All Aircraft Are Not Involved

In November of 2006 the NASAAmes Research Center and the Carnegie Institution of Washington Department of Global Ecology at Stanford University sponsored an expert workshop on the use of solar radiation management as a strategy for coping with the challenge of climate change. The basic concept of managing Earth’s radiation budget is to reduce the amount of incoming solar radiation absorbed by the Earth so as to counterbalance the heating of the Earth that would otherwise result from the accumulation of greenhouse gases....


The volcanic eruptions of El Chichón and Pinatubo injected enough sulfate aerosol into the stratosphere to decrease temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere for 1 to 3 years by several tenths of a degree Celsius. Repeating the aerosol injections and optimizing them for cooling could amplify the impacts on global temperatures. Further research could assess whether this approach could safely counter the significant increases in temperature that could occur by 2100 if anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions continue unabated. Research could determine, for example, whether injections of sulfates or other materials into the stratosphere could diminish cooling in the Arctic region, an area of seemingly high vulnerability to climate change....



Solar radiation management as climate policy

Research into solar radiation management approaches could develop information related to effectiveness and unintended consequences. Research could proceed in a carefully graduated series of theoretical studies and experiments. If the deployment of such technologies were ever to come under consideration, having generated detailed knowledge about the consequences of each option could be extremely valuable. On the other hand, research may show that solar radiation management strategies would not be feasible for any of a number of reasons.....




Executive Summary

Although the workshop did not address the issue of the circumstances under which solar radiation management should be deployed, participants’ views on this matter appeared to span the gamut including (i) never, (ii) only in the event of an imminent climate catastrophe, (iii) as part of a
transition to a low-carbon-emission economy, and (iv) in lieu of strong reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. More importantly, the discussion illuminated important differences in the economic and political implications of solar radiation management depending on whether deployment
occurred in the face of imminent climate emergency or was implemented preemptively well in advance of crisis conditions. Thus the circumstances under which solar radiation management might be deployed could have major implications for its economic and policy implications.

Possible risks, uncertainties, and objections
One major focus of the workshop was to identify the factors that might militate against research or deployment of solar radiation management technology. Participants noted several such potential objections. These included:
• Solar radiation management systems are unlikely to perfectly reverse all climate consequences of greenhouse gases and could introduce new changes in regional or seasonal climate, so some climate change might be expected even with the deployment of such systems.
• Modeling indicates that if a solar radiation management system were shut down suddenly after prolonged operation the climate system could warm very rapidly.
• Injecting sulfur into the stratosphere would likely diminish spring Northern Hemisphere stratospheric polar ozone levels, although the amount of diminution is currently uncertain and extreme Antarctic-style depletion is unlikely.
• Solar radiation management will neither reverse nor exacerbate non-climate effects of CO2 including fertilization of the land biosphere and acidification of the ocean....




The Ames / Carnegie Solar Radiation Management Workshop:
Goals and Background

1.0 Workshop Background
In November of 2006 the NASAAmes Research Center and the Carnegie Institution of Washington Department of Global Ecology at Stanford University sponsored an expert workshop on the use of solar radiation management as a strategy for coping with the challenge of climate change. The workshop was held at NASAAmes Research Laboratory. The concept of solar radiation management has recently received considerable attention in both scientific and popular news media. Recent publications by such distinguished scientists as Ralph Cicerone, Paul Crutzen, and Tom Wigley, have suggested the concept needs further study. Prominent economists such as William Nordhaus and Thomas Schelling have long argued that the concept warranted further exploration as well.

1.1 Workshop Goal: defining a research agenda for solar radiation management

The workshop sought to generate research questions and approaches that could help in evaluating engineered systems designed to lessen potential harm from climate change by reducing the amount of solar radiation absorbed by the Earth. This could counterbalance increased heat retained by the Earth due to increased greenhouse gases. Workshop participants sought to identify potentially important unknowns about the consequences of solar radiation management.....


