Bill Gates chucks cash at climate cooling cloud creator Boffins want to curb climate change by building a $7bn fleet of 1,900 ships to crisscross the oceans as each sucks up ten tons of seawater per second and blasts it a kilometer into the sky to create clouds to absorb sunlight and cool the earth. And Bill Gates is funding them. No, really. The Times Online reports that a San …
3.5m a ship is pretty cheap.
More to the point, the total cost is hugely cheap -- far far less that the world is poised to spend on carbon credits.
Will it work? I don't know if it would be enough, but it clearly ties in with all the research that says clouds cool the earth.
"Neukermanns didn't mention whether the ships would be diesel-powered. "
Why ever not Astute NEUKlearer Powered and Protected for Secured Windows 7 Master Control?
amfM makes Microsoft an Offer .... which is not presently a Hostile Advanced Probe of Core Drivers for Source/Ore/Lode/SMART Nodes/Virtual Gene Machines for Human Robots.
With Core Driver CodeXSSXXXXPosed is any Operating System Overtaken by Events which were earlier Unimagined or Dismissed.
I guess they didn't read the bit in their Dummies Guide to Climate Engineering about water actually being a greenhouse gas, so if you're increasing the amount of water vapour at lower altitudes, some will be forced up to higher altitudes where its less humid simply by natural equilibriums, and at these higher altitudes it will keep more heat inside the atmosphere.
Then there's the weather influences these actions will have, the most obvious detrimental effect would be flooding, perhaps even flash floods, and the legal repercussions of this once the damage is determined to be from a cloud formed by these machines. There's also the question of how much impact this will have on regional and global climate processes over the short term, will it affect crop growing seasons, will the increased cloud cause rain to fall before it reaches areas it used to reach, thus creating new arid regions.
IMO this seems as badly thought out as the idea several years ago of just dumping millions of tons of iron dust into the oceans to encourage algal blooms (consuming CO2, but using up nutrients and killing whole areas of the ocean ecosystem). Natural systems operate in a fine balance, they can counteract or stabilise changes over a long period (hence past climate change), but its far better for us to reduce our impact on the climate than to try and tinker with these systems even more in the hope that we fix something, and can carry on polluting without a care.
...where does the water come down? Can countries sue them if there are damaging flash-floods?
...does it affect the heating of the oceans? If so, how does that affect occean currents? Will the gulf-stream switch-off?
Oh and hate to be a pedant, but I think they want to couds to reflect the sunlight away from Earth, not absorb it (which would heat the Earth more).
Lets perform an action whose consequences globally we cant even begin to predict and which could potenitally effect the entire planets weather system.
Somehow i knew Bill Gates would eventually try and take over the world, but using weather control technology is so 1960's! He must be laughing all the way to his secret volcanic island base...
And in 50-odd years the headlines will read "Turn everything on! Heat the planet before we all freeze to death!"
This idea is, of course, is nothing more than a salve to the American conscience. Something to make the Yanks think it is still A-OK to drive their 5-litre behemoth the 250 metres to the gym every other day. Because, yea, there is a ship at sea "off-setting" all that "heat".
Why not just blast a giant filter into space, place it between us and the sun. You could even make the opacity controllable. Heck, I am sure a clever person could even use it to write messages "Today brought to you by XYX Ltd. Yes, we commoditised the sun".
Either way, it amounts to the same thing. The Yanks can keep chugging that oil down (until the local supply runs low, then it's just a few wars to secure more) and do the square root of feck all to actually help the situation. Same holds true for China, S.Korea etc and will hold true for India et al.
Unless a politician can see a way of getting a tax from it, they don't care. In Europe we have the taxes, but they don't go to investment in viable renewables or anything. Nope, it's there to subsidise the champagne. You can tell that because the idiots still can't make up their mind where to have the EU parliament. If they really did see global warming (or whatever they call it this week) as a threat they would stay put in ONE building. And not a new one at that. Something recycled.
I suggest Sealand.
Then we can torpedo it and be done with the entire horde of parasites.
[Note to the CPS: The last line is not to be taken as a serious threat to torpedo Sealand or any other [ex-]military structure. Nor is is to be taken as a serious threat to attack MEPs or any of their unelected and secret committees. It is meant in as a satirical (well, OK, sarcastic) statement and a point of discussion, nothing more.]
Rain, rain rain and cloudy weather.
So not much change there. Although I'm not clear what or who gives this guy the right to turn off the sunshine for the whole planet. Maybe he should try it out near the shores of California and Florida first, see how the people who caused most of this problem like it when their holidays get clouded over.
A truck of fertiliser in a suitable location on Iceland every couple of weeks or so. Meltwater entering the crater. A bit of woof, a bit of ash, a bit of ash-based cooling. Voila, job done.
