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2023 planetary heat uptake from termination shock of inadvertent geoengineering?
- mentalpiracy 2y agoPutting the sulfur back into the fuel is maybe the single most effective thing we can do for the planet right now. Yes, polluting is bad and indirectly harms millions over time — but ocean heat spiking will directly harm billions imminently. I acknowledge that the phrase “put it back” is doing a lot of heavy lifting here. There is no ctrl+z for the fuel manufacturing processes that were changed to accommodate the sulfur ban, but this is such a recent change that there is still an enormous amount of direct subject matter expertise available for a crash-restart. Course correction here, now provides runway for the future. The industrial capacity of worldwide maritime shipping already exists _and_ is already internationally regulated. There is no other “safer” alternative that could be implemented as quickly, or with less risk.
- the__alchemist 2y agoIt doesn't sound like much lifting compared to huge cannons that launch sulfur shells into the upper atmosphere!
- onetimeuse92304 2y agoYeah... we kind of already have billions of machines efficiently spreading it all over the globe.
- glaucon 2y agoI believe that using the fuel with lower sulfur required ships to be modified. If I'm right about that then, as you say, it would not just be a case of ctrl+z the manufacturing but also require changes to ships.
- mentalpiracy 2y agoYes, you’re right. There are certainly other aspects that would require change too. But the point is the same: we only transitioned recently, so going back is a known quantity - and now we know exactly how it will impact the worldwide climate. Do any other current geoengineering projects have a directly tangible blueprint?
- audunw 2y agoIf we’re going to go back to geoengineering the atmosphere there are probably much less harmful ways to do it. I believe there’s a solution where ships just spray sea water into the atmosphere.
- mentalpiracy 2y agoThere are less harmful ways to accomplish it theoretically, but exactly zero of those methods are as industrialized - or as regulated - on the same scale as the international maritime shipping industry that already exists. Put the sulfur back in now so we have a few additional years to mobilize a safer replacement.
- Carrok 2y agoThis is a completely insane take on this. Akin to saying "You pulled the knife out of my torso, and now I'm bleeding more! Put it back!" Putting it back will certainly cause more harm than just leaving it out.
- deadbabe 2y agoYou should never pull out a knife until you’re ready to stop the bleeding that will follow.
- Carrok 2y agoWell the knife has already been pulled, and they are suggesting stabbing it back in.
- rafaelmn 2y agoYour analogy is flawed because knife wound was the original problem that would be exacerbatedby reinsertion. A better analogy would be having some infection that's somehow preventing a cancer from metastasis - you treat the infection and now you see the cancer spike. Worth risking reinfection to slow down cancer ? Depends on how bad the infection/cancer is I guess.
- Reason077 2y ago> ”Putting the sulfur back into the fuel is maybe the single most effective thing we can do for the planet right now” This would be incredibly idiotic for so many reasons. You’d be condemning millions of people to suffering with crippling respiratory diseases, and harming countless aquatic and coastal ecosystems. All for a relatively modest gain against global heating.
- calibas 2y agoAssuming the positives outweigh the negatives. You can't release tons of sulfur dioxide into the atmosphere without causing acid rain and speeding up ocean acidification.
- grecy 2y agoPlenty of countries I drove through in Africa have over 2000 parts per million sulphur in their diesel - just use their refineries. Check the last page - https://sustmob.org/PCFV/GlobalSulphurStatus_Progress2006-2022.pdf https://sustmob.org/PCFV/GlobalSulphurStatus_Progress2006-20...
- snitzr 2y agoWe can't do anything right.
- cs702 2y agoA powerful example of how well-intentioned regulations -- in this case, a mandate to reduce sulfur content in ship fuel, for environmental reasons -- can lead to unintended consequences that are worse than the original problem -- in this case, the reduction in sulfur led to an increase in the rate of global warming. As the saying goes, the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Go read the abstract and the introduction. Highly recommended!
- conaclos 2y agoWhat do you propose? No regulations?
- Reason077 2y agoIt’s not worse than the original problem. SO2 emissions from shipping are a huge problem for human health, and are very damaging to aquatic and coastal ecosystems. The potential heating effect from reducing atmospheric aerosols was predictable and was a foreseen consequence of this regulation that was considered at the time. But it’s important to remember that this is a “one time bump” to global heating, not cumulative like GHG emissions. In the overall context of global heating it’s pretty insignificant in the longer term.
- chris_va 2y ago> “one time bump” to global heating That's not entirely accurate. Short lived climate pollutants (SLCPs) that are being continuously emitted (e.g. SO4, NOx, contrail-cirrus) have cumulative effects. The heat trapped on earth is cumulative with a long equilibration time constant, and SO4 (not just from ships) has wiped out a huge fraction of the warming up to now. (disclaimer that I manage a climate research group)
- AndrewKemendo 2y agoThis is wild: > The amount of radiative forcing could lead to a doubling (or more) of the warming rate in the 2020 s compared with the rate since 1980 with strong spatiotemporal heterogeneity. The warming effect is consistent with the recent observed strong warming in 2023 and expected to make the 2020 s anomalously warm. The forcing is equivalent in magnitude to 80% of the measured increase in planetary heat uptake since 2020. Truly, all bets are off for being able to predict the climate going forward
- rachofsunshine 2y agoThis wasn't unpredicted, at least not in principle. Sulfur aerosols have been a component of climate models for decades, and were already known to be a major negative forcing term counteracting something like 1/3 of human-caused warming. See for example [1], an IPCC report from 2021 that shows sulfur aerosols contributing 0.5 C of cooling in the industrial era. Deliberately adding such aerosols to the upper atmosphere (where they're less harmful than ground-level pollution), which volcanic eruptions already do, is one of a few major geoengineering proposals to counteract climate change. [1] https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg1/downloads/report/IPCC_AR6_WGI_SPM.pdf https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg1/downloads/report/IPCC_AR6...
