Posted on 06/28/2010 2:02:03 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
LICAPA, Peru (AFP) – In a remote corner of the Peruvian Andes, men in paint-daubed boilersuits diligently coat a mountain summit with whitewash in an experimental bid to recuperate the country's melting glaciers.
It's a bizarre sight at 4,756 metres (15,600 feet) above sea level.
The man behind the idea is not a glaciologist but an inventor, Eduardo Gold. His non-governmental organisation Glaciares de Peru was one of 26 winners of the World Bank's "100 Ideas to Save the Planet" competition in November 2009.
Gold has already begun work while he waits for the 200,000-dollar prize money to fund his pilot project. His plan is to paint a total area of 70 hectares (173 acres) on three peaks in the Andean region of Ayacucho in southern Peru.
Chalon Sombrero, the name of an extinct glacier which used to irrigate a valley and several rivers, is where he's started with a team of four men from the local village, Licapa.
...
"A white surface reflects the sun's rays back through the atmosphere and into space, in doing so it cools the area around it too," explains Gold.
"In effect in creates a micro-climate, so we can say that the cold generates more cold, just as heat generates more heat."
The idea is based on the simple scientific principle that changing the albedo (a measure of how strongly an object reflects light) of a surface by whitening it means that it does not absorb so much heat and emit infra-red radiation which takes time to leave the earth's atmosphere and warms trapped greenhouse gases.
US Energy Secretary Steven Chu has endorsed using white roofs in the United States to help combat climate change, an idea seen as more logistically feasible than painting mountain peaks.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
Workers carry whitewash mortar to peaks over 4,700 meters of altitude in the Peruvian Andes in May 2010, as part of an experimental plan to recuperate melting Andean glaciers. The idea is based on the simple scientific principle that changing the albedo (a measure of how strongly an object reflects light) of a surface by whitening it means that it does not absorb so much heat. (AFP/File/Dan Collyns)
GEE HOW STUPID!
The World Bank gave him $200K prize money.. what a hoot!
what can we come up with, tinfoil the north pole? :-)
Madness is rampant....all over! The Andes, DC, the UN etc.
Wouldn’t the sun’s rays that do get though get trapped underneath the paint and melt the snow anyway?
—about fifty years ago the Russians were spreading carbon black on snow in Siberia to melt it—
Kind of reminds me of Easter Island for some strange reason, expending resources on some stupid religious idea while the economy crashes. Hopefully we won’t end up like the inhabitants of Easter island but if this continues I foresee real problems caused by these eco-nuts and their bizarre religious beliefs.
Didn’t our current “Nobel Prize Winner” Energy Secretary also suggest painting all of our roads and roofs white to combat Global Warming?
I'd call this vandalism of the 1st order!
I’m painting my roof now.
I wonder why my idea of eliminating the World Bank wasn't selected.
It's not nice to fool Mother Nature.
“A white surface reflects the sun’s rays back through the atmosphere and into space”
Well, actually, it’s a little of “yes it does” and a little bit of “no it doesn’t”.
Yes, it (white) “reflects” the sunlight (better than a dark surface) and yes it reflects it back into the atmosphere, but no ALL that a white surface “reflects” does not necessarily go back “into space”; in fact some of it continues it’s same warming affect, where ever it is in the atmosphere (as above the altitude from which it was reflected), and science is not sure exactly what the ratios are between the two (atmosphere and space), because of the factors that continue to absorb it “in the atmosphere”, at all the different altitudes.
Producing that tiny “micro-climate” affect will not likely change the outcomes that result from the temperatures of the world-scale air flows, from west to east, to the Andes, regardless of what is done IN the Andes.
But, no doubt the people that do such things make themselves feel good, simply because they think they have good intentions.
A nice gloss or semi-gloss would be nicer on those peaks, makes it easier to scrub clean too - any dirt will contribute to glowball warming....it's twue, it's twue....
Why don’t we wrap the world in aluminum foil to save it?
LOL. I guess this is all that they have left to try after white-washing of the data failed...
The other 74 ideas must have been something like:
“The planet is not in danger!,” so they did not receive any prize.
The brush continued to move.
“Like it? Well, I don’t see why I oughtn’t to like it. does a man get a chance to whitewash a mountain every day?”
That put the thing in a new light. Steven Chu stopped nibbling his apple. Eduardo Gold swept his brush daintily back and forth - stepped back to note the effect - added a touch here and there - criticized the effect again - Steven watching every move and getting more and more interested, more and more absorbed. Presently he said:
“Say, Eduardo , let me whitewash a little.”
Eduardo Considered, was about to consent; but he altered his mind:
“No-no-I reckon it wouldn’t hardly do, Steven. You see, the World Bank's awful particular about this mountain - right here in the Andes, you know - but if it was a little foothill, I wouldn’t mind, and it wouldn’t. Yes, it's awful particular about this mountain; it’s got to be done very careful; I recon there ain’t one man in a thousand, maybe two thousand, that can do it the way it’s got to be done.”
Don’t forget to whitewash Hadley CRU and NASA while you’re at it.
Ah heck, that'll just get us baked. :-)
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