Wednesday, November 27, 2013

El ACIDO SULFURICO (H2SO4) PROCEDENTE DE LA AVIACION PUEDE SER MAYOR HOY QUE LO QUE SE REQUERIRIA PARA UN REGIMEN DE GEOINGENIERIA EN EL 2020


Muy recientemente una breve conversación entre David Biello (Scientific American), Oliver Morton y Tim Cross (los dos últimos de la revista The Economist), sobre el último artículo escrito por Cross "Deteniendo un día abrasador"[1] sobre la geoingeniería produjo esta afirmación MUY IMPORTANTE por parte de Tim Cross:

23 de noviembre 2013: (twitt traducido)

"@dbiello  pieza (por mí!) Dice que "suena como un sueño tecnocrático febril”. Hay una gran diferencia, porque la geoingeniería es en realidad totalmente plausible”

Este es desde mi punto de vista un hecho muy importante que debe ser plantado al centro y al frente del comienzo de cualquier debate de geoingeniería o artículo. No sólo eso... también debe de haber una declaración de hecho en referencia al "experimento no intencional " de geoingeniería global que se está llevando a cabo por la industria de la aviación a través de sus emisiones, sus emisiónes de azufre para ser más específico.

En un artículo anterior de MIT Tech Review [2], aprendemos acerca de la plausibilidad de las tecnologías geo-ingenieriles atreves los estudios del profesor de Harvard en física y empresario en Carbon Engineering, David Keith, líder de tecnologías de geoingeniería. También nos enteramos de que, de acuerdo a Keith, la cantidad de ácido sulfúrico (H2SO4) requerida inicialmente para un régimen de geoingeniería por Gestión de Radiación Solar (SRM por sus siglas en inglés) es bastante pequeño:

"De acuerdo con los cálculos de Keith, si se iniciaran operaciones en el 2020, se necesitarían 25,000 toneladas de ácido sulfúrico para reducir el calentamiento global a la mitad después de un año. Una vez en marcha, la inyección de ácido sulfúrico procedería de forma continua. Para el año 2040, se necesitarían 11 jets lanzando aproximadamente 250.000 toneladas métricas cada año, a un costo anual de $ 700 millones, para compensar el aumento del calentamiento causado por los crecientes niveles de dióxido de carbono.  Para el 2070, el estima, que el programa tendría que inyectar un poco más de un millón de toneladas por año utilizando una flotilla de cien aviones”.

Teniendo en cuenta que para 1990 a nivel mundial la "contribución anual al presupuesto de azufre atmosférico por las aeronaves es de 2.e7 kg H2SO4."[3], y que para el 2010 las emisiones de la aviación podrían habían subido hasta un 110% en comparación con los niveles de 1990 [4] se puede suponer con seguridad de que para el año 2013, el H2SO4 por emisiones de las aeronaves ya está al nivel que se requeriría en el año 2020 para un régimen de geoingeniería. En otras palabras: ¡la geoingeniería ya está más adelantada de lo previsto!

También, además de todas las advertencias sobre los efectos secundarios de la geoingeniería por SRM sobre el ciclo hidrológico, es decir la sequía y las inundaciones, los ecosistemas de la tierra y el océano, como ésta por Edward Teller:

 "Considera lo que podría suceder si empezamos con el uso de un aerosol estratosférico para aliviar el calentamiento global; incluso si tiene éxito, no pasaría mucho tiempo antes de que nos enfrentamos al problema adicional de la acidificación del océano”. [5]

No es en absoluto sorprendente que ya estamos allí [6]... en todos los sentidos... ¡hoy!

Por lo tanto, a este subtítulo: "diseñar intencionalmente la atmósfera de la Tierra para compensar el aumento de las temperaturas podría ser mucho más factible de lo que te imaginas, dice David Keith. ¿Pero es una buena idea? “[2]

Yo creo que la respuesta es claramente... ¡NO! No es una buena idea. Especialmente en el caso de la SRM.

Entonces, también podría decirse que una de las preguntas más relevantes sobre la geoingeniería por SRM es... ¿cómo la detenemos?

"Así que tal aquellos en  la comunidad geo-ingenieril que genuinamente se oponen a la geoingeniería deberían revisar sus premisas y pedir las investigaciones de geoingeniería con el propósito de poner fin a este fallido experimento 'no- intencionado’  pero todavía en curso."

Referencias:

[1] Stopping a scorcher
The controversy over manipulating climate change
Nov 23rd 2013 – The Economist

[2] A Cheap and Easy Plan to Stop Global Warming
Intentionally engineering Earth’s atmosphere to offset rising temperatures could be far more doable than you imagine, says David Keith. But is it a good idea?
February 8, 2013 - By David Rotman

[3] Soot and Sulfuric Acid from Aircraft: Is There Enough to Cause Detrimental Environmental E-kCTSs?
Pueschel, R. F.; Strawa, A. W.; Ferry, G. V.; Howard, S. D.; Verma, S.
(NASA Ames Research Center; Moffett Field, CA, United States);         
Publication Date: Jan 01, 1998   Document ID: 20070003482

“Applying the H2SO4 emission index to the 1990 fuel use by the worlds commercial fleets of 1.3E11 kg, a conversion efficiency of 30% of 500 ppmm fuel-S would have led to an annual contribution to the atmospheric sulfur budget by aircraft of 2.E7 kg H2SO4.”

[4] Aviation emissions up 110% since 1990
Nov 19 2010 - Aviation Environment Federation.

[5] Quote of the Day: James Lovelock on Geoengineering & The "Practice of Planetary Medicine"
September 1, 2008 - By Kimberley Mok – treehugger

[6] 20 Facts About Ocean Acidification
November 2012 - U.S. OCB Sub-Committee on Ocean Acidification

Tuesday, November 26, 2013

H2SO4 (SULFURIC ACID) FROM AVIATION MAY BE HIGHER TODAY THAN WHAT WOULD BE REQUIRED FOR A GEOENGINEERING REGIME IN 2020

Quite recently a very short twitter conversation between David Biello (Scientific American), Oliver Morton and Tim Cross (the latter two from the Economist), chatting about Cross’s latest article “Stopping a scorcher” [1] netted this VERY IMPORTANT assertion by Tim Cross:

Nov 23, 2013:
“@dbiello piece (by me!) says it "SOUNDS LIKE a technocratic fever dream".  Big difference; b/c geo-engineering actually entirely plausible”


This is in my view a very important fact that should be planted front and center at the beginning of any geoengineering debate or article.  Not only that… there should also be a statement of fact in reference to the “unintended” (ongoing) global geoengineering experiment that is being conducted by the aviation industry through its emissions, its sulfur emission to be more specific.

In an earlier article by MIT Tech Review [2], we learn about the plausibility of GE technologies trough the studies of Harvard's physics professor and entrepreneur at Carbon Engineering, David Keith, leading proponent of geoengineering technologies. We also learned that, according to Keith, the initial required amount of sulfuric acid (H2SO4) for a geoengineering Solar Radiation Management (SRM) regime is quite small:

"According to Keith’s calculations, if operations were begun in 2020, it would take 25,000 metric tons of sulfuric acid to cut global warming in half after one year. Once under way, the injection of sulfuric acid would proceed continuously. By 2040, 11 or so jets delivering roughly 250,000 metric tons of it each year, at an annual cost of $700 million, would be required to compensate for the increased warming caused by rising levels of carbon dioxide. By 2070, he estimates, the program would need to be injecting a bit more than a million tons per year using a fleet of a hundred aircraft."

