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Sep 8, 2008 06:30 PM | 21
If mimicking a massive volcanic eruption by spraying sulfur dioxide into the air or flying thousands of mirrors into space to shade Earth to halt climate change doesn't cut it for you, how about this? A fleet of 1,500 automated ships, dubbed "albedo yachts," spewing saltwater into the sky to make denser clouds that reflect more sunlight—and cool the world.
Atmospheric physicist John Latham of the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo., and a host of British colleagues propose that a such a battalion—total tab at least $2.6 billion—would ply the world's oceans thickening clouds as they went. The idea—minus the ships to accomplish it—was first proposed by Latham in 1990 and has popped up with new details every couple of years since.
The ships rely on so-called Flettner rotors, tall columns like enlarged smokestacks that jut up from the center of the ship and spin in the wind, driving the ship perpendicular to the air flow and also serving as the funnels from which the sea spray would emerge. Bonus: the ships are entirely unmanned and simply go with the flow of winds, cooling the sea surface.
The proposal appears in the journal Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A, which focuses on "Geoscale engineering to avert dangerous climate change." Other proposals include: fertilizing the ocean with iron to help plankton clean up our mess and the aforementioned manmade volcano.
Also highlighted: carbon neutral hydrocarbons, fossil fuels made directly from the carbon dioxide (CO2) in the air. The catch? These are also known as biofuels, i.e. plants that would otherwise potentially go to feed people (or grown on land that would otherwise grow food) going into gas tanks instead.
Research into such solutions appears to be warranted given the massive hole we are presently digging ourselves into as far as stabilizing atmospheric greenhouse gas levels. But the food versus fuel conundrum is emblematic of the problem with geoengineering: these are global scale experiments with unclear results and unintended consequences. For example, what would be the impact on rainfall from such sea-spray enhanced clouds?
Of course, we're already unwittingly running such a global scale experiment. It's known as climate change, wherein evolved apes burn enough fossil fuels to restore the greenhouse gas levels of previous geologic eras. And it might just be enough to bring the 10,000-year climate optimum that has allowed human civilization to flourish to come crashing to an end.
So what do you think? Is this a heroic unmanned fleet destined to save the world or an eerie and bad idea destined for maritime disaster?
Tags:
climate change,
albedo yacht,
geoengineering,
global warming
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21 Comments
Add CommentGreat idea. Here's an even better one. Don't leave them unmanned. Make them bigger and put them to work shipping. Lower end cost.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis use of cloud generating ships is testable at a small scale and easy to terminate if there are unforeseen consequences, unlike the concept of mirrors in space and the plan to fertilize the oceans with iron. I strongly believe, however, that global warming is not solvable with the application of a single solution. Multiple approaches are required. Those that clearly pose risk need to be tested. If testing is not possible for any given approach then it should be discarded. Socolow's and Pacala's concept of wedges represents the most logical way of dealing with warming.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBig problems;
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this1. Unmanned ships have a great potential to HIT THINGS! They would hit land, ships, reefs, etc.
2. How long would a multi-million dollar ship roaming free NOT be hijacked by pirates? About as long as an abandoned BMW in the ghetto.
3. According to the TV show on this, they are talking about 150K of these $$$multi-million theif magnets roaming free, hitting things and getting stolen. That means $$$billions basically wasted that could have gone into research for consumer grade carbon neutral power generation units that would promote LIFESTYLE CHANGE, an event that eliminates carbon by preventing in from entering the atmospher to begin with.
This "grand plan" is horribly short sighted and impossible to implement.
Seeqer: In order for the ships to use no fuel, they have to let the wind determine their direction. Not very useful for shipping, if you can't predict when the cargo will arrive. Useless as cruise liners, too... since it would, as a product of the ship's operation, always be raining.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThere's no reason, though, for them to be completely unmanned. A dozen guards/caretakers could certainly live on board, resupplying by helicopter or boat or whatnot.
I heard the sun now has to be dimmed about 2.5% to compensate for elevated greenhouse gas levels. Unfortunately, gigantic methane hydrate deposits under the sea that were thought to be stable are melting due to the recent heat pulse. For instance, an area six times the size of Germany off the coast of Siberia containing about 540 billion tons of carbon. That submarine permafrost is perilously close to thawing. Three to 12 kilometers from the coast the sea sediment is just below freezing. The permafrost has grown porous, there is a loss of rigor in the frozen sea floor, and the surrounding seawater is highly oversaturated with solute methane.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"If the Siberian (submarine) permafrost-seal thaws completely and all the stored gas escapes, the methane content of the planet's atmosphere would increase twelve fold. The result would be catastrophic global warming." --"A Storehouse of Greenhouse Gases Is Opening in Siberia," Spiegel, 17 April '08
I sincerely doubt that ships spouting sea water can dim the sun enough to compensate for future natural methane emissions. Besides, wouldn't those sea water clouds primarily dim the sun over the ocean? Our main concern should be land ecosystems collapsing.
