Case Study by J. Doughty on past forays into SRM field research
41 views
Skip to first unread message
Geoengineering Our Climate (eds. Blackstock, Miller and Rayner)
Feb 17, 2015, 11:28:51 AM2/17/15
to geoengi...@googlegroups.com
Dear colleagues,
For the "Geoengineering Our Climate?"
Working Paper Series, Jack Doughty (University College London) has
written a case study on a number of outdoors research activities (Yuri Izrael's experiment, E-PEACE, and the SPICE test bed) that have either self-identified or been identified with the investigation of SRM approaches, paying attention especially to their implications for governance. It is titled: "Past Forays into SRM Field Research and Implications for Future Governance", and can be read and downloaded at: http://geoengineeringourclimate.com/2015/02/17/past-forays-into-srm-field-research-and-implications-for-future-governance-case-study/
Stephen Salter
Feb 17, 2015, 1:31:27 PM2/17/15
to geoengineeri...@gmail.com, geoengi...@googlegroups.com
Hi All
Jack Doughty could also have mentioned the film made by Discovery Channel of the amazing result from cloud seeding flares off Liaaplek in South Africa. They had been told that conditions there meant that it always had perfect strato-cumulus cloud. When we arrived with a 40-person film crew, an aircraft, helicopter, ship and support vessels there was hardly a cloud in the sky. John Latham and I kept telling the producer that we were trying to make existing clouds a tiny bit whiter and that it could not possibly work with no cloud. Filming 'experts' making fools of themselves is great television so they went ahead anyway and lit up the flares. My very rough engineering estimate was that it was about two minutes of the output of a spray vessel.
The result was stunning. It created a very white cloud from nothing, about 5 km by 1.5 km. At that time of day the cloud top would be reflecting about 800 watts per square metre over an area of about 7.5 million square metres which I make to be 6 GW, more than the peak electrical demand of Scotland. It spread out slowly but was still visible about two hours later.
The air mass must have been extremely clean. Perhaps it had been over Antarctica for months. A picture should be below.
The heavens did not fall and nobody went to jail.
Stephen
Emeritus Professor of Engineering Design. School of Engineering. University of Edinburgh. Mayfield Road. Edinburgh EH9 3JL. Scotland S.Sa...@ed.ac.uk Tel +44 (0)131 650 5704 Cell 07795 203 195 WWW.see.ed.ac.uk/~shs YouTube Jamie Taylor Power for Change
Jack Doughty could also have mentioned the film made by Discovery Channel of the amazing result from cloud seeding flares off Liaaplek in South Africa. They had been told that conditions there meant that it always had perfect strato-cumulus cloud. When we arrived with a 40-person film crew, an aircraft, helicopter, ship and support vessels there was hardly a cloud in the sky. John Latham and I kept telling the producer that we were trying to make existing clouds a tiny bit whiter and that it could not possibly work with no cloud. Filming 'experts' making fools of themselves is great television so they went ahead anyway and lit up the flares. My very rough engineering estimate was that it was about two minutes of the output of a spray vessel.
The result was stunning. It created a very white cloud from nothing, about 5 km by 1.5 km. At that time of day the cloud top would be reflecting about 800 watts per square metre over an area of about 7.5 million square metres which I make to be 6 GW, more than the peak electrical demand of Scotland. It spread out slowly but was still visible about two hours later.
The air mass must have been extremely clean. Perhaps it had been over Antarctica for months. A picture should be below.
The heavens did not fall and nobody went to jail.
Stephen
Emeritus Professor of Engineering Design. School of Engineering. University of Edinburgh. Mayfield Road. Edinburgh EH9 3JL. Scotland S.Sa...@ed.ac.uk Tel +44 (0)131 650 5704 Cell 07795 203 195 WWW.see.ed.ac.uk/~shs YouTube Jamie Taylor Power for Change
--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "geoengineering" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to geoengineerin...@googlegroups.com.
To post to this group, send email to geoengi...@googlegroups.com.
Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/geoengineering.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Reply all
Reply to author
Forward
0 new messages