1. The Potential for Solar Radiation Management to Reduce Environmental Risk

As one workshop presentation noted, substantial Earth brightness (planetary albedo) increases have been observed repeatedly in our own time. They include the volcanic eruptions of Tambora, Krakatau, El Chichón, and Pinatubo. The cooling effects of the large Pinatubo event are heavily
documented, and cooling associated with many major volcanic eruptions was described (Robock and Mao, 1995).

These uncontrolled experiments that occur in nature suggest the possibility of using solar radiation management technologies to diminish the threat of deleterious climate change. Views differed among meeting participants regarding when it might be appropriate to deploy such systems. The range of views considered included (i) never, (ii) only in the event of an imminent climate catastrophe, (iii) as part of a transition to a low-carbon-emission economy, and (iv) in lieu of strong reductions in greenhouse gas emissions.

Engineering schemes that increased the Earth’s albedo could stabilize global mean temperature while atmospheric greenhouse gas levels continue to rise. If temperature stability could be achieved amid rising greenhouse gas concentrations without producing large negative environmental consequences, this would offer great advantages. Much of the uncertainty voiced at the workshop regarding stratospheric solar radiation management revolved around comparing the effects of these major-volcanic episodes to a limited, but continual particle injection. A key question was whether limited injections sufficient to obtain the desired climate change would induce other undesirable effects, such as midwinter ozone-layer depletion, tropospheric chemistry effects, or regional climate effects.

The tropical volcanic eruption of Pinatubo injected enough sulfate aerosols into the stratosphere to decrease temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere for 1 to 3 years by several tenths of a degree Celsius, albeit these temperature changes vary with latitude and season. Because of the thermal inertia of the ocean, this cooling would have been much greater if the volcanic eruptions were repeated on the 1 to 3 year time scale. However, the volcano-produced particles were not optimally sized for maximum efficiency in scattering sunlight (Rasch et al., 2007), suggesting the possibility that an optimized system might achieve this cooling with much less mass. More detail regarding volcanic effects is found in the appendix.

A well-designed system of climate modification might use sub-micron particles deployed in the stratosphere to scatter sunlight back to space. These particles do not fall out readily from air masses into which they are initially deployed, as does volcanic ash. Eventually, they would descend from the stratosphere into the lower atmosphere, especially in the polar vortices at high latitudes. There was brief discussion that particles might not persist in the stratosphere as described, and might have undesirable aspects even if they did, since it would take a long time to clear the atmosphere if there were undesired consequences. Once in the lower atmosphere, they would be expected to “rain out”. The total mass of such particles removed from the lower atmosphere by rain or snow is expected to be small, equivalent to a few percent of today’s sulfur emissions from power plants.

However, additional research is needed to confirm optimal particle size and possible impacts on ecosystems. The term “optimal” in this context is dependent on what criteria are being optimized, such as the effectiveness at scattering solar radiation per unit mass, the lifetime of the particles
in the atmosphere, cost, or minimization of environmental side effects. The “optimal” particle size is also highly dependent on the nature of the materials. From a purely scattering point of view, the optimal particle size is about 0.5 microns. However, absorbing particles can be much smaller
and still have appreciable atmospheric lifetimes (Kasten, 1968).

Several kinds of scatterers could bring about the desired cooling. The simplest and cheapest per unit mass may be substances that interact minimally with electromagnetic radiation (dielectrics). These include sub-micron oxide particles, including sulfur oxides. These materials are contained in standard volcanic aerosols and Earth crustal ‘dust’, although the particles used in solar radiation management would likely be smaller and without chemical impurities. As such, they may be safe, since materials, such as sulfate and ash, are relatively well understood as one can predict with confidence how their properties change throughout their months-to-years travel time through the stratosphere. The surface properties of other materials must be studied to determine their response to the very acidic and oxidizing environment, in the presence of highly energetic ultraviolet light. Alternatives to dielectrics have been suggested, such as metallic or resonant particles (see, for example, Teller, 1997). Metals interact with electromagnetic radiation strongly and might conceivably require much less particle mass than would non-conducting (dielectric) particles.