"Few seem to realise that the present IPCC models predict almost unanimously that by 2040 the average summer in Europe will be as hot as the summer of 2003 when over 30,000 died from heat. By then we may cool ourselves with air conditioning and learn to live in a climate no worse than that of Baghdad now. But without extensive irrigation the plants will die and both farming and natural ecosystems will be replaced by scrub and desert. What will there be to eat? The same dire changes will affect the rest of the world and I can envisage Americans migrating into Canada and the Chinese into Siberia but there may be little food for any of them." --Dr James Lovelock's lecture to the Royal Society, 29 Oct. '07
Finally, I do think that some type of geoengineering will be absolutely necessary, because the alternative is absolutely unacceptable.
"The alternative (to geoengineering) is the acceptance of a massive natural cull of humanity and a return to an Earth that freely regulates itself but in the hot state." --Dr James Lovelock, August 2008
It all looks to me as kids wanting to try a new toy, regardless of the possibility to make damage with it, or perhaps the possible damage adds to the thrill?!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe alternative is to sit still? Now how exciting is that?
But the reality is that we do not have the wisdom to understand the consequences of using our new toys. The only sure thing of saving us from starvation of millions; floods and droughts; and a long list of who-knows-what-else, is to cut down on the damaging toys. With a list of toys and deadlines for each of the governments, including USA.
I would be happy to own some shares of the shipyard building these ships. BTW would the same scientists who know the summer temperatures in 2040 compute this or next year temperatures from data from 1970's? I don't think so. Otherwise they will become very, very, very rich. Sorry to spoil the party.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMaybe this would work, but couldn't the airlies of various nations of the world simply require that their nation's jet airliners spew out more water vapor up in the air? We saw this happen in the US when the FAA grounded all commercial air traffic which resulted in a pronounced reduction in cloud cover.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThat said; it is becomming more and more evident that a significant segment of those raising the alarm regarding global warming don't really care about whether cities on the coast are submerged, or island nations inundaded. What is wanted is for humans to have lifestyle changes,which I think would be a good idea even if we were positive that there was no global warming...unfortunately, I suspect the most likely fix for global warming will be very expensive and employ very sophisticated technology requiring that more and more of our planets undeveloped areas come under the plow and blade in order to support the ever increasing population of consumers. If anyone thought that the worlds leadership would be forced by something as emminently fixable as global warming to make life simpler and somehow smaller in impact and more ecologically sustainable, is missing something basic in their understanding of how the world really works. Pity, that. I with the alarmists would get this alarmed and agitated over the issue of population, coastal biosystems destruction, ocean pollution and the continued emmission of persistant organic pollutants and heavy metals by the nations that are currently exempt by the Kyoto protocol: China, India and other developeing naitons who are building their economies and expanding their "slice of the world's pie" when it comes to getting those resources developed...so their people can have a "fair share" of greedy millionaires and beligerent forces.
and all the clouds drift across the vast sky, toward land, and rain down, making ALL the freshwater lakes salty and removing a significant source of water from poorer people. that would work? oh and killing the plants too, since they can't take sea water.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI welcome this breath of fresh sea air on the topic of action to save this planet. Ocean eco-restoration, even though many continue to call it iron fertilization is the most natural and effective means. The lumping of this critical eco-restoration work into the geo-engineering category may make writing easier on this complex topic but in reality it is bioneering and is most importantly restoration more akin to organic gardening and not some new techno-engineering feat.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIn spite of the emphasis on global warming the more serious crisis of the fossil fuel age is falling upon the oceans, you know that 72% blue part of this planet which is far more critically at risk from fossil fuel CO2 than earth and atmosphere. Today we are seeing the carbon bomb of 100 yrs. of fossil CO2, impacting on the surface ocean. The hundreds of gigatonnes of fossil carbon in this first bomb is exploding on the ocean environment both via acidification and limitation of critical mineral micro-nutrients, most importantly iron. This gigatonne bomb carries the potency of the 10-15 terawatts of energy that went into making that deadly CO2 and by the second law of thermodynamics any amelioration of that deadly effect will require a matching terawatt scale cure.