As far as the plane industry they can happily switch to building diesel powered ground effect craft. Or diesel powered blimps.
I am not being flippant by the way. Economically and environmentally the combination of both will deliver both the required travel (who cares if it takes 16h to get to NYC instead of 5, your day is screwed anyway) and environmental effect. At a fraction of the cost.
The problem is that the "murder everyone from above" AKA "aviation industry" lobby has continued to have lots of undue influence since the days of Dresden, Hiroshima and Nagasaki and air transportation tech that does not have double use for mass murder is continuously being sidelined by all parties involved.
Do these people actually use their brains?
Do they know that our only way to turn CO2 back into oil-gas-coal etc… is by photosynthesis and that therefore more clouds=less sun=bad?
Do they know that water vapour is one of the worst greenhouse gas ? the fact that clouds reflects light DOESN'T compensate for the increased greenhouse effect.
If billionnaires continue to think having money makes them smart, our planet will soon look like Venus…
Here are a few quotes from wikipedia (yeah...yeah...) about Venus :
--------------
Studies have suggested that several billion years ago Venus's atmosphere was much more like Earth's than it is now, and that there were probably substantial quantities of liquid water on the surface, but a runaway greenhouse effect was caused by the evaporation of that original water, which generated a critical level of greenhouse gases in its atmosphere.
---------
These clouds reflect about 60% of the sunlight that falls on them back into space
---------
Without the greenhouse effect caused by the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, the temperature at the surface of Venus would be quite similar to that on Earth.
--------
The CO2-rich atmosphere, along with thick clouds of sulfur dioxide, generates the strongest greenhouse effect in the Solar System, creating surface temperatures of over 460 °C (860 °F). This makes Venus's surface hotter than Mercury's which has a minimum surface temperature of −220 °C and maximum surface temperature of 420 °C, even though Venus is nearly twice Mercury's distance from the Sun and thus receives only 25% of Mercury's solar irradiance.
(end of quotes)
So yeah, creating more clouds is going to have the exact opposite effect of what they want. :/
"... makes Venus's surface hotter than Mercury's... even though Venus is nearly twice Mercury's distance from the Sun and thus receives only 25% of Mercury's solar irradiance."
Ah, smell that? It's what comes from the south end of a northbound bovine. It is true and anyone who looks it up will be aghast but they probably won't look up the definition of solar irradiance and finds its units, W/m^2. A bit of quick math will show the area of Mercury to be roughly 1/6 that of Venus and carrying that a bit further shows that 4 times the irradiance on 1/6 the area results in 2/3 the power. Could it be that Venus is hotter because it receives more solar energy than Mercury? Flames because somewhere a straw man burning.
Bring on the thumbs down wiki brigade!
It may or may not stop global warming, but if it does anything at all, it'll be a good proof of concept that geoengineering is not just for science fiction any more. Perhaps that can be the starting point for something. It's also easily reversible (just stop doing it, the water will fall down quickly) and unlikely to do anything dramatic anyway, which makes it a very good choice for an experiment that deals with global climate.
I thought all the fuss with climate gate stuff lately had essentially illustrated that we DON'T know what's really going on with the climate, what we have are guesses and theories not facts and rules.
So now people want to start tampering with the earths albedo levels? This sound marginally less intelligent than the Merkins efforts to 'improve' the ecosystem of yellowstone park by removing the main predators. (wolves)
And there are no rules to prevent people doing this? I know, I think I'll go see what I can do to create as much micro particulates as possible because I have a theory that global warming will save us from an ice age! Can I legally do this? (not that I'm actually that stupid, just making a point before I get flamed for the micro-particulate thing)
"Stephen Salter, Emeritus Professor of Engineering Design at the University of Edinburgh, said that there was no need to wait for regulations because the trials would not add chemicals to the atmosphere"
So presumably whatever method they use to form the micro droplets (evaporation would be a nice easy one), gets rid of the salt.
If global warming is occuring sufficiently to be dmaging that it doesn't matter a damn whether its man made or not, and the most economical engineering solution should be sought. The doctrinaire stuff about manmade this and trying to reverse CO2 ommissions needs to be junked in favour of the most effective engineering solution...
This post has been deleted by its author
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=albedo-yachts-and-marine-clouds
The challenge of micron-size droplets
Ultimately, to counteract the effects of a doubling of the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere from preindustrial levels... each of the 1,500 ships must do something no one has ever attempted — transform 30 liters of seawater per second into a uniform spray of micron-size droplets... the saltwater droplets sprayed into the atmosphere must be between 0.8 and two microns across. (For reference, two microns is about the size of an Escherichia coli bacterium.)