Given that by 1990 global aviation’s “annual contribution to the atmospheric sulfur budget by aircraft of 2.E7 kg H2SO4.” [3], and that by 2010 Aviation emissions could had been up 110% compared to 1990 levels [4] it is safe to assume that by the year 2013, H2SO4 by aircraft emissions is already at the level that would be required by 2020 for a geoengineering regime. In other words: geoengineering is way ahead of schedule!

Also giving all the warnings about the side effects of geoengineering by SRM on the hydrological cycle i.e. drought and flooding; and the ecosystems in land and the ocean, such as this one by Edward Teller:

 “Consider what might happen if we start by using a stratospheric aerosol to ameliorate global heating; even if it succeeds, it would not be long before we face the additional problem of ocean acidification”. [5]

It is not at all shocking that we are already there [6]... in all counts... today!

So, to the byline: “Intentionally engineering Earth’s atmosphere to offset rising temperatures could be far more doable than you imagine, says David Keith. But is it a good idea?”[2]

I would think the answer is clearly… NO! It is not a good idea. Specially in the case of SRM.

Then, it could also be said that one of the most relevant questions about geoengineering by SRM is… how do we stop?

“So perhaps those in the GE community who are genuinely opposed to geoengineering should revise their premises and call for research into GE with the purpose of ending this ‘unintended', but failed and still ongoing experiment.”


References:
[1] Stopping a scorcher
The controversy over manipulating climate change
Nov 23rd 2013 – The Economist

[2] A Cheap and Easy Plan to Stop Global Warming
Intentionally engineering Earth’s atmosphere to offset rising temperatures could be far more doable than you imagine, says David Keith. But is it a good idea?
February 8, 2013 - By David Rotman

[3] Soot and Sulfuric Acid from Aircraft: Is There Enough to Cause Detrimental Environmental E-kCTSs?
Pueschel, R. F.; Strawa, A. W.; Ferry, G. V.; Howard, S. D.; Verma, S.
(NASA Ames Research Center; Moffett Field, CA, United States);         
Publication Date: Jan 01, 1998   Document ID: 20070003482

“Applying the H2SO4 emission index to the 1990 fuel use by the worlds commercial fleets of 1.3E11 kg, a conversion efficiency of 30% of 500 ppmm fuel-S would have led to an annual contribution to the atmospheric sulfur budget by aircraft of 2.E7 kg H2SO4.”

[4] Aviation emissions up 110% since 1990
Nov 19 2010 - Aviation Environment Federation.

[5] Quote of the Day: James Lovelock on Geoengineering & The "Practice of Planetary Medicine"
September 1, 2008 - By Kimberley Mok – treehugger

[6] 20 Facts About Ocean Acidification
November 2012 - U.S. OCB Sub-Committee on Ocean Acidification
http://www.whoi.edu/fileserver.do?id=165564&pt=2&p=150429

Updates:

July 27 2014

 “Like a giant elevator to the stratosphere”
Alfred Wegener Institute
April 2014:

http://www.awi.de/en/news/press_releases/detail/item/pm_rex_englisch/?cHash=d18cc41c122c94510fd214544c761173

Extract:

“But wouldn’t it be a stroke of luck if air pollutants from South East Asia were able to mitigate climate warming? “By no means,” Markus Rex vigorously shakes his head. “The OH hole over the South Seas is above all further evidence of how complex climate processes are. And we are still a long way off from being in a position to assess the consequences of increased sulphur input into the stratosphere. Therefore, we should make every effort to understand the processes in the atmosphere as best we can and avoid any form of conscious or unconscious manipulation that would have an unknown outcome.” “


December 17, 2013

"However, increasing ship fuel sulfur content in the open ocean would violate existing international treaties, could cause detrimental side-effects, and could be classified as geoengineering."


Climate and air quality trade-offs in altering ship fuel sulfur content
I. Partanen et al
doi:10.5194/acp-13-11925-2013
http://www.atmos-chem-phys.net/13/12059/2013/acp-13-12059-2013.html


Video
On the “Colbert Report” from Monday December 9, 2013
David Keith
"A Case For Climate Engineering" author David Keith explains his proposal to use geoengineering as a means of slowing climate change.  (06:25)
http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/431083/december-09-2013/david-keith?utm=playershare_twitter

December 1, 2013

What Is Geoengineering and Why Is It Considered a Climate Change Solution?
April 2010, By David Biello - Scientific American
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=geoengineering-and-climate-change


Starting then Stopping Geoengineering Could Dangerously Accelerate Climate Change
November 27, 2013 By Henry Gass and ClimateWire - Scientific American
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=starting-then-stopping-geoengineering-could-accelerate-climate-change&page=2


The Seas Could Turn to Sulfur
January 11, 2010 By Peter L. Ward - big think

"So when we heated the poles to the point that there is no longer – or already in a very sluggish ocean circulation, the ocean is going anoxic, they lose their oxygen. They only keep oxygenated now because of this vigorous mixing. Well, even when you have oxygen in the atmosphere and contact with the surface, once you slow down any circulation, that whole basin can lose this oxygen. The Black Sea is the same case. It’s sits under a 21% oxygen atmosphere, and yet the Black Sea, except for the top several meters, in anoxic. It’s black because it’s producing a lot of sulfur-producing bacteria and there’s very nasty gasses that are produced.

We now think the big mass extinctions were caused by global anoxia. The oceans themselves so sluggish that the hydrogen sulfide bacteria are produced in huge areas of the ocean bottom bubbles up to the surface and starts killing things; rotten egg killing. It would be extremely nasty. Hydrogen Sulfide poisoning is a horrible death. Two hundred hydrogen sulfide molecules among a million air molecules is enough to kill a human. I mean, just breathing in 200 of those little things amid all the million you’re got in oxygen and boom, you’re down, horribly down.

So, this is a really nasty poison and it was certainly present in past oceans during these short-term global warming events. That’s why it’s really spooky what we’re doing now."
http://bigthink.com/videos/the-seas-could-turn-to-sulfur

Monday, November 18, 2013

Re: Geoengineering: Military Use - Geoingeniería: Uso Militar (Excerpts - Extractos)

With spanish translation. La traduccion subrrayada en amarillo.

One of the often cited dangers of geoengineering is the potential for military use or other nefarious purposes.

I think the writings by Gordon J. F. MacDonald (1968), titled Unless Peace Comesmay illustrate the why of such fears. Another pertinent read would be the book Arming Mother Nature: The Birth of Catastrophic Environmentalism by Jacob Darwin Hamblin (2013).

I think it is important to note that those risks exist independently from geoengineering research, that is to say…  they exist whether or not there is public knowledge of G.E research.

Una de las advertencias citadas frecuentemente sobre la geoingeniería es el potencial uso militar u otros usos con propósitos nefastos. 

