| WEEKLY SUMMARY (02 OCTOBER - 08 OCTOBER 2023) Subscribe to the Solar Geoengineering Updates Newsletter here:
RESEARCH ARTICLESHernandez-Jaramillo, D. C., Medcraft, C., Braga, R. C., Rosenfeld, D., & Harrison, D. (2023). Estimating the portion of Marine Cloud Brightening sea-salt aerosols that activate when incorporated into low-lying marine clouds: preliminary results. In XXVIII General Assembly of the International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics (IUGG). GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences.Abstract:Airborne measurements were carried out as part of the Australian Marine Cloud Brightening (MCB) campaign performed between mid-February and early April 2023 in the Southern part of the Great Barrier Reef (GBR). MCB may have the potential to mitigate episodic bleaching events exacerbated by climate change at the scale of the GBR by the aerosol direct effect and indirect effects on aerosol optical depth and net albedo of low-level maritime clouds respectively. During the campaign experiments were conducted by atomising seawater at the stern of a research vessel at a target production rate of approximately 10^14 s^-1 sea salt aerosols (SSA). Sampling measurements were performed from a Cessna 337 aircraft equipped to measure aerosols, cloud properties and meteorological conditions. The sampling strategy included consecutive transects at cloud base at the intersection of the sea salt aerosol (SSA) plume and low-level maritime clouds, followed by in-cloud sampling of perturbed clouds. In this study I aim to determine the actual production rate of SSA achieved, and what portion are incorporated into cloud and subsequently activated to form cloud droplets as a function of boundary layer conditions and turbulence. This work was undertaken as part of the Reef Restoration and Adaptation Program, funded by the partnership between the Australian Governments Reef Trust and the Great Barrier Reef Foundation.
Brendan Clark, Lili Xia, Alan Robock , Simone Tilmes, Jadwiga H. Richter, Daniele Visioni & Sam S. Rabin. (2023). Nature Food.Abstract:Stratospheric aerosol intervention (SAI) is a proposed strategy to reduce the effects of anthropogenic climate change. There are many temperature targets that could be chosen for a SAI implementation, which would regionally modify climatically relevant variables such as surface temperature, precipitation, humidity, total solar radiation and diffuse radiation. In this work, we analyse impacts on national maize, rice, soybean and wheat production by looking at output from 11 different SAI scenarios carried out with a fully coupled Earth system model coupled to a crop model. Higher-latitude nations tend to produce the most calories under unabated climate change, while midlatitude nations maximize calories under moderate SAI implementation and equatorial nations produce the most calories from crops under high levels of SAI. Our results highlight the challenges in defining ‘globally optimal’ SAI strategies, even if such definitions are based on just one metric.
Sovacool, B. K., Baum, C. M., Low, S., & Fritz, L. (2023). Coral reefs, cloud forests and radical climate interventions in Australia’s Wet Tropics and Great Barrier Reef. PLOS Climate, 2(10), e0000221.Abstract:Given the inadequacy of current patterns of climate mitigation, calls for rapid climate protection are beginning to explore and endorse potentially radical options. Based on fieldwork involving original expert interviews (N = 23) and extensive site visits (N = 23) in Australia, this empirical study explores four types of climate interventions spanning climate differing degrees of radicalism: adaptation, solar geoengineering, forestry and ecosystems restoration, and carbon removal. It examines ongoing efforts to engage in selective breeding and assisted adaptation of coral species to be introduced on the Great Barrier Reef, as well as to implement regional solar geoengineering in the form of fogging and marine cloud brightening. It also examines related attempts at both nature-based and engineered forms of carbon removal vis-à-vis ecosystem restoration via forestry conservation and reforestation in the Wet Tropics of Queensland World Heritage Area, and enhanced weathering and ocean alkalinization. This portfolio of climate interventions challenges existing categorizations and typologies of climate action. Moreover, the study identifies positive synergies and coupling between the options themselves, but also lingering trade-offs and risks needing to be taken into account. It discusses three inductive themes which emerged from the qualitative data: complexity and coupling, risk and multi-scalar effects, and radicality and governance. It elucidates these themes with an attempt to generalize lessons learned for other communities around the world considering climate interventions to protect forests, preserve coral reefs, or implement carbon removal and solar geoengineering.
Cherry, T. L., Kroll, S., & McEvoy, D. M. (2023). Climate cooperation with risky solar geoengineering. Climatic Change, 176(10), 138.Abstract:Given the lack of progress on climate change mitigation, some scientists have proposed solar geoengineering as a means to manage climate change at least temporarily. One main concern with such a risky technological solution, however, is that it may create a “moral hazard” problem by crowding out efforts to reduce emissions. We investigate the potential for a risky technological solution to crowd out mitigation with theory and experiments. In a collective-risk social dilemma, players strategically act to cooperate when there is an opportunity to deploy a risky technology to help protect themselves from impending damages. In contrast to the moral hazard conjecture, the empirical results suggest that the threat of solar geoengineering can lead to an increase in cooperative behavior.
WEB POSTS
DISCUSSIONS
UPCOMING EVENTS
PODCASTS“Solar geoengineering. It's not just a question of whether or not to do it, but of how it might be done and why.This week we are joined by Shuchi Talati, founder of The Alliance for Just Deliberation on Solar Geoengineering, to talk about who is making decisions about solar geoengineering and whether or not populations most vulnerable to climate change have a seat at the table.Solar geoengineering or “Solar Radiation Modification/Management (SRM)” is the large-scale and intentional intervention to increase the amount of sunlight reflected back into space. The purpose is to temporarily limit temperature increase.Shuchi walks us through why the Alliance is not for or against SRM, why refusing to discuss or research RSM is potentially an inherently privileged standpoint, and why she believes we should center voices from regions already experiencing horrific climate impacts.Listen in to find out who is currently researching SRM, what the potential risks and benefits are, and how the Alliance plans to make such a controversial topic more open and accessible.”
“The Sunday Times’ tech correspondent Danny Fortson brings on Pascal Lamy, chairman of the Climate Overshoot Commission to talk about climate migration (7:30), the huge cost of adaptation (12:40), solar geoengineering (14:40), the attraction of a sticking plaster solution (21:25), termination shock (26:40), carbon takeback obligations (32:30), pollution removal (37:00), and how Britain fights into this fight (41:10)”
YOUTUBE VIDEOSChris Field Conversation with Healthy Planet Action Coalition 21 September 2023 | Robbie Tulip “Stanford Professor Chris Field, an advisor to the Climate Overshoot Commission (COC) is our guest at the Healthy Planet Action Coalition meeting Thursday, September 21 for 90 minutes.”
Alan Gadian Marine Cloud Brightening HPAC 5 October 2023 | Robbie Tulip “Presentation by Alan Gadian of his Marine Cloud Brightening research at the Healthy Planet Action Coalition General Meeting. Alan is a Visiting Professor of Dynamical Meteorology at the University of Leeds and Senior Scientist at the National Centre for Atmospheric Science (NCAS). In addition to pursuing his own MCB modelling research, Alan is working closely with Stephen Salter and others on trying to move this potentially important direct climate cooling method forward.”
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