"Trying to make these droplets is really the crucial part, and it remains to be seen if it's going to work," says Armand Neukermans, an engineer and serial entrepreneur who is attempting to lead the U.S.-based effort to create a suitable spray system. Neukermans, a veteran of Xerox and Hewlett–Packard, has gathered a team of a dozen engineers who, like him, have expertise in creating micron-size particles for printing and micro-fabrication. The group includes John Vaught, who was the primary inventor of thermal inkjet printing while at HP. Many of the group's members are semi-retired, and all are working on a mostly volunteer basis.
"We're the plumbers," Neukermans says. "It's an eclectic group."
When its hot, water evaporates. The planet is ~2/3rds water (by surface), so 2/3rds of the suns rays heat water throughout the day, evaporating it and therefore bringing this water vapour into the sky. (This as a Patent troll, I have the Patent on by the way - just incase any of you lot are about to copy this idea!) So this 'heat' from the Sun should self regulate the entire planet (I also have this Patent!), creating more evaporation, and therefore increasing the reflected rays back into space, thus reducing the global warming.
Problem is that it does not work. Otherwise global warming would self regulate - though we would just have a more polluted planet, but the same temperature.
I agree with all the comments about this not seeming to be thought through very well, but as an RnD project, thats the point they will hopefully think this through properly.
my first thought was also about not needing more clouds in the UK etc, and its all a bit Mr burns, blocking out the sun, but you could also put clouds where you wanted too presumably. so maybe all that un-used desert space / lack of water in the likes of etheopa etc, if we could give them water by tactically creating clouds and cool the planet all in one, in a 'thought through' system, then some RnD is a good thing surely..!
just imagne, no more live aid concerts, its worth it just for that surely......!
Well, I wanted to see what the firm itself says about its proposal, but I can't find a thing. Bill plops down $300K for a sea-going humidifier (atomized sea water blown into the atmosphere) but I didn't see if someone had actually built anything yet. Really, not even a simple one-stack prototype unit?
By the way, anybody else notice something horribly wrong with that ship? Such as, how a little ship is supposed to keep enormous stacks like that upright? I would be amazed to see those remain upright in calm seas, let alone a storm. Maybe those stacks collapse back down. Anyways, I'd love to see plans for this money pit.
Bill Gates, if you're reading this, if you want to save yourself 3 billion dollars and be known as the man that *reversed man made climate change*, take note.
Are you ready? It's quick, it's easy, can be done with minimal effort and with no damage to your wallet.
Wipe 2 billion people off the planet.
There we go wasn't that easy!!!
If there aren't people here to drive big 5ltr cars or fly around the world because they can then it's not possible to dump crap into the atmosphere.
Sterilised at birth, an IQ test before being reversed and only one child per couple gets my vote. Oh and no gingers. Unless they're fit... and willing to take their clothes off to entertain IT nerds like me.
Just more of the usual "throw cash and a hare-brained scheme at it" solution.
If reflecting more sunlight back into space to cool the Earth is what they're after, why not just insist that all new roof construction and replacement be done in white?
Just quick round guesstimating says that should produce a reflective surface about the size of Texas.
In one of the most incredibly silly examples of fashion over function I've seen, the dominant house design in Perth, Western Australia, features a black tile roof and insufficient eaves to keep the sun off the windows in summer.
This depressing state of affairs has continue to grow over the last decade and the government's wimpy attempts to legislate "climate-friendly" points systems don't impose sufficient penalty to reverse it.
The roar of air-conditioning in summer drowns out the traffic noise in our street.
They've actually created a prototype of this ship and tested the possibilities. It's a nice program although I'm quite sceptic about the idea of us changing the planets climate. Then again, this could be tested relatively small so any mishaps should not trigger the next ice age.
If anyone looks at real temperature data for the last 12 years, global temperature are going down. Even as Mojib Latif an AGW non scientist who predicts that the world will be cooling for the next 30-40 years without anyone doing anything.
One small hurricane puts more water into the air and removes it in one hour than all these imaginaire cloud formers can do in 10 years. Mother Nature has had the system worked out for 10 billion years- it's called evaproation and rain. -the weather. Climate is an accumulation of thousands of weather days.
WHAT A WASTE OF TIME AND MONEY THAT COULD BE USE TO BETTER EDUCATE REAL SCIENTISTS -NOT THE MONEY GRABING FAKEs THAT ARE at EPA AND NASA Like Jim Hansen.
We need more honest scientists like Alan Carlin of EPA.
Global stupidity on full display! No such thing as climate change... these buoyant barges of buffoonery will amount to nothing but shipping lane obstacles and monumental waste of money. How can someone that created so much wealth be so gullible at the same time...
idiocy.
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