water vapor into the atmosphere. Water being of course, a greenhouse gas.
  - jvm___ 3y ago
    Where was the volcano?
    - nvm0n2 3y ago
      The Tongan archipelago.
chomp 3y ago
> the hottest year on record because of reduction of sulfur in cargo ship fuels Can you explain this? The link you provided does not state this conclusion.

mort96 3y ago

Others see it as an argument in favour of continuing to pump stuff into the atmosphere to increase the albedo of the earth, but using less harmful materials than sulfur. That really seems like the obvious next step in my opinion.

myshpa 3y ago
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jul/30/radical-ways-to-fix-the-earth-are-they-magic-bullets-or-just-band-aids https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jul/30/radical-... Dismissing SRM technology, Prof Joeri Rogelj of Imperial College, London, called it “irresponsible, dangerous and a threat to the manageability” of our survival, saying: “It is not a solution but an extremely dangerous band-aid that covers up the global warming problem without healing it, creating a false and unwarranted sense of climate safety while the core of the problem continues to fester.” https://phys.org/news/2023-08-viewpoint-guardrails-geoengineering-gamble-potentially.html https://phys.org/news/2023-08-viewpoint-guardrails-geoengine... Viewpoint: Without more research and guardrails, geoengineering is a costly gamble, with potentially harmful results While theoretically capable of cooling the planet, solar radiation management could have drastic side effects by shifting patterns of global atmospheric circulation that can lead to more extreme weather events. It also does nothing to reduce harms of excess greenhouse gases, including ocean acidification. A 2022 study published in the scientific journal Nature predicted that stratospheric aerosol injection could alter global precipitation patterns and reduce agricultural productivity. Beyond safety, another important question involves accountability. There's a good chance that geoengineering meant to help one region would harm others. That's because ocean and weather systems are globally interconnected. As Riley Duren, a systems engineer from NASA, said in an interview with the space agency: "Geoengineering is not a cure. At best, it's a Band-Aid or tourniquet; at worst, it could be a self-inflicted wound."
- mort96 3y ago
  Thing is, we've been doing it for many decades already, and we're currently dealing with termination shock because we stopped.
  - myshpa 3y ago
    You're aware, I'm aware, and they are too. The thing is, it's not a solution; it's just temporarily masking/hiding the root problem, allowing it to grow larger and larger until it may become unmanageable.

briandear 3y ago

[flagged]

rybosworld 3y ago
Are you asking me to google for you? Throwing out lots of questions doesn't assert anything at all.
mort96 3y ago
Reality has a left-leaning bias.
travisporter 3y ago
I have to assume good faith intention to these questions. Here’s literally the raw data showing high resolution temp data of temperature since 1850s. The heat island effect pushed by watt has been debunked since 2011. https://climatedataguide.ucar.edu/climate-data/global-surface-temperatures-best-berkeley-earth-surface-temperatures https://climatedataguide.ucar.edu/climate-data/global-surfac...
- nvm0n2 3y ago
  It was never debunked. Like a lot of stuff in climate climatologists simply referred back to their own totally corrupted data and then asserted there was no problem. You link to BEST, but BEST is a good example of their strategy. BEST's list of "very rural" weather stations include weather stations in the middle of international airports and cities. Climatologists don't collect their own data, they just scrape stuff from the internet and whatever other random datasets they can OCR so their data is often GIGO. Obviously if you classify weather stations as rural when they're not, you will conclude UHI isn't important, but this just means you're bad at science, not that the effect doesn't exist. Anyone who has ever driven through a city into the countryside knows that UHI exists and has a significant effect. https://climateaudit.org/2011/12/20/berkeley-very-rural-data/ https://climateaudit.org/2011/12/20/berkeley-very-rural-data... The Berkeley classification in Thailand also looks very suspect. As in Peru, many of the “very rural” sites are small cities. Some locations look suspicious. “Bangkok Pilot” is shown as “very rural”, but when googled is associated with Suvarnabhumi, the name of the very urban Bangkok airport (data is sparse, so it may be something else, but anything associated in any way with Bangkok can hardly be “very rural”) This isn't the only example either. They loooooove to pretend that weather stations sited right next to jet aircraft engines reflect the temperature in the nearest tiny village.

selimthegrim 3y ago

Another reason it’s a bad idea is the effect on ozone. It’s not known.

jvm___ 3y ago

It sounds like you can just spray seawater into the air. The salts will seed/form clouds and then just fall back into the ocean. Not sure if making enough salt spray boats is easier or harder than just reintroducing sulpher fuels.

rybosworld 3y ago
I'm not saying this will or won't work, but any solution that avoids fixing the original problem seems like a band-aid. Might not be the perfect analogy, but I think of it as akin to software that exclusively relies on automated garbage collection for memory management.
- Gud 3y ago
  At this stage we might very well need both. However I suspect rather than fix the root cause of the problem (CO2 emissions), our so called leaders will think bioengineering is a wonderful idea. In Dubai they’re already doing it quite successfully with cloud seeding, I always wondered what that did to the inland climate.
nvm0n2 3y ago
No, because a competing theory is that heat this year is due to the eruption of a large underwater volcano at the start of last year, which expelled a truly astounding amount of water vapor into the atmosphere. Water being of course, a greenhouse gas.
- jvm___ 3y ago
  Where was the volcano?
  - nvm0n2 3y ago
    The Tongan archipelago.

chomp 3y ago

> the hottest year on record because of reduction of sulfur in cargo ship fuels Can you explain this? The link you provided does not state this conclusion.