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posted by martyb on Saturday April 18 2015, @01:11PM   Printer-friendly
from the not-going-to-end-well dept.

Any attempts to engineer the climate are likely to result in "different" climate change, rather than its elimination, new results suggest. Prof Ken Caldeira, of Stanford University, presented research at a major conference on the climate risks and impacts of geoengineering. These techniques have been hailed by some as a quick fix for climate change.

But the impacts of geoengineering on oceans, the water cycle and land environments are hotly debated. They have been discussed at a meeting this week of 12,000 scientists in Vienna. Researchers are familiar with the global cooling effects of volcanic eruptions, seen both historically and even back into the deep past of the rock record. With this in mind, some here at the European Geosciences Union General Assembly ( http://www.egu2015.eu ) have been discussing the possible worldwide consequences of pumping sulphate aerosols into the stratosphere to attempt to reflect sunlight back into space and cool the planet.

http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-32334528

 
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  • (Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday April 18 2015, @07:00PM

    by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Saturday April 18 2015, @07:00PM (#172524) Journal

    Paleoclimatologists look at the rock record, pollen, fossils, ice cores etc. to get time series of proxies for things like temperature and the like.

    The Saudi Arabia graffiti in caves [soylentnews.org] story had a good label for this: "grey data". It's better than nothing, but don't mistaken it for reliable measurements.

    Yes, it's not perfect but it's not nothing either.

    It's "not perfect" means it's not good enough for global scale policy decisions. We can easily fix that by taking detailed measurements over the next few decades.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 18 2015, @09:59PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 18 2015, @09:59PM (#172595)

    > It's "not perfect" means it's not good enough for global scale policy decisions.

    Like the unrestricted release of co2 through the daily burning of hundreds of millions of gallons of oil?

    • (Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday April 18 2015, @11:32PM

      by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Saturday April 18 2015, @11:32PM (#172634) Journal

      It's "not perfect" [...]

      Like the unrestricted release of co2 through the daily burning of hundreds of millions of gallons of oil?

      Are you going to make that argument? Because I'm not.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 19 2015, @07:19AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 19 2015, @07:19AM (#172749)

        Seems like you already did. You just didn't realize it.
        That's what happens when you use superficial logic to rationalize a bias.

        • (Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday April 19 2015, @12:02PM

          by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Sunday April 19 2015, @12:02PM (#172802) Journal

          Seems like you already did. You just didn't realize it.

          No, doesn't seem that way. I don't have anything to add, unless you want to approach this argument in another way.

        • (Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday April 19 2015, @12:12PM

          by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Sunday April 19 2015, @12:12PM (#172804) Journal
          I suppose I do have something to add after all. We create a lot of CO2 because that is a consequence of activities which are core parts of our societies. Any consideration of cost and benefit is completely absence from the superficial observation that paleoclimate data is "not perfect". Rather, we should be asking is it good enough, especially with the built-in bias to exaggerate the effects of anthropogenic global warming, to make global policy decisions on that affect everyone? No, it isn't.