Re: [Phys-L] The Future of Everything: Once Unthinkable Ways to Cool the Planet
I've not studied this closely by any means, but I did spend the last 15
years doing atmospheric physics prior to retirement. So I glanced at many
proposals for geoengineering our way out of this climate mess that we
brought upon ourselves.
Every one of the geoengineering schemes that I have seen have several HUGE
problems.
1. Someone must maintain the system. Effectively FOREVER. CO2 in the
atmosphere has a halflife of about 120 years. Some CO2 from Galileo's
hearth is still in our atmosphere. We need at least 3 to 5 half-lives to
return to something close to a sustainable system. Picking 4 half-lives is
480 years. For perspective, Galileo lived about 400 years ago. We would
need a system that can be maintained for the equivalent amount of time as
the amount of time since the end of the Middle Ages. (Maybe we can learn
something from the roads that the Romans built.)
2. Removing CO2 from the atmosphere is an even more heroic effort. Where
are we going to store it all? We would need to reverse a century of
extraction efforts since that is how much carbon has to go back
underground. Who is going to pay for that project?
3. If we make a system that can cool the planet, then there will be no
pressure to stop burning fossil fuels. That means more CO2 in the
atmosphere which means even longer for the above two systems to need to
function.
- - - -
John E. Sohl, Ph.D.
WSU Brady Presidential Distinguished Professor Emeritus
Department of Physics and Astronomy
Department of Environmental Science
Department of Being Retired and Loving It
Weber State University
cell: (801) 476-0589 (Text me, I don't answer the phone if you are not in
my contacts.)