Creo que los escritos de Gordon J. F. MacDonald (1968), en el libro A Menos De Que LLegue La Paz podrían ilustrar el porqué de esos temores. También pueden leer la entrada (en este mismo blog) titulada EL USO DEL MEDIOAMBIENTE COMO ARMA basada en un artículo sobre el libro Armando a la Madre Naturaleza de Jacob Darwin Hamblin (2013).

Creo que es importante notar que esos riesgos existen fuera de los estudios sobre la geoingeniería, es decir haya o no investigación geoingenieril de conocimiento público.

                                                              ---------------------


Unless Peace Comes - A Menos De Que LLegue La Paz 

Chapter/Capitulo:

How To Wreck The Environment - Como Destruir El Medio Ambiente
by Gordon J. F. MacDonald U.S.A. - 1968

"Professor MacDonald is associate director of the Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics at the University of California, Los Angeles. His researches have embraced a remarkable diversity of natural phenomena and his professional interests are further extended by his participation in national science policy-making. He is a member of President Johnson’s Science Advisory Committee
Among future means of obtaining national objectives by force, one possibility hinges on man’s ability to control and manipulate the environment of his planet. When achieved, this power over his environment will provide man with a new force capable of doing great and indiscriminate damage. Our present primitive understanding of deliberate environmental change makes it difficult to imagine a world in which geophysical warfare is practiced. Such a world might be one in which nuclear weapons were effectively banned and the weapons of mass destruction were those of environmental catastrophe. Alternatively, I can envisage a world of nuclear stability resulting from parity in such weapons, rendered unstable by the development by one nation of an advanced technology capable of modifying the Earth’s environment. Or geophysical weapons may be part of each nation’s armory. As I will argue, these weapons are peculiarly suited for covert or secret wars."

"El profesor MacDonald es director asociado del Instituto de Geofísica y Física Planetaria en la Universidad de California, Los Angeles. Sus investigaciones abarcan una notable diversidad de fenómenos naturales y sus intereses profesionales se amplifican aún más con su participación formulando políticas nacionales sobre la ciencia. Es miembro del Comité Científico Asesor del Presidente Johnson
Entre los medios futuros para la obtención de los objetivos nacionales por la fuerza, una posibilidad depende en la capacidad del hombre para controlar y manipular el medio ambiente de su planeta. Cuando se logre, este poder sobre su entorno proporcionará al hombre con una nueva fuerza capaz de hacer un gran e indiscriminado daño. Nuestra actual comprensión primitiva de los cambios  medioambientales deliberados hace difícil imaginar un mundo en el que la guerra geofísica se practique. Tal mundo podría ser uno en el que las armas nucleares hayan sido prohibidas con eficacia y las armas de destrucción masiva serian aquellas de catástrofe medioambiental. Alternativamente,  puedo prever un mundo de estabilidad nuclear resultante de la paridad en tales armas, que se rinde inestable por el desarrollo de una nación de una tecnología avanzada capaz de modificar el medio ambiente terrestre. O las armas geofísicas podrían ser parte del arsenal de cada nación. Como argumentaré, estas armas son particularmente adecuadas para las guerras encubiertas o secretas."

                                              ----------------------------------

"The key to geophysical warfare is the identification of the environmental instabilities to which the addition of a small amount of energy would release vastly greater amounts of energy. Environmental instability is a situation in which nature has stored energy in some part of the Earth or its surroundings far in excess of that which is usual. To trigger this instability, the required energy might be introduced violently by explosions or gently by small bits of material able to induce rapid changes by acting as catalysts or nucleating agents. The mechanism for energy storage might be the accumulation of strain over hundreds of millions of years in the solid Earth, or the super-cooling of water vapour in the atmosphere by updraughts taking place over a few tens of minutes. Effects of releasing this energy could be world-wide, as in the case of altering climate, or regional, as in the case of locally excited earthquakes or enhanced precipitation."

"La llave de la guerra geofísica es la identificación de las inestabilidades ambientales a las cuales la adición de una pequeña cantidad de energía liberaría cantidades sumamente mayores de energía. La inestabilidad ambiental es una situación en la cual la naturaleza tiene energía almacenada en una cierta parte de la tierra o de sus alrededores muy superior a la que se encuentra generalmente. Para accionar esta inestabilidad, la energía requerida se podría introducir violentamente por medio de explosiones o más gentilmente por pequeñas porciones de material capaz de inducir cambio rápidos actuando como los catalizadores o agentes nucleantes. El mecanismo para el almacenaje de energía pudo ser la acumulación de tensión sobre centenares de millones de años en la tierra sólida, o la sobrefusión del vapor de agua en la atmósfera por las corrientes ascendentes que ocurrirían sobre algunos diez de minutos. Los efectos al liberar esta energía podían ser mundiales, como en el caso de alterar el clima, o regional, como en el caso de terremotos producidos localmente o de la precipitación intensificada."

                                                         ---------------------------

"SECRET WAR AND CHANGING RELATIONSHIPS
Deficiencies both in the basic understanding of the physical processes in the environment and in the technology of environmental change make it highly unlikely that environmental modification will be an attractive weapon system in any direct military confrontation in the near future. Man already possesses highly effective tools for destruction. Eventually, however, means other than open warfare may be used to secure national advantage. As economic competition among many advanced nations heightens, it may be to a country’s advantage to ensure a peaceful natural environment for itself and a disturbed environment for its competitors. Operations producing such conditions might be carried out covertly, since nature’s great irregularity permits storms, floods, droughts, earthquakes and tidal waves to be viewed as unusual but not unexpected. Such a ‘secret war’ need never be declared or even known by the affected populations. It could go on for years with only the security forces involved being aware of it. The years of drought and storm would be attributed to unkindly nature and only after nations were thoroughly drained would an armed take-over be attempted."

"GUERRA SECRETA Y RELACIONES CAMBIANTES
Las deficiencias en la comprensión básica de los procesos físicos en el ambiente y en la tecnología del cambio ambiental hacen altamente inverosímil en un futuro cercano que la modificación ambiental se convierta en un sistema de armas atractivo para cualquier confrontación militar directa. El hombre posee ya herramientas altamente eficaces para la destrucción. Sin embargo, eventualmente, otras formas fuera de la guerra abierta se pueden utilizar para asegurar ventajas nacionales. Mientras que la competencia económica entre muchas naciones avanzadas aumenta, puede ser ventajoso para un país el asegurar un ambiente natural pacífico para sí mismo y un ambiente perturbador para sus competidores. Las operaciones que producirían tales condiciones se podrían realizar secretamente, desde que la gran irregularidad de la naturaleza permite tormentas, las inundaciones, las sequías, los terremotos y las ondas de marea se verían como inusuales pero no inesperadas. Una guerra tan secreta que nunca necesita ser declarada ni aún ser reconocida por las poblaciones afectadas. Podría realizarse por años con solamente las fuerzas de seguridad implicadas siendo conscientes de ella. Los años de sequía y de tormenta serían atribuidos a una naturaleza poco gentil y solamente después de que una nación fuera drenada a fondo una toma de posesión armada se intentaría."