- dr_dshiv 2y agoBut the mechanism is different, so far as I understand. The sulfur rich fuels supports marine cloud brightening and ship tracks. (Low clouds reflect heat, while high clouds absorb) The loss of the ship tracks accounts for a big jump in the warming effects of shipping. https://ntrs.nasa.gov/api/citations/20220015136/downloads/Yuan_Science_advances_format_Yuan_shiptrack.pdf https://ntrs.nasa.gov/api/citations/20220015136/downloads/Yu...
- aeroman 2y agoThe mechanism is different from the impact of sulphur in the stratosphere (where there are no clouds), but it is the same as the mechanisms that have caused the majority of the aerosol cooling (a brightening of clouds). The same ze of the cooling has long been uncertain though. It depends a lot on assumptions you make about the pre-industrial atmosphere,something that we don't have great observations of.
- asicsarecool 2y ago[flagged]
- HelloMcFly 2y agoThis makes me just want to go stare into the middle distance for awhile, if I'm honest. The steps back always seem faster and further than the steps forward to averting catastrophe.
- r14c 2y agoso we were accidentally seeding clouds to be brighter and reflect more light, which was reducing the global warming impact, which has how ceased so the climate is warming up faster now because we aren't accidentally slowing it down. am i parsing this correctly?
- Veliladon 2y agoWell we stopped doing it because the things that were causing the clouds to be nice and shiny caused acid fucking rain but yeah.
- FrustratedMonky 2y agoI might be wrong, but think Sulfur in upper atmosphere can be ok and sulfur in lower atmosphere causes acid rain. The sulfur from pollution was just going everywhere, so we should definitely stop doing it, Acid rain is real, and is bad. But Sulfur might be a solution if we can loft it into the upper atmosphere and bypass where the acid rain forms. - subject of book Termination Shock proposed this.
- theossuary 2y agoThis is an awful idea. It's like people who do a 30 day liquid only diet to lose weight. Sure they'll lose 15lbs, and feel good about themselves. But it isn't healthy or sustainable, it'll have unintended side effects, and it'll prevent them from doing the very real and necessary work to change their lives to lose weight naturally. It's honestly scary howany people think that this is reasonable; I'd be horrified if it wasn't so damn human.
- FrustratedMonky 2y agoNot sure it is 'awful', it doesn't solve the underlying problem. But could be temporary solution amongst a lot of bad options if/when things get bad enough for people to generally wake up and need to do something fast. Lets say a few more decades go by, we make no progress on 'non-awful' options. Then suddenly we get a summer where a few 10k's or millions die, and suddenly politicians/public are like 'wow, guess this is real after all, lets do something. Guess we can start spreading sulfur around pretty quickly'. Wouldn't be surprised if this happens, and then we over-compensate and create an ice age.
- dottjt 2y agoCouldn't we just replace the sulphur with some other kind of element?
- _Microft 2y agoSalt/seawater is a possibility. The proposed method is called marine cloud brightening. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marine_cloud_brightening https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marine_cloud_brightening
- pjerem 2y agoInteresting ! Thank you !
- FrustratedMonky 2y agoIsn't Sulfur ok if it is in upper atmosphere, but in lower atmosphere causes acid rain??? So we could seed the upper atmosphere by shooting rockets into it (as in book Termination Shock), and thus bypass the layer where the sulfur was being added by pollution and causing acid rain.
- jes5199 2y agocalcium carbonate is often considered a safer alternative
- dtx1 2y agoI don't want to breath sulfur, I'm not a Klingon. We just need to accept that we will not be able to transition into non-co2 emitting energy and production fast enough (We MUST still do it!) and that co2 removal on a planetary scale is just not going to happen. Start the Geoengineering now and figure out the bugs so it's ready when we need it. If it's really true that billions of lifes depend on it, maybe it's time to grow up and do the necessary evil.
- StephenSmith 2y agoThis video explains this fairly well (Hank Green). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dk8pwE3IByg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dk8pwE3IByg
- _Microft 2y ago"Unfortunately, while their radiative forcing estimate is well within the range of others in the literature, their calculation of the resulting warming relies on an overly simplified model that results in a substantial overstating of current warming impacts.", https://www.theclimatebrink.com/p/a-problematic-estimate-of-warming https://www.theclimatebrink.com/p/a-problematic-estimate-of-... The conclusions of this paper are being disputed. Read more about that at the page linked above.
- firecraker 2y agoDisputing is always part of science. For balance: Nature (the journal) does have a high bar for entry.. but also a high number of retractions...
- FrustratedMonky 2y agoProbably couple things happening 1. Nature really does value getting studies correct, and thus is probably even more stringent about retractions. They will retract studies for smaller problems than other journals. So, high bar of entry, and also highly focused on vetting any challenges that would cause a retraction. 2. There are anti-climate change groups that challenge everything. So just some random link to someone challenging this, doesn't immediately make me doubt it. The trust in Nature is high enough that the challenger must be pretty good, not just saying "well this model looks too simplistic too me, thus it is false".
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- salynchnew 2y agoRelated phenomenon: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_dimming https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_dimming
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- largbae 2y agotl;dr - New emissions standards reduced sulfur dioxide emissions from cargo ships. The emissions were seeding reflective white clouds that were offsetting up to half the temperature increase that would have occurred without them. Now all that warming is happening at full strength. Great topic, why bury it in verbosity?
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- Crashapsion 2y agoSun hits the water Surface water slightly warmer ... Damn humans