Science Daily November 23, 2018 A team of researchers in the US (Yale University, Harvard University) reviewed the capabilities and costs of various lofting methods intended to deliver sulfates into the lower stratosphere. They lay out a future solar geoengineering deployment scenario of halving the increase in anthropogenic radiative forcing beginning 15 years hence by deploying material to altitudes as high as ~20 km. After surveying an exhaustive list of potential deployment techniques, they settled upon an aircraft-based delivery system. Unlike the one prior comprehensive study on the topic, they conclude that no existing aircraft design—even with extensive modifications—can reasonably […]
Tag Archives: Climatology
Geoengineering will happen, China controlling rain across Tibet
Next Big Future October 14, 2018 China and 23 other countries already engage in significant weather modification. China is setting up or has already set up a level of rain control across Tibet and other parts of China. Tens of thousands of fuel-burning chambers will be installed across the Tibetan mountains, with a view to boosting rainfall in the region by up to 10 billion tons of rain annually. In 2013, China was already producing 55 billion tons per year of artificially induced rain. China is expanding this to over 250 billion tons per year…read more.
Research forecasts US among top nations to suffer economic damage from climate change
Science Daily September 24, 2018 An international team of researchers (USA – UC San Diego, Carnegie Institution, Italy) used an innovative approach by combining results from several climate and carbon cycle modeling experiments to capture the magnitude and geographic pattern of warming under different greenhouse gas emission trajectories, and the carbon-cycle and climate system response to carbon emissions. They have developed a data set quantifying what the social cost of carbon — the measure of the economic harm from carbon dioxide emissions — will be for the globe’s nearly 200 countries. The top three counties with the most to lose […]
Earth at risk of heading towards ‘hothouse Earth’ state
Science Daily July 6, 2018 According to a study by an international team of researchers (Sweden, Australia, Denmark, UK, USA – University of Arizona, Stanford, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany) “Hothouse Earth” climate will in the long-term stabilize at a global average of 4-5°C higher than pre-industrial temperatures with sea level 10-60 m higher than today, even if the carbon emission reductions called for in the Paris Agreement are met. Maximizing the chances of avoiding a “Hothouse Earth” requires not only reduction of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions but also enhancement and/or creation of new biological carbon stores, through […]
Hole in ionosphere is caused by sudden stratospheric warming
Phys.org August 7, 2018 A team of researchers in the US (MIT Haystack Observatory, University of Colorado, University of Puerto Rico, University of Wisconsin) used decades data from Haystack and Puerto Rico observatories to study the sudden stratospheric warming (SSW) event from January 2013 separating the effects of other known effects on the SSW. They found that electron density in the nighttime ionosphere was dramatically reduced by the effects of the SSW for several days, a significant hole was formed that stretched across hemispheres from latitudes 55 degrees S to 45 degrees N also and they measured a strong downward […]
New particle formation found to occur in heavily polluted air
Phys.org July 20, 2018 An international team of researchers (China, Finland, Sweden, Estonia, USA – industry, Carnegie Mellon University) investigated new particle formation (NPF) in Shanghai and were able to observe both precursor vapors (H2SO4) and initial clusters at a molecular level. High NPF rates were observed to coincide with several familiar markers suggestive of H2SO4–dimethylamine –water nucleation, including sulfuric acid dimers and H2SO4-DMA clusters. NPFs can lead to cloud formation of a type that traps heat. According to the researchers it is likely having a bigger impact on global warming than has been thought. They suggest climate change models […]
Can geoengineering ever be low risk?
Physics World June 13, 2018 At the European Union General Assembly in Vienna in April, the World Meteorological Organization proposed that to meet the Paris agreement on global warming, we should look seriously at the artificial manipulation of the climate through geoengineering. Geo-engineering strategies fall into two groups: carbon dioxide removal (CDR) and solar radiation management (SRM). Afforestation and land management, ocean fertilisation and carbon capture and storage are soft approaches to CDR with low-risk. There are currently no low-risk technologies for SRM, and further research is needed to quantify risks. Geo-engineering strategies that act to cool the planet and […]
MOF material offers selective, reversible and repeatable capture of toxic atmospheric gas
Science Daily June 11, 2018 An international team of researchers (UK, USA – Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Russia, France, China) has developed an MOF, denoted as MFM-300(Al), which exhibits reversible, selective capture of nitrogen dioxide at ambient pressures and temperatures — at low concentrations — in the presence of moisture, sulfur dioxide and carbon dioxide. Despite the highly reactive nature of nitrogen dioxide, the MFM-300(Al) material proved extremely robust, demonstrating the capability to be fully regenerated, or degassed, multiple times without loss of crystallinity or porosity. This work may pave the way for the development of future capture and conversion technologies… […]
Universal migration predicts human movements under climate change
Physics World June 12, 2018 An international team of researchers (USA – Columbia University, The Nature Conservancy, North Carolina State University, UC Berkeley, Italy) modified a diffusion-based model of human mobility in combination with population, geographic, and climatic data to estimate the sources, destinations, and flux of potential migrants as driven by sea level rise (SLR) in Bangladesh in the years 2050 and 2100. By linking the sources of migrants displaced by SLR with their likely destinations, they demonstrated an effective approach for predicting climate-driven migrant flows, especially in data-limited settings… read more. Open Access TECHNICAL ARTICLE
This Has Got to Be One of The Most Beautiful And Powerful Climate Change Visuals We’ve Ever Seen
Science Alert May 25, 2018 Climate scientist Ed Hawkins has been developing unique ways to make climate change easier for the public to imagine. And his newest project has got to be one of the most beautiful and powerful climate change visuals we’ve ever seen. Starting with dark blue and ending in dark red, Hawkins creates a clear and terrifying translation of global warming using the UK’s Met Office data from 1850 to 2017… read more.