You can read the full chapter here:
Se puede leer el capítulo entero en inglés  aquí:


Unless Peace Comes
a Scientific Forecast of New Weapons
July 22, 1968 - Viking Adult - ISBN: 978 067 074 1140
edited by Nigel Calder



Or Google search for: Unless Peace Comes Gordon J. F. MacDonald 


See also:

The violent side of environmentalism by Jan McGirk

New York Times:
Ecology Lessons From the Cold War 
By Jacob Darwing Hambling
Published: May 29, 2013


Ver tambien:

Libro: Arming Mother Nature, (“Armando [Militarmente] a la Madre Naturaleza) Jacob Darwin Hamblin


EL USO DEL MEDIOAMBIENTE COMO ARMA - Traducción


Other readings - Otras lecturas:

Geoengineering: New Problems, Old Politics
March 2006 By Jamais Casio - Open the Future

One sign that this is underway is the announcement that DARPA -- the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency -- is hosting a colloquium on geoengineering at Stanford this week. Ken Caldeira will be there, of course, and I would be shocked if David Victor wasn't also invited. DARPA is a weird agency that is ostensibly under the Pentagon, but has historically supported a number of projects without clear military applications. Still, the very fact that a Department of Defense agency is looking at geoengineering is raising hackles, even among attendees.

“The last thing we need is to have DARPA developing climate-intervention technology,” says Caldeira. He says he agreed to go to the meeting “to try to get DARPA not to develop geoengineering techniques. Geoengineering is already so fraught with social, geopolitical, economic, and ethical issues; why would we want to add military dimensions?”

Unfortunately, we don't need to "add" military dimensions -- they've been there from the beginning. A technology with the potential to alter critical aspects of the global environment, with differential effects across regions, and not dependent upon a massive industrial base (so even available to non-state actors)? As I said in 2007, only partially tongue-in-cheek, no state wants to find itself facing a "terraforming gap." Wise or not, smart or not, geoengineering is a geopolitical issue, with all that entails.


http://www.openthefuture.com/2009/03/geoengineering_new_problems_ol.html#sthash.0B1ZKZrT.dpuf

Friday, November 15, 2013

Excerpts of articles organized by date. Will update regularly.

Follow the link for the complete article. 
If link does not work... goggle it!

Latest additions will have published date highlighted. 


SEPT/OCT 2013:
Geoengineering: A Short History
How hacking the climate came to be seen as our least worst option for averting a global climate catastrophe.
BY TY MCCORMICK  - Foreign Policy

For most of human history, weather control has been under the strict purview of sky gods and science fiction. But today, as superstorms ravage coastal cities and pollution blankets entire countries, averting climate catastrophe has become a serious foreign-policy issue. Not that it appears that the world's major powers are making much headway in their diplomatic efforts to stop global warming. Instead, it is falling to so-called geoengineers to game out strategies for deliberate, large-scale intervention -- everything from dumping iron slurry into the ocean in order to create massive CO2-sucking algae blooms to bombarding the stratosphere with sulfate-laced artillery to deflect sunlight. With the world's fate potentially resting on the shoulders of these climate hackers, it's worth recalling the dubious history of weather manipulation.

1841
American meteorologist James Pollard Espy publishes The Philosophy of Storms, in which he lays out his thermal theory of storm formation and details a method through which "rain may be produced artificially in time of drought." By setting "great fires" and creating heated columns of air -- something Espy lobbies Congress to allow him to do -- he argues it would be possible to generate precipitation on command. The scheme, which rests on shoddier science than Espy's theory of storm formation, earns him the moniker "Storm King."

1896
Swedish chemist Svante Arrhenius investigates the impact of rising carbon dioxide levels on global temperatures in Philosophical Magazine and Journal of Science. He is the first scientist to calculate how doubling the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere would affect the climate. His conclusion -- that Earth's temperature would increase by roughly 9 degrees Fahrenheit -- leads him to suggest in 1908 that by increasing the amount of "carbonic acid" in the atmosphere, "we may hope to enjoy ages with more equitable and better climates."

1932
The Soviet Union establishes the Institute of Rainmaking in Leningrad, setting the stage for decades of experimentation with cloud seeding as a means of altering the weather. The United States follows suit in 1946, when researchers at the General Electric Research Laboratory in Schenectady, New York, discover that dry ice stimulates ice-crystal formation. In the Cold War's early years, both superpowers carry out hundreds of experiments using solid carbon dioxide, silver iodide, and other particulate matter to trigger precipitation. The success of these experiments is greatly exaggerated, but scientists do manage to alter weather patterns on a small scale.



May 14, 2012
THE CLIMATE FIXERS
Is there a technological solution to global warming?
BY MICHAEL SPECTER – THE NEW YORKER

Late in the afternoon on April 2, 1991, Mt. Pinatubo, a volcano on the Philippine island of Luzon, began to rumble with a series of the powerful steam explosions that typically precede an eruption. Pinatubo had been dormant for more than four centuries, and in the volcanological world the mountain had become little more than a footnote. The tremors continued in a steady crescendo for the next two months, until June 15th, when the mountain exploded with enough force to expel molten lava at the speed of six hundred miles an hour. The lava flooded a two-hundred-and-fifty-square-mile area, requiring the evacuation of two hundred thousand people.

Within hours, the plume of gas and ash had penetrated the stratosphere, eventually reaching an altitude of twenty-one miles. Three weeks later, an aerosol cloud had encircled the earth, and it remained for nearly two years. Twenty million metric tons of sulfur dioxide mixed with droplets of water, creating a kind of gaseous mirror, which reflected solar rays back into the sky. Throughout 1992 and 1993, the amount of sunlight that reached the surface of the earth was reduced by more than ten per cent.

The heavy industrial activity of the previous hundred years had caused the earth’s climate to warm by roughly three-quarters of a degree Celsius, helping to make the twentieth century the hottest in at least a thousand years. The eruption of Mt. Pinatubo, however, reduced global temperatures by nearly that much in a single year. It also disrupted patterns of precipitation throughout the planet. It is believed to have influenced events as varied as floods along the Mississippi River in 1993 and, later that year, the drought that devastated the African Sahel. Most people considered the eruption a calamity.

For geophysical scientists, though, Mt. Pinatubo provided the best model in at least a century to help us understand what might happen if humans attempted to ameliorate global warming by deliberately altering the climate of the earth.

For years, even to entertain the possibility of human intervention on such a scale—geoengineering, as the practice is known—has been denounced as hubris. Predicting long-term climatic behavior by using computer models has proved difficult, and the notion of fiddling with the planet’s climate based on the results generated by those models worries even scientists who are fully engaged in the research. “There will be no easy victories, but at some point we are going to have to take the facts seriously,’’ David Keith, a professor of engineering and public policy at Harvard and one of geoengineering’s most thoughtful supporters, told me. “Nonetheless,’’ he added, “it is hyperbolic to say this, but no less true: when you start to reflect light away from the planet, you can easily imagine a chain of events that would extinguish life on earth.”

December 21, 2009
The Geoengineering Gambit

For years, radical thinkers have proposed risky technologies that they say could rapidly cool the earth and offset global warming. Now a growing number of mainstream climate scientists say we may have to consider extreme action despite the dangers.
By Kevin Bullis - MIT Technology Review

“Rivers fed by melting snow and glaciers supply water to over one-sixth of the world’s population–well over a billion people. But these sources of water are quickly disappearing: the Himalayan glaciers that feed rivers in India, China, and other Asian countries could be gone in 25 years (after this story appeared in print this claim was retracted by scientists: see correction). Such effects of climate change no longer surprise scientists. But the speed at which they’re happening does. “The earth appears to be changing faster than the climate models predicted,” says ­Daniel Schrag, a professor of earth and planetary sciences at Harvard University, who advises President Obama on climate issues.

Atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide have already climbed to 385 parts per million, well over the 350 parts per million that many scientists say is the upper limit for a relatively stable climate. And despite government-led efforts to limit carbon emissions in many countries, annual emissions from fossil-fuel combustion are going up, not down: over the last two decades, they have increased 41 percent. In the last 10 years, the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has increased by nearly two parts per million every year. At this rate, they’ll be twice preindustrial levels by the end of the century. Meanwhile, researchers are growing convinced that the climate might be more sensitive to greenhouse gases at this level than once thought. “The likelihood that we’re going to avoid serious damage seems quite low,” says Schrag. “The best we’re going to do is probably not going to be good enough.”
This shocking realization has caused many influential scientists, including Obama advisors like Schrag, to fundamentally change their thinking about how to respond to climate change. They have begun calling for the government to start funding research into geoengineering–large-scale schemes for rapidly cooling the earth.”


13 December 2009:
American Geophysical Union and the American Meteorological Society position statement on geoengineering the Climate System:

Title: Geoengineering Solutions to Climate Change Require Enhanced Research,
Consideration of Societal Impacts, and Policy Development

“It is not currently possible to assess the potential benefits or costs of Climate System Geoengineering.
Therefore, significant additional research, risk assessment, and consideration of difficult policy questions
is required before the potential of this tool to offset climate change can be fully evaluated.
“Human responsibility for most of the well-documented increase in global average temperatures over the
last half century is well established. Further greenhouse gas emissions, particularly of carbon dioxide
from the burning of fossil fuels, will almost certainly contribute to additional widespread climate changes
that can be expected to cause major negative consequences for most nations1.
Three proactive strategies could reduce the risks of climate change: 1) mitigation: reducing emissions; 2)
adaptation: moderating climate impacts by increasing our capacity to cope with them; and 3)
geoengineering: deliberately manipulating physical, chemical, or biological aspects of the Earth system2.
This policy statement focuses on large-scale efforts to geoengineer the climate system to counteract the
consequences of increasing greenhouse gas emissions.
Geoengineering could lower greenhouse gas concentrations, provide options for reducing specific climate
impacts, or offer strategies of last resort if abrupt, catastrophic, or otherwise unacceptable climate-change
impacts become unavoidable by other means. However, research to date has not determined whether there
are large-scale geoengineering approaches that would produce significant benefits, or whether those
benefits would substantially outweigh the detriments. Indeed, geoengineering must be viewed with
caution because manipulating the Earth system has considerable potential to trigger adverse and
unpredictable consequences.“


OCTOBER 20, 2009:
Superfreakonomics author is baffled that Caldeira ‘doesnt believe geoengineering can work without cutting emissions.’
BY JOE ROMM - ThinkProgress

Bloomberg interview of Dubner and Caldeira backs up my reporting on error-riddled best-seeler

Caldeira, like the vast majority of climate scientists, believes cutting carbon dioxide and other greenhouse-gas emissions is our only real chance to avoid runaway climate change.

“Carbon dioxide is the right villain,” Caldeira wrote on his Web site in reply. He told Joe Romm, the respected climate blogger who broke the story, that he had objected to the “wrong villain” line but Dubner and Levitt didn’t correct it; instead, they added the “incredibly foolish” quote, a half step in the right direction. Caldeira gave the same account to me.

Levitt and Dubner do say that the book “overstates” Caldeira’s position. That’s a weasel word: The book claims the opposite of what Caldeira believes. Caldeira told me the book contains “many errors” in addition to the “major error” of misstating his scientific opinion on carbon dioxide’s role….
Caldeira, who is researching the idea [of aerosol geoengineering], argues that it can succeed only if we first reduce emissions. Otherwise, he says, geoengineering can’t begin to cope with the collateral damage, such as acidic oceans killing off shellfish.

Levitt and Dubner ignore his view and champion his work as a permanent substitute for emissions cuts. When I told Dubner that Caldeira doesn’t believe geoengineering can work without cutting emissions, he was baffled. “I don’t understand how that could be,” he said. In other words, the Freakonomics guys just flunked climate science.



January 2009:
ATTEMPTS AT GEOENGINEERING
By Oliver Morton - Edge

It is quite likely that we will at some point see people starting to make deliberate changes in the way the climate system works. When they do they will change the world — though not necessarily, or only, in the way that they intend to.

"Geoengineering" technologies for counteracting some aspects of anthropogenic climate change — such as putting long-lived aerosols into the stratosphere, as volcanoes do, or changing the lifetimes and reflective properties of clouds — have to date been shunned by the majority of climate scientists, largely on the basis of the moral hazard involved: any sense that the risks of global warming can be taken care of by such technology weakens the case for reducing carbon-dioxide emissions.

I expect to see this unwillingness recede quite dramatically in the next few years, and not only because of the post-Lehman-Brothers bashing given to the idea that moral hazard is something to avoid at all costs. As people come to realise how little has actually been achieved so far on the emissions-reduction front, quite a few are going to start to freak out. Some of those who freak will have money to spend, and with money and the participation of a larger cadre of researchers, the science and engineering required for the serious assessment of various geoengineering schemes might be developed fairly quickly.

Why do I think those attempts will change the world? Geoengineering is not, after all, a panacea. It cannot precisely cancel out the effects of greenhouse gases, and it is likely to have knock on effects on the hydrological cycle which may well not be welcome. Even if the benefits outweigh the costs, the best-case outcome is unlikely to be more than a period of grace in which the most excessive temperature changes are held at bay. Reducing carbon-dioxide emissions will continue to be necessary. In part that is because of the problem of ocean acidification, and in part because a lower carbon-dioxide climate is vastly preferable to one that stays teetering on the brink of disaster for centuries, requiring constant tinkering to avoid teetering over into greenhouse hellishness.

So geoengineering would not "solve" climate change. Nor would it be an unprecedented human intervention into the earth system. It would be a massive thing to undertake, but hardly more momentous in absolute terms than our replacement of natural ecosystems with farmed ones; our commandeering of the nitrogen cycle; the wholesale havoc we have wrought on marine food webs; or the amplification of the greenhouse effect itself.


September 1, 2008: 
Quote of the Day: James Lovelock on Geoengineering & The "Practice of Planetary Medicine"
Treehugger - Kimberley Mok -Living / Culture

Whether you love him or dismiss him, James Lovelock may be the staunchest pessimist around for the future of humanity on a warming planet. But the iconic environmentalist and originator of the Gaia hypothesis has a couple of cautionary words about the hubris of artificially fiddling with nature:


"Before we start geoengineering we have to raise the following question: are we sufficiently talented to take on what might become the onerous permanent task of keeping the Earth in homeostasis? Consider what might happen if we start by using a stratospheric aerosol to ameliorate global heating; even if it succeeds, it would not be long before we face the additional problem of ocean acidification. This would need another medicine, and so on... Whatever we do is likely to lead to death on a scale that makes all previous wars, famines and disasters small… We have to consider seriously that as with nineteenth century medicine, the best option is often kind words and pain killers but otherwise do nothing and let Nature take its course.[..]”