In addition to changing the materials used in the scatterers, materials might be shaped to preferentially scatter particular wavelength regions of the optical spectrum. More exotic and as yet untested concepts include tiny super-pressure self-deploying balloons engineered to hover at a
particular altitude. If designed to be top-bottom oriented they could be ‘coated’ for preferred optical properties. These concepts take one step further the trade-off between unit input costs and mass efficiency. It should be noted, however, that the stratosphere is a harsh environment due to the extremely oxidizing nature of its constituents such as ozone, oxygen, chlorine, and OH radicals, strong acidity (concentrated nitric and sulfuric acids can condense onto surfaces), and harsh ultraviolet radiation. Studies could be conducted to better understand the fate of scatterers in this harsh environment and what might happen if these particles became significantly altered during their months-to-decades residence times
in the stratosphere. Injecting the particles near the equator and at higher altitudes lengthens their life in the atmosphere. A longer atmospheric life reduces the total mass that must be put into the stratosphere in order to achieve a given change in global mean temperature. If adverse effects appeared following the introduction of such a scheme, most of these effects would be expected to dissipate once the particles were removed from the stratosphere....

Don Smith wrote:It is a long time since my physics classes.
I remember that heat absorbed at the lower levels of the atmosphere is still at the lower levels of the atmosphere!
Energy which is deflected merely changes it's particular rate of absorbtion.
In other words, this is eye candy.

We are committed not just to rhetoric and to various goals, we are committed to a billion-dollar program to develop and deploy advanced technologies to mitigate greenhouse-gas emissions.

WASHINGTON: Global warming poses a "serious threat to America's national security" with terrorism worsening and the U.S. will likely be dragged into fights over water and other shortages, top retired military leaders warn in a new report.

Joining calls already made by scientists and environmental activists, the retired U.S. military leaders, including the former Army chief of staff and President George W. Bush's former chief Middle East peace negotiator, called on the U.S. government to make major cuts in emissions of gases that cause global warming.

The report warned that in the next 30 to 40 years there will be wars over water, increased hunger instability from worsening disease and rising sea levels and global warming-induced refugees. "The chaos that results can be an incubator of civil strife, genocide and the growth of terrorism," the 35-page report predicted.

"Climate change exacerbates already unstable situations," former U.S. Army chief of staff Gordon Sullivan told Associated Press Radio. "Everybody needs to start paying attention to what's going on. I don't think this is a particularly hard sell in the Pentagon. ... We're paying attention to what those security implications are."

Gen. Anthony "Tony" Zinni, Bush's former Middle East envoy, said in the report: "It's not hard to make the connection between climate change and instability, or climate change and terrorism."

The report was issued by the Alexandria, Virginia-based, national security think-tank The CNA Corporation and was written by six retired admirals and five retired generals. They warned of a future of rampant disease, water shortages and flooding that will make already dicey areas — such as the Middle East, Asia and Africa — even worse.

"Weakened and failing governments, with an already thin margin for survival, foster the conditions for internal conflicts, extremism and movement toward increased authoritarianism and radical ideologies," the report said. "The U.S. will be drawn more frequently into these situations."

In a veiled reference to Bush's refusal to join an international treaty to cut greenhouse gas emissions, the report said the U.S. government "must become a more constructive partner" with other nations to fight global warming and cope with its consequences.

The Bush administration has declined mandatory emission cuts in favor of voluntary methods. Other nations have committed to required reductions that kick in within a few years.

"We will pay for this one way or another," wrote Zinni, former commander of U.S. Central Command. "We will pay to reduce greenhouse gas emissions today, and we'll have to take an economic hit of some kind. Or we will pay the price later in military terms. And that will involve human lives. There will be a human toll."

