Marine Cloud Rebrightening - Funding Request
rob...@rtulip.net
Readers of these lists are familiar with Dr Stephen Salter, Emeritus Professor of Engineering Design at Edinburgh University. Stephen is a leading world expert in technology to restore the brightness of marine clouds following John Latham’s suggestion to exploit the Twomey effect. Sean Twomey led the way with experimental proof that submicron aerosol particles will produce optimal brightening, in research based on observations of cloud properties which have been replicated with good agreement by Andrew Ackerman.
Stephen has great talent as an engineer, but testing of his Marine Cloud Rebrightening (MCRB) designs has been prevented by a lack of funds. We are writing now to ask if you could make a financial contribution to support Stephen's work through donations at https://rebrighten.org/donate/.
Brighter clouds mean cooler seas, reducing the energy available for intense storms. If the science on MCRB had been recognised and adopted a decade ago, as proposed in the 2012 article Marine Cloud Brightening by John Latham et al, catastrophes like the sudden Category Five Hurricane Otis that devastated Acapulco on 25 October could have been averted, as could the Category Five Typhoon Rai that struck the Philippines in December 2021, by cooling the Pacific Ocean sea surface temperature.
Although the climate policy community has not recognised the need for cooling action to increase planetary albedo, many now see this as the most vital immediate step to address global warming. A small group of supporters are working with Stephen to implement his proposal. We have established a website, rebrighten.org, and are working with the Climate Foundation and the UK National Centre for Atmospheric Science to raise funds to develop local marine cloud rebrightening, starting with retaining a small group of student interns to work with Stephen to ensure his extensive knowledge can be applied. Any contribution toward this funding goal would be extremely welcome. So far, USD $6,500 has been raised.
Dr James Hansen has endorsed Stephen’s proposal for marine cloud brightening. In his recent major paper Global Warming in the Pipeline, Dr Hansen described sea salt droplets sprayed into the air by autonomous sailboats as the most innocuous way to deploy sunlight reflection methods essential to locally restoring pre-industrial cloud cover and temperature. This important endorsement should help others to recognise and support the urgency of funding for local marine cloud rebrightening, starting with Stephen’s work.
Stephen recently purchased a large engineering workshop in Edinburgh, suitable for testing MCRB designs. The aim is to work in cooperation with the range of groups around the world who are studying how to produce the submicron sea salt aerosol particles needed to optimise MCRB generation and delivery, and to overcome the governance barriers that prevent action to cool the planet and mitigate climate change.
Dr Salter needs an agile team providing engineering support to work with him at his workshop in Edinburgh to validate and build his designs to test and deploy MCRB technology. Our website rebrighten.org is raising funds for these engineering positions, through donations at https://rebrighten.org/donate/. Funds are managed by the Climate Foundation led by Dr Brian von Herzen. Funds raised by rebrighten.org also plan to support modelling of local MCRB deployment, managed by Dr Alan Gadian at the National Centre for Atmospheric Science at Leeds University. All donations are tax deductible in the US. For donations in the UK, Canada and Australia please contact Brian von Herzen at the Climate Foundation - br...@climatefoundation.org .
We want to increase public awareness of MCRB as an essential cooling method, with potential to be a fast, safe, cheap, feasible way to mitigate and reverse global warming, subject to proof of concept. As Dr Hansen says in Global Warming in the Pipeline, local MCRB will use strong scientific governance to assess any risks as well as benefits.
The status of MCRB is that several groups around the world are working on the design of submicron monodisperse methods to generate sea salt aerosol spray suitable for adequate local cloud rebrightening. The ideal deployment platform is autonomous spray vessels moving to the location where brighter clouds can provide the most help. Stephen Salter is responsible for this vessel concept and design, and has designed testing methods for aerosol generation using a spray tunnel. He now needs funding to take the technology forward. After laboratory proof of concept for spray generation, demonstration of spray technology will be needed in field tests, alongside prototyping of deployment vessels.
Our fundraising effort seeks financial contributions, suggestions, contacts and endorsements. Any assistance you could provide including through donations at https://rebrighten.org/donate/ would be greatly appreciated. Some further information is attached.
Thank you for your support.
Robert Tulip
https://rebrighten.org/donate/
Clive Elsworth
Robert, and Everyone
I was stunned about a year ago when Prof Stephen Salter said in a NOAC meeting (Nature-Based Ocean and Atmospheric Cooling) that the polar ice sheets could be prevented from melting for about the cost of security at a COP event. Since then, at an HPAC meeting Alan Gadian (Prof Meteorology, Leeds UK) said words to the effect that cloud brightening done to an extreme scale could cause another ice age.
Stephen has consistently supported us with his accessible short papers showing, for example, how to calculate the cooling from cloud brightening. One of his memorable analogies is: “Aerosol particles stay mixed in tropospheric air like cream in coffee”.
For those of us who don’t want to see a further acceleration in species and ecosystem loss, not to mention famines, mass migration, and even more conflict, Marine Cloud Brightening is a much safer plan than waiting in forlorn hope for Net Zero emissions to be achieved. And thanks to Jim Hansen we now know that on its Net-Zero wouldn’t avert disaster anyway, owing to feedbacks.
Many of you will know that another group of us including Franz Oeste are working on an addition to MCB, which enables cooling aerosols to be dispersed by UAV over the polar ice sheets during summer months to reduce the acceleration of ice melt rates. For example, ammonium chloride, which is used in baking, would likely also make a suitable cloud brightening aerosol.
Franz is another stoic scientist who had to wait over 20 years before his prediction that mineral dust blowing over the ocean photocatalyzes methane removal. That was finally measured this year in field trials, and research is now intensifying at Copenhagen University to ensure that Iron Salt Aerosol can safely mimic the photochemistry of mineral dust. There has been so much work done on how to cool the Earth even while greenhouse gas concentrations continue to rise. I realised only recently how many peer-reviewed papers have been published on it. Too many to read!
The efforts of Rebrighten.org, Blue Cooling Initiative and many others are vitally important to get the message out that disaster can be avoided while the more difficult, but crucially important goal of Net Zero is achieved. I’ll donate what I can afford – tax deductible!
It's great to be able to collaborate productively with so many of you. Thank you everyone for your efforts, and Happy Holidays. 😊
Clive
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