Wednesday, November 13, 2013

¿Quién asume el coste de las emisiones de las aerolíneas? - Traducción


Nota:
Este artículo cita las cifras del reporte AR5 del IPCC que salió en septiembre del 2013: “La aviación es hoy responsable de aproximadamente el 2 % de las emisiones de CO2”.
He preguntado por medio de twitter al IPCC si estas cifras incluyen las ‘“emisiones “internacionales no-estatales”’ que pueden llegar a ser de hasta un 60%, estas emisiones no se contaron en el reporte pasado, el AR4, según el estudio titulado: Diseñando una Política Ambiental para Reducir los Costes Sociales de las Emisiones de las Aeronaves 
(enlace en referencias)
Oscar E.



¿Quién asume el coste de las emisiones de las aerolíneas?
Por Mary Robinson
hindustantimes - 06 de noviembre 2013 

Los bloques de viviendas se derrumbaron como castillos de arena. Famosos puntos de referencia fueron tragados como ladrillos de lego. Pero lo más devastador de todo fue la pérdida masiva de vida - familias destrozadas por un desastre de proporciones aterradoras. Más de 5,700 personas están desaparecidas y se piensa que han muerto como consecuencia de las inundaciones del monzón, que arrasó el norte de la India a principios de este verano. El Instituto Potsdam para la Investigación del Clima en Alemania ha vinculado el calentamiento global a las lluvias extremas, trayendo a casa consecuencias impactantes que el cambio climático puede tener en los menos responsables de ello.

Shailesh Nayak , Secretario del Ministerio de Ciencias de la Tierra, ha hecho ha hecho la misma vinculación, diciendo: “El clima extremo es cada vez más común, las lluvias del  17 de junio pueden ser leídas en el contexto del cambio climático" Las emisiones de carbono provienen de varias fuentes, pero el crecimiento más rápido de ellas - la aviación internacional - es una que pocos de los muertos en el norte de la India nunca habrán disfrutado.

Las emisiones de dióxido de carbono corresponden sorprendentemente y estrechamente con la clase social. Así que en una inversión del principio de ‘quien contamina paga’, son los pobres los que están pagando la cuenta para el despilfarro de carbono de los países desarrollados. Esta es la injusticia del cambio climático.

La aviación es hoy responsable de aproximadamente el 2 % de las emisiones de CO2 hechas por el hombre en el planeta. Sin embargo, cuando los efectos de las emisiones de óxidos de nitrógeno, vapor de agua, hollín y sulfatos, estelas y formaciones amplificadas de nubes cirros también se tienen en cuenta, las mejores estimaciones científicas ponen la contribución global de la aviación al calentamiento global en un 4.9 %.

La Organización de Aviación Civil Internacional (OACI) ha pronosticado que las emisiones de CO2 procedentes de la aviación internacional (alrededor del 60 % de las emisiones de la aviación en total) pasarán de unos 400 millones de toneladas en 2010 a 650 millones de toneladas en 2020. Desenfrenadas, puede haber un aumento del 274 % en el combustible utilizado por las compañías aéreas en 2050, comparada con los niveles de 2006.

Dicho claramente, la industria de la aviación tiene una parte de responsabilidad en el ciclo acelerado de la sequía a las inundaciones que el cambio climático traerá a países como la India.

Sabemos algunos de los efectos que el calentamiento global trae en su rastro - más tormentas tropicales, los glaciares que se derriten, la escasez de agua dulce, el aumento de las enfermedades y el aumento del nivel del mar que a la larga ahogara las bajas ciudades costeras como Mumbai y Kolkata.

Todavía tenemos una franja de tiempo en el que podemos actuar para detener nuestra marcha sin sentido al desastre planetario. La cuestión de si se debe aplicar una medida basada en el mercado (MBM), lo que podría poner un precio a las emisiones de carbono de las compañías aéreas, es ahora un lugar central en la consideración de cómo hacer frente a los impactos de las emisiones de la aviación de la OACI.

El Banco Mundial estima que, con una carga de carbono de 25 dólares por tonelada de CO2, $40 mil millones al año podrían ser recabados de los sectores de la aviación y el transporte marítimo para el 2020.

La investigación sugiere que una MBM sobre la aviación podría ofrecer hasta $26 mil millones en fondos para el clima en el 2030. Esto sería una cantidad significativa, ya que un total de $97 mil millones está actualmente fluyendo hacia el bajo carbono y las actividades de desarrollo resistentes al cambio climático, de acuerdo con la Iniciativa de Política Climática.

Esto podría significar más barreras contra las inundaciones, casas mejor construidas y apoyo infraestructural después de los desastres climáticos, para que las personas más vulnerables a las crisis climáticas estén a menos merced del clima que estamos creando para ellos.

Si no se hace nada, los desastres como las inundaciones del monzón de este año solamente empeoraran y serán más frecuentes. No hacer nada no es una opción. El tiempo para que todos asuman su parte de la responsabilidad y de actuar es ahora. Y esto debe incluir la industria de la aviación.

Mary Robinson es  ex presidente de Irlanda y presidenta de la Fundación Mary Robinson - Justicia Climática


Las opiniones expresadas por el autor son personales

                                          -------------------------------


Titulo original en Inglés:

Who bears the cost of airline emissions?
By Mary Robinson
November 06, 2013

Referencias y más:

Las inundaciones de la India en junio de 2013: el cuarto desastre meteorológico de la Tierra desde 2000 

Designing An Environmental Policy to Reduce Social Costs of Aircraft Emissions

La Organización de Aviación Civil Internacional (OACI) 

AR5: Climate Change 2013: The Physical Science Basis
IPCC Working Group I

AR4: Contribution of Working Groups I, II and III to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change 
http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/syr/en/contents.html

 <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/"><img alt="Creative Commons License" style="border-width:0" src="http://i.creativecommons.org/l/by-nc/4.0/88x31.png" /></a><br /><span xmlns:dct="http://purl.org/dc/terms/" property="dct:title">A #Geoengineering #Climate Issues blog - Geoingeniería </span> by <a xmlns:cc="http://creativecommons.org/ns#" href="http://geoengineeringclimateissues.blogspot.com/" property="cc:attributionName" rel="cc:attributionURL">Oscar and Jocelyn Escobar</a> is licensed under a <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/">Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License</a>.

EL USO DEL MEDIOAMBIENTE COMO ARMA - Traducción


Jacob Darwin Hamblin ex alumo de la UCSB (Universidad de California, Santa Barbara) ofrece conferencia sobre "El ecologismo catastrófico”
Santa Barbara Independent - Novienbre 12, 2013

La primera pregunta planteada: ¿Qué tienen Henry Kissinger y Cyndi Lauper en común? 
La segunda pregunta: ¿Qué tienen los militares que ver con el movimiento ecologista?

En su conferencia en la UCSB, el 7 de noviembre el ex alumno Jacob Darwin Hamblin – quien obtuvo su licenciatura y doctorado en historia de la universidad - contestó ambas preguntas, dándole pistas a los asistentes en cuanto a cómo los científicos y los políticos, una vez vieron los desastres ambientales como posibles armas en la Tercera Guerra Mundial, pero luego vinieron a verlos como una batalla que todo el mundo tendría que luchar.

