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> Why has it changed so fast? > We don’t yet have a full explanation. But new research suggests changes in clouds is a big factor. > Clouds have a cooling eff
by bmacho 1y ago
> Why has it changed so fast?
> We don’t yet have a full explanation. But new research suggests changes in clouds is a big factor.
> Clouds have a cooling effect overall. But the area covered by highly reflective white clouds has shrunk, while the area of jumbled, less reflective clouds has grown.
> It isn’t clear why the clouds are changing. One possible factor could be the consequences of successful efforts to reduce sulfur in shipping fuel from 2020, as burning the dirtier fuel may have had a brightening effect on clouds.
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It seems to me that the climate change will be totally solvable by releasing some random gas into the atmosphere. No need to fret about it.
- vardump 1y ago> It seems to me that the climate change will be totally solvable by releasing some random gas into the atmosphere. No need to fret about it. Yeah, what could go wrong...
- bmacho 1y agoHonestly, if they choose this option, they surely will run a bunch of simulations before it, unlike the current path, when they are just randomly substracting gases from the atmosphere.
- isthatafact 1y agoIn addition to the likely high costs and predictable negative side-effects, one could extrapolate from the article title that climate engineering could also have unpredictable negative effects. Making big changes to a complex system that we do not fully understand seems very dangerous to me.
- AnimalMuppet 1y agoWell, they "randomly subtracted" a gas that they were previously "randomly adding". In fact, even "subtracted" is wrong - they randomly stopped adding a gas that they had been randomly adding. They did not run a bunch of simulations before randomly adding the gas.
- slv77 1y agoThere have been proposals to inject sulfur into airline engines at high altitudes so this approach has been well studied. The first challenge is that even if it addresses the problem of global temperatures rising it does nothing to address other issues such as ocean acidification. At some point C02 levels become physiologically relevant to humans and it feels like living in a stuffy room all the time. The second problem is that it has to be maintained forever. Any technological glitch and the planet goes into run-away heating. Basically we’d be making a decision for humans 100 to 1000 years in the future to maintain a specific lifestyle. It would be the equivalent of people in the 1970s deciding to not move away from ozone-layer destroying CFCs and deciding to fit all humans and animals with permanent sunglasses to prevent cataracts instead.
- bmacho 1y ago> There have been proposals to inject sulfur into airline engines at high altitudes so this approach has been well studied. The first challenge is that even if it addresses the problem of global temperatures rising it does nothing to address other issues such as ocean acidification. At some point C02 levels become physiologically relevant to humans and it feels like living in a stuffy room all the time. What about wars and cancer? > The second problem is that it has to be maintained forever. Any solution should be "maintained forever", at least until we have the ability to undo it, so basically everything while there are humans on the planet.
- asacrowflies 1y agoYou are missing the point or being purposefully dense. Many of the solutions to climate change are self sustaining . Like the biosphere itself regulating the climate. Your dumb statement about "maintaining forever" highlights the type of engineer brain /economics PhD arrogance that got us into this mess in the first place. While disregarding basic science and common sense.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]