Top climate scientists said the report makes sense and increased national security risk is a legitimate global warming side-effect.

The report is "pretty impressive," but may be too alarmist because it may take longer than 30 years for some of these things to happen, said Stanford scientist Terry Root, a co-author of this month's international scientific report on the effects of global warming on life on Earth.

But the instability will happen sometime, Root agreed.

"We're going to have a war over water," Root said. "There's just not going to be enough water around for us to have for us to need to live with and to provide for the natural environment."

University of Victoria climate scientist Andrew Weaver said the military officers were smart to highlight the issue of refugees who flee unstable areas because of global warming.

"There will be tens of millions of people migrating, where are we going to put them?" Weaver said.

Weaver said that over the past years, scientists, who by nature are cautious, have been attacked by conservative activists when warning about climate change. This shows that it's not a liberal-conservative issue, Weaver said.

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On the Net:

The CNA Corporation: http://cna.org/

Once the troposphere has been entered, the energy is still here. We might block sun burn, but we will not "block" the energy transfer.

If they want to block solar radiation they must go to orbital levels, anything else is pissing into a high wind.

On the other hand, it is a great way to rob the treasury of even more monies for their needs.

Defense Department Cannot Account For 25% Of Funds — $2.3 Trillion
LOS ANGELES, Jan. 29, 2002

(CBS) On Sept. 10, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld declared war. Not on foreign terrorists, "the adversary's closer to home. It's the Pentagon bureaucracy," he said.

He said money wasted by the military poses a serious threat.

"In fact, it could be said it's a matter of life and death," he said.

Rumsfeld promised change but the next day – Sept. 11-- the world changed and in the rush to fund the war on terrorism, the war on waste seems to have been forgotten.

Just last week President Bush announced, "my 2003 budget calls for more than $48 billion in new defense spending."

More money for the Pentagon, CBS News Correspondent Vince Gonzales reports, while its own auditors admit the military cannot account for 25 percent of what it spends.

"According to some estimates we cannot track $2.3 trillion in transactions," Rumsfeld admitted.

$2.3 trillion — that's $8,000 for every man, woman and child in America. To understand how the Pentagon can lose track of trillions, consider the case of one military accountant who tried to find out what happened to a mere $300 million.

"We know it's gone. But we don't know what they spent it on," said Jim Minnery, Defense Finance and Accounting Service.

Minnery, a former Marine turned whistle-blower, is risking his job by speaking out for the first time about the millions he noticed were missing from one defense agency's balance sheets. Minnery tried to follow the money trail, even crisscrossing the country looking for records.

"The director looked at me and said 'Why do you care about this stuff?' It took me aback, you know? My supervisor asking me why I care about doing a good job," said Minnery.

He was reassigned and says officials then covered up the problem by just writing it off.

"They have to cover it up," he said. "That's where the corruption comes in. They have to cover up the fact that they can't do the job."

The Pentagon's Inspector General "partially substantiated" several of Minnery's allegations but could not prove officials tried "to manipulate the financial statements."

Twenty years ago, Department of Defense Analyst Franklin C. Spinney made headlines exposing what he calls the "accounting games." He's still there, and although he does not speak for the Pentagon, he believes the problem has gotten worse.

"Those numbers are pie in the sky. The books are cooked routinely year after year," he said.

Another critic of Pentagon waste, Retired Vice Admiral Jack Shanahan, commanded the Navy's 2nd Fleet the first time Donald Rumsfeld served as Defense Secretary, in 1976.

In his opinion, "With good financial oversight we could find $48 billion in loose change in that building, without having to hit the taxpayers."

"How do we know we need $48 billion since we don't know what we're spending and what we're buying?"
Retired Vice Admiral Jack Shanahan

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Just because someone has a PHD next to their title, it does not guarantee that they are any smarter than a sack of rocks.