La conferencia de Hamblin se basó en su tercer libro, Armando a la Madre Naturaleza: El nacimiento del Ecologismo catastrófico, en la que sostiene que los científicos y los políticos se dieron cuenta de que si el medio ambiente es algo que podían manipular en contra de los enemigos, era también algo que la gente podria cambiar, punto. “Si queremos saber cómo hemos llegado a comprender los cambios ambientales catastróficos, tenemos que empezar con las personas que trataron de producirlos ", dijo Hamblin.

Gran parte de esa especulación realmente se arraigó en 1960, después de un terremoto de 9.5 grados de magnitud que sacudió a Chile, dijo Hamblin. La fuerza y la destrucción causadas por el terremoto hizo que líderes se preguntasen si este tipo de catástrofes podrían ser provocadas, ya sea dejando caer una bomba nuclear sobre una falla o usando una bomba de hidrógeno para dirigir un huracán. Cuando los funcionarios de la OTAN se enteraron de que los esquimales dependían en la carne de reno, se preguntaron en qué otras poblaciones dependían. Tales ideas, Hamblin dijo, "condujeron a una visión mundial científica obsesionada con el cambio, la manipulación y la vulnerabilidad " - y cómo los líderes militares podrían utilizar los desastres naturales y la destrucción de cultivos para maximizar la muerte.

Incluso antes de 1960, dijo Hamblin, los funcionarios estadounidenses jugaron con la idea de la guerra ambiental. Durante la Guerra de Corea, por ejemplo, el entonces congresista Albert Gore, padre - el padre del ex vicepresidente Al Gore - sugirió que los residuos radiactivos se utilizaran para crear una línea divisoria en la península de Corea. (Esta estrategia se consideró ineficaz y no se utilizó.) Antes de eso, en los primeros años de 1900, el escarabajo de Colorado se comió su camino a través de los cultivos de papa en todo el país y eventualmente en Europa.

El flagelo del insecto duró hasta la Segunda Guerra Mundial, provocando a Eslovaquia a acusar a los Estados Unidos de dejar caer el escarabajo para devastar su cosecha, dijo Hamblin. A través de los cultivos, Gran Bretaña entró en la refriega del medio ambiente - aunque más con propósitos defensivos que ofensivos - dándose cuenta de que un paisaje simplificado no presentaba una fuerte oposición. Demasiados pesticidas, los funcionarios ingleses encontraron, eran causantes de poca diversidad ecológica y por lo tanto de mayor riesgo de un golpe al nivel del escarabajo de Colorado.

Hamblin, que se crió en una familia de militares y ahora es profesor asociado de historia en la Universidad Estatal de Oregón, impulsado al describir cómo el presidente Nixon y el Secretario de Estado Henry Kissinger - de nuevo insinuándose a esa primera pregunta planteada – confrontó los riesgos ambientales en Vietnam a como un tratado internacional firmado por los Estados Unidos en 1977 que prohíbe a los gobiernos el empleo de modificación ambiental realmente no prohíbe casi nada.

El tratado estipula que tales actos debían ser "duraderos y graves", un criterio que no se ajustaba a los herbicidas o armas nucleares, aunque actos como la manipulación de huracanes quedaron efectivamente prohibidos. Cerrando el círculo de vuelta a su primera pregunta, Hamblin habló de la sequía, el hambre y el SIDA que azotaron a África en la década de 1980 - y como Cyndi Lauper, con otros cantantes, lanzaron la canción "We Are the World", que ayudó a recaudar millones de dólares en ayuda humanitaria para los países africanos.


La conferencia forma parte de una serie anual en honor al difunto profesor de historia Larry Badash - que fue asesor de Hamblin.

Titulo original en Inglés:

Using the Environment as a Weapon
UCSB Alum Jacob Darwin Hamblin Delivers Lecture on ‘Catastrophic Environmentalism’
Santa Barbara Independent – November 12, 2013

Otros enlaces:

Convención sobre la prohibición de utilizar técnicas de modificación ambiental con fines militares u otros fines hostiles (ENMOD)
Página del Comité Internacional de la Cruz Roja, Geneva
http://www.icrc.org/spa/resources/documents/misc/treaty-1976-enmod-convention-5tdm2l.htm

Thursday, October 10, 2013

What are the effects of aviation on the water cycle?



After reading his article[1] in Scientific American magazine in which he talks about persistent contrails, cirrus clouds and aviation emissions in general , I wanted to ask David Biello, journalist editor of the magazine, if the effects on the hydrological cycle of these aviation emissions are similar to those of geoengineering .

I think that due to the limit of 140 characters I could not articulate my question clearly, but still  Mr. Biello’s kind reply and the short conversation  that followed were interesting to me and gave me much to think about.

In the first tweet was the title of the article, the link and my original question:


(OE) Airplane #Pollution Needs to Descend http://www.scientificamerican.com/podcast/episode.cfm?id=airplane-pollution-needs-to-descend-13-10-06
@dbiello hydrological cycle effects of #aviation #emissions = #Geoengineering?


Leaving aside the issues of the hydrological cycle and the concept of intentionality, his reply:


(DB) "that's a very good question. i'd say yes as "soft" geoengineering but no formally since unintentional (at this point)”


Indicates to me that in fact he believes, aviation emissions are a form of ‘soft’ geoengineering

Blogger John Kennard pointed out that:


(JK) "In the week-long aviation shutdown after 9/11 in the US the country noticeably cooled. #greenhouse #AGW"


Regarding the flights stoppage after 9/11 it was noted that daytime temperatures rose and nighttime temperatures fell.[2]  But in general persistent contrails and cirrus clouds from aviation contribute to global warming.

The Working Group I of the IPCC 's latest report, the AR5, specifically confirms the greenhouse effect (positive forcing) by the artificial cloudiness produced by aviation,[3] but does not quantify or even explore its effects on the hydrological cycle. The report recognizes that there is a relationship between aerosols in general and changes in precipitation but admits that the magnitude of these changes are still un-clear.[4]

The report adds this about the RF “This forcing can be much larger regionally but there is now medium confidence that it does not produce observable regional effects on either the mean or diurnal range of surface temperature."

Well, the short conversation continued, but concentrated on the theme of 'intentionality' which is an integral part to the definition of geoengineering as noted by both David Biello and Dr. Victor Galaz, Associate Professor at The Stockholm Resilience Centre and co -author of the CBD’s paper: IMPACTS OF CLIMATE-RELATED GEOENGINEERING ON BIOLOGICAL DIVERSITY.[5]

There are various definitions of geoengineering, definitions that could still change, but they always include the concept of intentionality.  In Wikipedia (en español) I wrote:

(translated) The Royal Society defines geoengineering as “the deliberate large-scale manipulation of the planetary environment to counteract anthropogenic climate change" [6] [7]

In this definition the concept of ' intentionality' seems to be very concise and easy to understand.

