Memorandum 152
Submission from John C D Nissen
SUMMARY
- Gravity of situation-global warming poses
a threat to the survival of human civilisation.
- State of denial-few scientists are prepared
to admit that there is an issue of survival.
- Role of geoengineering-it has the capability
to save the day.
- Different types of geoengineering-reflecting
sunlight and sequestration.
- Saving the Arctic sea ice-reflecting sunlight
using stratospheric aerosols and reflecting sunlight through tropospheric
cloud brightening are most promising.
- Removing CO2 from the atmosphere-biochar
has great potential.
- Geoengineering discipline-understand the
climate science.
- Research and deployment-need for an engineering
mentality and leadership.
- Response from government-nobody alert to
the dangers.
- Conclusion-experimental trials of geoengineering
with stratospheric aerosols and cloud brightening are urgently
needed.
1. GRAVITY OF
THE SITUATION
1. The earth's climate system shows signs
of tipping into a new super-hot state (over 6°C warming),
with barren lands, sterile seas, mass extinctions, a huge rise
in sea level and almost inevitably the collapse of human civilisation.
Over the past century, the earth's energy balance has been disturbed
by a growing pulse of anthropogenic greenhouse gases in the atmosphere,
now more than sufficient to tip the system. Even if one could
halt all CO2 emissions overnight, the acceleration of global warming
towards the super-hot state would continue.
2. On top of this, there are growing positive
feedbacks on global warming, acting both directly and indirectly:
- global warming melts snow and ice, allowing
greater absorption of sunlight, with the effect of increasing
global warming directly;
- global warming melts permafrost and frozen
bogs, releasing CO2 and methane to increase global warming indirectly;
and
- global warming warms the oceans, reducing
their CO2 absorption capability, thus increasing CO2 lifetime
in the atmosphere, to increase global warming indirectly.
3. But global warming is not the only problem.
If one could halt it overnight, the growing CO2 levels would eventually
lead to sterile seas through ocean acidification, already considered
a serious problem for shell-forming creatures.
2. STATE OF
DENIAL
4. What is not generally appreciated among
non-scientists is the seriousness of the situation with global
warming. Scientists themselves do not want to believe what they
are seeing, and certainly don't want to make others feel as scared
as they may feel themselves. They shelter behind a cosy but false
consensus, such as set up by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change, which ignored the strong positive feedback in the climate
system, especially the feedback resulting from Arctic sea ice
retreat, thus giving us absurdly optimistic forecasts.[15]
The real possibility of the Arctic Ocean becoming ice free in
summer 2013, or sooner, is still not accepted by the Hadley Centre.
Thus the sources of advice for the government are not stressing
how immediate the danger is, nor how absolutely catastrophic it
would be if we do not successfully counter the threat over the
next few years. Martin Parry, ex-chair of the Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change, has said that "survival is not the
issue", but that's exactly what it is.
3. ROLE OF
GEOENGINEERING
5. We define geoengineering as engineering
on a large scale intended to:
- halt or reverse the rise in levels of greenhouse
gases in the atmosphere; and
- halt or reverse the effects of excess greenhouse
gases in the atmosphere: global warming, increased climate variability,
sea level rise, and ocean acidification.
6. The immediate goal of geoengineering
must be to halt the summer retreat of Arctic sea ice, since this
cannot be done by emissions reductions alone. The long term goal
must be to stabilise the climate and counter ocean acidification.
Fortunately at least one geoengineering technique has the capability
of success for both goals, and at remarkably low cost.
4. DIFFERENT
TYPES OF
GEOENGINEERING
7. There are two principle types of geoengineering:
- solar radiation management (SRM) for cooling;
and
- sequestration methods, including carbon
capture and storage (CCS), for removing CO2 from the atmosphere.
8. Solar radiation management involves techniques
to reflect solar energy back into space, typically using fine
particles or aerosols in the atmosphere, but it can include techniques
such as painting roofs and covering deserts with reflective material.
9. Sequestration generally involves absorbing
CO2 from the atmosphere by photosynthesis of plants or marine
creatures and then burying the carbon. This kind of geoengineering
can embrace agricultural practice, bioengineering, genetic engineering,
chemical engineering, constructional engineering and marine engineering
to achieve particular goals.
Thus geoengineering covers an enormously wide
range of disciplines.
5. SAVING THE
ARCTIC SEA
ICE
10. The halting the summer retreat of Arctic
sea ice can be addressed by solar radiation management, but also
some other techniques. There is so much at stake (including our
own survival) that I believe we should pull out all the stops
to restore the sea ice. We should try anything that:
- can be scaled up to have a significant
positive impact;
- can be scaled up within two or three years;
- has a low chance of significant negative
impact; and
- can be stopped before any unexpected negative
impact becomes significant.
11. So main candidates include:
(i) creating stratospheric clouds-using precursor
injection to generate aerosols;
(ii creating contrails-using an additive to aircraft
fuel; and
(iii) brightening of marine clouds over the North
Sea to cool the surface water entering the Arctic Ocean.