The oceans as we have known them are no longer a wild natural environment capable of healing themselves if we just leave them alone as many wish and perhaps pray to be the case. The CO2 in the first carbon bomb, and more bombs are being filled, has already acidified the oceans to a state not seen in millions of years. Worse is CO2's limitation of nutrients reaching the surface ocean, that sunlit zone supporting ocean plants. In the past 30 years the N. Atlantic has seen the extinction of 17% of plant life, the N. Pacific 26%, and the sub-tropical tropical Pacific 50%. Thirty years ago the more robust 'ocean forest' the ocean and we enjoyed was converting 4-5 gigatonnes of CO2 into living plant biomass each year. Recall that the climate change/global warming crisis is said to be the result of a net surplus of 6-8 gigatonnes of CO2 accumulating in the atmosphere each year.
Although conservation ethic and action to reduce fossil CO2 emissions is useful, the CO2 already airborne will impact the ocean as a cataclysmic force for the rest of the century. Even if we don't emit another molecule of fossil CO2 this first bomb is tragically sufficient to change ocean chemistry and ecology beyond the imagination.
Thus it is of critical importance that we begin ocean eco-restoration ASAP.
Planktos-Science.com
1,500 ships? Who would build these ships? Manage them? Repair them? Haul them off the beach when they ground themselves?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAnd I don't see how they would pump the water into the air. If they use some of the wind's power for the pumps, why not just make them stationary, and use all of the wind's power for the pumps? What do you gain by having them roam all over the place, unguided, with unpredictable speed and direction?
Is this the same Flying Dutchman from SpongeBob Squarepants? I love that dude.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisJiff
www.anonymize.us.tc
an added benifit is this might be useful in the gulf of Mexico, the spray might help regulate/reduce the temperature differences between the atmosphere and the ocean thus reducing Hurricane strength.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFantastic idea!!! These ships could run on "natural gas or fuel" and could even desalinize ocean water and use this clean water if the acidity level of the ocean were to rise. With some modifications these ships could also be used in the arctic to generate ice and snow to our polar caps and with modification even cool/frost the ocean ice sheets.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI love the idea with full crew on board and running on "green" fuel. It should desalinize sea water and use this fresh water to "seed" clouds. we could convert a few thousand to ice/snow type to "cool" the arctic polar regions. lets go further by having coastal areas desalinizing sea water and pumping this water inland and atop mountains in huge water storage tanks . this water can be used for drinking and to refill our lakes,rivers and streams thus re spawning flora and fauna in barren parts which will help absorb radiation instead of having it bounce back and forth off the dry planet. we can have purification/reclamation systems at the outlets of the rivers runoff into the ocean thus allowing clean water ( with a few ocean eco-additives) to runoff into the ocean.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe only long term solution of the CO2-problem is to harvest the CO2-and put it in the ground in some stabile state. The method has to be cheap or even profitable to be realistic. But everything that can buy us time to develop the processes to make that happen, is worth trying, as long as it is not associated with high ecological risk. Water vapor ships is definitely low ecological risk. Unleashing gene modified algae in the seas is definitely an unacceptabel high risk, no matter the cost in submerged land.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis technique is likely to increase the frequency of Cyclones and Hurricanes. Such storms get their energy from the evaporation of warm ocean water that rises and releases heat energy from condensation. Massive circulating rain cloud formations result with potentially destructive consequences.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSuch techniques are likely to increase the frequency and possibly the intensity of hurricanes and cyclones. These storms get their energy from the evaporation of warm ocean water that rises and eventually condenses to release heat energy and form circulating rain clouds. Wind velocity and resulting storm surges from cyclones and hurricanes may be very destructive as Hurricane Katrina demonstrated.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI think this atomized water is a great idea, but I have thought of, what might be a better idea. I can envision 700 foot high towers, just inland, in north Africa, where the heat of the desert, and the sand storms blow out into the Atlantic. These towers would spew vast quantities of water, which is pumped inland, from the sea. The water particles would attach themselves to the sand and dust, condense, and clean the atmosphere of hot pollutants. It might also help bring some rain to the desert, making it fertile, again. I am talking about the part of Africa, where hurricanes are born. Dave
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI have another idea. Have large ships tow large Icebergs to the waters off north Africa. Let them sit and melt there, and cool the Atlantic waters. We have the ships, and the large icebergs. All we need is a good strong rope. Here is another idea. Have large ships, which are traveling across the Atlantic, tow very large sheets of silver coated mylar, which are buoyed up from sinking. It would be miles long, and reflect a lot of light.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDarkunknown:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf the ships or towers were far enough from land the salt water spray would not reach land. Water would evaporate and the salts along with any organic elements would fall back to the ocean. An otherwise good concern.
Cheers