But when you want to talk about the known effects of commercial aviation and marine traffic of cargo ships, which can be very similar to those of a geoengineering program, the concept of 'intentionality 'becomes very complex.[8]  To me it seems like very 'meta ' because it attempts to describe an actual, visible and ongoing reality as… beyond reality; as if it was not happening, or was only hypothetical. In the end it becomes something like…

In a very brief way and specific to aviation, some philosophical concepts might say that:

Although it is known that certain actions when traveling by plane or that the mere act of traveling by plane produces an effect comparable to geoengineering, if the main (perceived)  intention is transportation or any other purpose that is not specifically declared to be for changing the climate, then performing these actions and indeed change the climate is not geoengineering.  It is to say that (all) side effects are 'unintended'. Similarly if it is known that taking certain actions would prevent climate change, but they are not taken, or even preventing them and therefore produce climate change, this still is not geoengineering. And what's more, purposely using fuels or additives known to ultimately exacerbate climate change, e.g. through cloudiness, or increased aerosol generation would not constitute geoengineering if it is perceived as being done with intentions other than geoengineering.
I disagree with this concept of intentionality, but I will not write about it today.

My intention as I said earlier, was to ask about the effects of aviation on the hydrological cycle, so I asked again in a different way.

(OE) I'd like to ask: do #aviation #emissions affect the #hydrological cycle in a way similar to what a SRM #geoengineering prog. would?

(DB) i think it depends on the scale of a SRM geoengineering prog. so, for example, a global sulfate distribution would be bigger...

Noting that the aviation’s sulfate distribution is global, my reply included a link to a study: [9]

(OE) But #aviation's sulfate dist. is global.

In his last reply David Biello emphasizes:

( DB ) like i said, depends on scale of the geoengineering effort then, doesn't it

I agreed, it is relative. I wanted to ask if there was an up to date quantification of the effects of aviation on the hydrological cycle both globally and regionally. In other words: are there measurements of the effects of aviation on rain, drought, etc.; at global and regional level ? Who has done it? I asked the question this way:

(OE) yes! But as of now does anyone know, or is there quantification of actual present #aviation effects on global and regional hydro?

That was it. There was no reply.

Anyway I am thankful for the twitter chat. It was more than I expected.

For me it is clear that there is a relationship between aviation and the hydrological cycle, and the fact that there is not much information, or that is not easy to find it; is very disturbing, especially in light of the recent years of drought and floods that have been suffered globally. How much of it can be attributed to aviation? Disturbing, but there may be hope of reducing those effects if measures (but not more geoengineering!) are taken to reduce the impacts of aviation.

I’ll keep looking for studies, or wait to see if the, still to come, IPCC reports address the issue specifically and in depth.


Updates:

November 16, 2013

“But I didn’t mean it!” Why it’s so hard to prioritize impacts over intents.
By Melanie Tannenbaum | October 14, 2013

“It’s not about intent. It’s about impact.”

“The overall message in all of these conversations is that when someone does something hurtful or offensive to another person, the perpetrator’s intent is not what’s most important when gauging the appropriateness of an action — in fact, many would say that it is inherently privileged to redirect the focus of a conversation to the perpetrator’s (presumably harmless) intentions, rather than focusing on the feelings and experiences of the person who has been harmed. So, the point is that we really need to focus on impact, not intent. Was someone hurt by something? Was there a negative outcome? Did someone suffer? If so, that is what’s important. Whether or not the perpetrator meant to cause harm is not.”


“As long as we continue to engage with societal issues in which there is an agent with intentions and a patient receiving the consequences of those actions, we must all struggle to tease apart these issues of intent and impact. We must all focus on how actions that harm others — regardless of intent — need to be addressed, not pushed under the rug because the agent “didn’t mean” to do anything wrong. Yet at the same time, we must learn to understand our own cognitive biases, and how we can’t continue to treat intent and impact as if they are cognitively separate, orthogonal factors.”

Geoengineering: Goldilocks effect to cloud seeding

Get this climate techno-fix right, and the effect is dramatic, Get it wrong, though, and you make the problem worse. So how do you get this to work as planned?
By Philip Ball - BBC

http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20130304-the-trouble-with-cloud-seeding

November 10, 2013

Who bears the cost of airline emissions?

"Aviation is today responsible for some 2% of the planet’s man-made CO2 emissions. But when the effects of nitrogen oxide emissions, water vapour, soot and sulphates, contrails and enhanced cirrus cloud formations are also factored in, the best scientific estimates put aviation’s overall contribution to global warming at 4.9%.

The International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) has forecast that CO2 emissions from international aviation (about 60% of total aviation emissions) will grow from approximately 400 million tonnes in 2010 to 650 million tonnes by 2020. Unchecked, there may be a 274% increase in the fuel used by airlines by 2050, measured against 2006 levels.

Put plainly, the aviation industry bears a share of responsibility for the accelerated drought-flood cycle that climate change will bring to countries such as India." (emphasis mine)

http://www.hindustantimes.com/comment/columnsothers/who-bears-the-cost-of-airline-emissions/article1-1147628.aspx


October 24, 2013

Volcanic-ash sensor to take flight 
Researchers will fly jet towards giant artificial particle cloud to test safety device.

http://www.nature.com/news/volcanic-ash-sensor-to-take-flight-1.14001?WT.ec_id=NATURE-20131024



October 23, 2012:

The conversation here:
https://twitter.com/oscare2000/status/387260950086049792


Added paragraph:


And what's more, purposely using fuels or additives known to ultimately exacerbate climate change e.g. through cloudiness, or increased aerosol generation, would not constitute geoengineering if it is perceived as being done with intentions other than geoengineering.





                                              ------------------------------------


References

[1] Airplane Pollution Needs to Descend
Airplanes may only contribute roughly 2 percent of the greenhouse gases warming the atmosphere. But they are one of the fastest growing sources. David Biello reports

[2] Jet Contrails Alter Average Daily Temperature Range

[3]  WORKING GROUP I CONTRIBUTION TO THE IPCC FIFTH ASSESSMENT
REPORT (AR5), CLIMATE CHANGE 2013: THE PHYSICAL SCIENCE BASIS 
Chapter 7: Clouds and Aerosols - Final Draft Underlying Scientific-Technical Assessment  (pg. 7-5]

[4] WORKING GROUP I CONTRIBUTION TO THE IPCC FIFTH ASSESSMENT
REPORT (AR5), CLIMATE CHANGE 2013: THE PHYSICAL SCIENCE BASIS 
Chapter 7: Clouds and Aerosols - Final Draft Underlying Scientific-Technical Assessment (pgs. 7-55-58)

[5] IMPACTS OF CLIMATE-RELATED GEOENGINEERING ON BIOLOGICAL DIVERSITY

[6] Geoingeniería

[7] Geoengineering the climate: science, governance and uncertainty

[8] Starting a flood to stop a fire? Some moral constraints on solar radiation management
by David Morrow

[9] Effects of aircraft on aerosol abundance in the upper troposphere
G. V. Ferry
Creative Commons License
A #Geoengineering #Climate Issues blog - Geoingeniería by Oscar and Jocelyn Escobar is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.Licencia Creative Commons
A #Geoengineering #Climate Issues blog por Oscar y Jocelyn Escobar se distribuye bajo una Licencia Creative Commons Atribución-NoComercial 4.0 Internacional.