12. These all involve solar radiation management.
They are all remarkably cheap to deploy, and one might only need
a few million pounds to start significant experimental trials.
The eventual cost for the stratospheric cloud technique has been
estimated as of the order of $1 billion per annum to counter the
full effects of global warming over the next few decades.
13. Other possibilities for saving the sea
ice include:
(iv) covering of sea ice and adjacent land with
reflective material;
(v) covering of ice and adjacent land with fresh
snow to increase reflection;
(vi) prevention or removal of shrub growth in
Siberia;
(vii) creation of thicker sea ice, using ice
breakers;
(viii) prevention of break-up of ice, and its
transport into open water;
(ix) covering of sea and meltwater with floating
reflective material;
(x) removal of meltwater; and
(xi) cooling of the sea water by increase thermal
radiation into space.
14. However, these other possibilities all
have practical problems, mainly of being scaled up quickly enough
to have a significant impact in saving the Arctic sea ice.
15. Concerning the main three candidates,
the creation of stratospheric aerosol clouds (to simulate the
global cooling effect over several years of a large volcanic eruption
such as that of Mount Pinatubo) has the greatest backing among
the geoengineering community, and should be a top priority for
immediate experimental trials. A seminal paper on this subject
by Ken Caldeira et al[16]
is included in the recent Royal Society Phil Trans special
issue on geoengineering. The scientific aspects are well considered,
and much modelling has been done. However no experimental work
has been done (eg on obtaining an ideal droplet size), and this
is needed as a matter of extreme urgency.
16. The creation of contrails can be regarded
as simply reversing what has been done by removal of certain constituents
("impurities") of aviation fuel in order to reduce atmospheric
pollution. For example, sulphur compounds could be reintroduced
into the fuel tanks of fighter aircraft, which would produce a
contrail diffusing to a haze. This would have a known net cooling
effect (significantly greater for daytime flights). This technique
could supplement the abovementioned solar radiation management
from aerosol clouds in the stratosphere.
17. The brightening of marine clouds is
the subject of paper by John Latham et al in the Royal
Society special issue. Some early experimentation in the formation
of the spray is urgently required. Once this has been mastered,
it could be deployed immediately by ordinary ships plying the
North Atlantic to start cooling that part of the Gulf Stream entering
the Arctic Ocean off the west coast of Norway. This would slow
the melting of sea ice in summer, and speed the reformation of
sea ice in winter. A significant amount of heat is transported
into the Arctic via the Gulf Stream. This transport is implicated
in the positive feedback on GW as the mean annual sea ice extent
reduces.
6. REMOVING CO2
FROM THE
ATMOSPHERE
18. This is just a brief note, to say that
Biochar techniques have remarkable potential for application in
agriculture all over the world, to the benefit of farmers as well
as the environment. Research and deployment should be supported
by the government.
7. GEOENGINEERING
DISCIPLINE
19. As you will see from section 4, geoengineering
covers an enormously wide range of disciplines. It is not clear
that geoengineering should be treated as a discipline in its own
right. Anyhow it is early days-there are very few people who would
call themselves geo-engineers. What is important is that every
engineer should understand the climate science that makes geoengineering
essential.
8. RESEARCH AND
DEPLOYMENT
20. Up till now, nearly all work on the
climate has been done by academic scientists, who will want to
continue research and modelling. There is a desperate lack of
engineers, and an engineering mentality, to take the geoengineering
possibilities and turn them into practicalities. And there is
an absolute lack of leadership from the government. This has to
change, and change dramatically, considering the gravity of the
situation we are in (see section 1).
9. RESPONSE FROM
THE GOVERNMENT
21. Letters have been sent to ministers
by myself, on behalf of stratospheric aerosol engineering, and
by Stephen Salter, on behalf of cloud brightening. In every case
the letters have been answered by officials from DEFRA who refuse
to pass on the letters to politicians, despite the gravity of
the situation we have described. These officials have raised many
objections to our proposals, which we have been able to counter
in every case. Yet still they refuse to accept the situation we
describe, and the urgency for experimental trials of the geoengineering
techniques we espouse. Not to use geoengineering, when it could
rescue the world from the effects of global warming, is surely
both stupid and irresponsible.
10. CONCLUSION
22. The most pressing need is for experimental
trials of stratospheric aerosols, and cloud brightening techniques.
Between them, these geoengineering techniques could save the Arctic
sea ice, and thereby prevent a chain reaction of events leading
to Armageddon. The same techniques could also be used to halt
global warming and avoid the considerable costs of adaptation
which have been widely anticipated (and thought inevitable).
September 2008
15 IPCC Fourth Assessment Report: Climate Change Science
http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar4/wg1/ar4-wg1-spm.pdf
"Sea ice is projected to shrink in both the Arctic and Antarctic
under all SRES scenarios. In some projections, Arctic late-summer
sea ice disappears almost entirely by the latter part of the 21st
century. (10.3)". Back
16
Ken Caldeira et al, RoySocPhilTrans, 2008, theme
issue "Geoscale engineering", see http://journals.royalsociety.org/content/84j11614488142u8 Back
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