Lethal injections

Science: Geo-engineering scheme damages the ozone layer

Posted by Joseph Romm (Guest Contributor) at 7:03 PM on 30 May 2008

Read more about: geoengineering | climate | ozone | climate science | climate change mitigation

Science has published a major new study, "The Sensitivity of Polar Ozone Depletion to Proposed Geoengineering Schemes" ($ub. req'd). The study finds:

The large burden of sulfate aerosols injected into the stratosphere by the eruption of Mount Pinatubo in 1991 cooled Earth and enhanced the destruction of polar ozone in the subsequent few years. The continuous injection of sulfur into the stratosphere has been suggested as a "geoengineering" scheme to counteract global warming. We use an empirical relationship between ozone depletion and chlorine activation to estimate how this approach might influence polar ozone. An injection of sulfur large enough to compensate for surface warming caused by the doubling of atmospheric CO2 would strongly increase the extent of Arctic ozone depletion during the present century for cold winters and would cause a considerable delay, between 30 and 70 years, in the expected recovery of the Antarctic ozone hole.

Of course, this geo-engineering scheme has lots of other problems. An earlier study noted:

Pumping sulphur particles into the atmosphere to mimic the cooling effect of a large volcanic eruption has been proposed as a last-ditch solution to combating climate change -- but doing so would cause problems of its own, including potentially catastrophic drought, say researchers.

And if we pursued the sulphur strategy but then found out, say, a decade later, the drought prediction was correct, we'd be stuck, since if we discontinued injecting the sulphur shield, global temperatures would rebound rapidly, potentially triggering catastrophic effects. (And, of course, this shield does nothing to stop catastrophic ocean acidification.)

This post was created for ClimateProgress.org, a project of the Center for American Progress Action Fund.

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6 Comments | Post a Comment

Thanks for this post

http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2008/5/23/164220/089#com ...

-David Ahlport

by GreyFlcn at 9:19 PM on 30 May 2008

Good warning!

Geo-engineering has always struck me as very frightening.

But what about this? Couldn't sea water be safely pumped up into the atmosphere in an aerosol with wind/wave powered floating platforms to help counteract GHG warming?

Is this geo-engineering? Would it be safe? How much effect on solar insolation and GHG sequestration would it have?

In polar regions it would produce more ice through the winter. The imensely powerful polar winter winds give this potential for signifigant extra ice formation.

In summer, in tropics and polar regions, this would put up huge clouds that reflect solar energy and increase rainfall, greening dry areas and promoting GHG sequestering plant growth. Tropical pumping aparatus could be powered by solar thermal, the solar furnace heating the water and pressurizing it at the same time.

Thousands of these floating devices mass produced and deployed with remote thrusters and anchors could be maneuvered for best effect. Wouldn't middle east nations wealthy with oil now, like to back a system like this that could green their deserts for later after the oil runs dry?

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin

by amazingdrx at 9:31 PM on 30 May 2008

Creating Pollution To Fix Pollution

Any idiot could see that the way to fix global warming is to stop emitting air pollution, specifically greenhouse gases. Oh, that's right, scientists aren't just any idiots, they're a special kind, the kind who got us into this mess to begin with!

by Wolverine at 9:42 PM on 30 May 2008

Used to pump sulfur, still do water

A great blog by Joe Romm this time. May I point out we used to have a wonderful mechanism for pumping sulfur compounds into the atmosphere - it was called burning high sulfur coal without a scrubber. Yes, some of that ended up in the stratosphere, such like other ozone depleters such as Freon and methyl bromide do.

As to Amazing's comment, we're pumping water into the upper atmosphere as fast as we can. That's because the products of combustion include CO2 and water. So power plants, jets, and all kinds of things are forcing more water into the upper atmosphere. In addition, warmer ambient temperatures over the oceans allow more water vapor to be absorbed. Dr Jeff Masters at Weather Underground found some citations that indicate additional water vapor loadings that also seem incomprehensibly large, just from natural sources.

I guess that's a "feedback loop" if there ever was one. Water is one of the more potent climate change chemicals out there.

Onward through the fog

by Sam Wells at 12:09 PM on 31 May 2008

That straw man must be ready to be biofuel by now

Yes, sulphate dispersal is SACTCAR. Did anyone here not understand that the first time they heard about it?

This isn't.

--- G.R.L. Cowan, H2 energy fan 'til ~1996
http://www.eagle.ca/~gcowan/boron_blast.html

by GRLCowan at 2:13 PM on 31 May 2008

Last resort

As I have said in response to previous posts on geoengineering, it is absolutely not something we should do instead of mitigation.

That being said, it is something we should research in case we fail to mitigate quickly enough, causing runaway climate change. If that happened, geoengineering would be our only hope.

a sibilant intake of breath

by sindark at 12:44 PM on 02 Jun 2008

ADVERTISING POLICY

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