Posted on 05/12/2010 8:26:26 AM PDT by NYer
The first trials of controversial sunshielding technology are being planned after the United Nations failed to secure agreement on cutting greenhouse gases.
Bill Gates, the Microsoft billionaire, is funding research into machines to suck up ten tonnes of seawater every second and spray it upwards. This would seed vast banks of white clouds to reflect the Sun’s rays away from Earth.
The British and American scientists involved do not intend to wait for international rules on technology that deliberately alters the climate. They believe that the weak outcome of December’s climate summit in Copenhagen means that emissions will continue to rise unchecked and that the world urgently needs an alternative strategy to protect itself from global warming.
Many methods of cooling the planet, collectively known as geoengineering, have been proposed. They include rockets to deploy millions of mirrors in the stratosphere and artificial trees to suck carbon dioxide from the air. Most would be prohibitively expensive and could not be deployed for decades.
However, a study last year calculated that a fleet of 1,900 ships costing £5 billion could arrest the rise in temperature by criss-crossing the oceans and spraying seawater from tall funnels to whiten clouds and increase their reflectivity.
Silver Lining, a research body in San Francisco, has received $300,000 (£204,000) from Mr Gates. It will develop machines to convert seawater into microscopic particles capable of being blown up to the cloud level of 1,000 metres. This would whiten clouds by increasing the number of nuclei.
The trial would involve ten ships and 10,000sq km (3,800sq miles) of ocean. Armand Neukermanns, who is leading the research, said that whitening clouds was “the most benign form of engineering” because, while it might alter rainfall, the effects would cease soon after the machines were switched off.
(Excerpt) Read more at technology.timesonline.co.uk ...
A novel solution to a problem that doesn’t exist.
In more enlightened times a straitjacket would be in order.
Gates and friends hope to make money somehow.I don't trust him.
Well, it’s his money. Then again, this solution is as effective as Vista.
I thought cloud cover on a planet keeps the warm in ...
Yes. There will surely be unintended consequences from this endeavor.
Could they bring down the temperature here in Texas every summer by 10 to 15 degrees? That would be perfect.
Kooks give money for kooky science. Liberal wealth redistribution is a good thing.
So his plan is to basically convert as much sea water as possible into water vapor — the most prevalent greenhouse gas in our atmosphere? BRILLIANT!!!
A fool and his money...
I wonder if I will be able to sue Bill Gates when the excessive raining floods my basement?
"What's your carbon footprint?"
I had to restrain myself from writing in parentheses beside it:
(Not as big as Al Gore's "carbon footprint".)
Gates has been living in Washington coast too long. his brain is soggy.
Water vapor is a much more effective greenhouse gas than CO2, so it is a brilliant idea to see how much of it we can put into the atmosphere and hope that clouds form. For that matter, couldn’t cloud cover lower the growth of carbon consuming photoplankton and thereby increase the atmospheric concentration of CO2? This could lead to a warmer, more fertile environment for most life. Say hello to the law of unintended consequences.
Bill GodGates wants to mess with things no man can understand. The arrogance and hubris of some men is unbounded.
Personally, I believe the idea would have little or no impact except to the ego of those supporting it.
However it does produce a unique opportunity to sue a billionaire the first time someone claims to be harmed by unusual weather that results from his meddling.
Of course I would spend some of this cash for Gatesophobia Research!
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