Re: Antarctic sulfate aerosols on the rise

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Reiss Jones

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Jan 17, 2023, 2:05:22 PM1/17/23
to Tom Goreau, Michael MacCracken, Victor Smetacek, rob...@rtulip.net, John Nissen, Planetary Restoration, healthy-planet-action-coalition, 'Eelco Rohling' via NOAC Meetings, Achim Hoffmann, Peter Wadhams
Sorry if I am being ignorant here, but how does microalgae produce SO2?

Best,
Reiss

Reiss Jones
Climate + Engineering + Synbio

On 17 Jan 2023, at 18:49, Tom Goreau <gor...@globalcoral.org> wrote:



It’s summertime in Antarctica and phytoplankton are blooming in 24 hour sunlight!

 

You can clearly see that from today’s satellite SO2 image below.

 

Be interesting to see how it affects albedo, temperature, and CO2.

 

image001.png

 

Thomas J. F. Goreau, PhD
President, Global Coral Reef Alliance

Chief Scientist, Blue Regeneration SL
President, Biorock Technology Inc.

Technical Advisor, Blue Guardians Programme, SIDS DOCK

37 Pleasant Street, Cambridge, MA 02139

gor...@globalcoral.org
www.globalcoral.org
Skype: tomgoreau
Tel: (1) 617-864-4226 (leave message)

 

Books:

Geotherapy: Innovative Methods of Soil Fertility Restoration, Carbon Sequestration, and Reversing CO2 Increase

http://www.crcpress.com/product/isbn/9781466595392

 

Innovative Methods of Marine Ecosystem Restoration

http://www.crcpress.com/product/isbn/9781466557734

 

No one can change the past, everybody can change the future

 

It’s much later than we think, especially if we don’t think

 

Those with their heads in the sand will see the light when global warming and sea level rise wash the beach away

 

Geotherapy: Regenerating ecosystem services to reverse climate change

 

 

 

From: <healthy-planet-...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Michael MacCracken <mmac...@comcast.net>
Date: Monday, January 16, 2023 at 9:49 PM
To: Victor Smetacek <Victor....@awi.de>, "rob...@rtulip.net" <rob...@rtulip.net>, 'John Nissen' <johnnis...@gmail.com>, 'Planetary Restoration' <planetary-...@googlegroups.com>
Cc: 'healthy-planet-action-coalition' <healthy-planet-...@googlegroups.com>, ''Eelco Rohling' via NOAC Meetings' <noac-m...@googlegroups.com>, 'Achim Hoffmann' <ac...@woxon.com>
Subject: Re: [prag] PRAG zoom meeting 16 January 8 pm UK time

 

Hi Victor--If I am not mistaken, 600 GtC is roughly the amount of above ground terrestrial biosphere--so all the forests, grasslands, shrublands, etc. in the world. Below ground amount is think is a bit over twice that amount. That is, 600 GtC is a huge amount.

 

Mike

 

 

On 1/16/23 11:02 AM, Victor Smetacek wrote:

Hi all,

A few weeks ago there was a discussion on appropriate analogies/metaphors/similes to convey the global warming issue and the measures we could undertake against it to the public and politicians. I prefer the analogy/metaphor/simile of our planet as a leaking passenger ship beginning to list with 3 independent, mutually inclusive choices facing its inhabitants, the passengers and crew: a) plugging the leak (stopping emissions), b) bailing out the water already in the ship (negative emissions), and c) keeping the ship afloat with external means (SRM etc.). The leaks can be stopped by replacing fossil fuels with renewable energy and the water in the ship can be removed by various techniques ranging from handing out buckets to the passengers, to installing pipes and pumps of various diameter and strength respectively. Albedo enhancement (geoengineering) would then be the equivalent of propping up the ship by attaching buoys/barges to the outside, or, to introduce an element of danger, have hydrogen balloons pulling up the ship to keep it from sinking further and bringing it to the horizontal – for a while. The other GHGs could be illustrated with dissolved salts of different densities in the water flowing in.

 

The analogy/metaphor/simile of the sinking ship, (we are all in the same boat, the rats fleeing the ship for Mars, etc.) is already anchored in the public consciousness and can be related to global warming – we are “drowning” in heat, floods, and sea level rise – in a quantitative manner. It can be conveyed in language ranging from vernacular to poetic and depicted in cartoons. Poorer people living in lower decks and the rich higher up. It will also be clear why waiting for the crew to stop the leak before the passengers are allowed to start bailing out the water already inside the ship is so absurd. Since the ship is listing, propping it to the horizontal would benefit everyone on board. I can see cartoonists having fun here.

 

The amount of fossil carbon burnt to CO2 is reaching 600 Gt C soon. This number cannot be grasped but can be visualised by converting elemental mass into living volume: biomass, the stuff of organisms, is 80 % water and 20 % dry weight of which half is carbon (the other half is oxygen, nitrogen etc.). So, the volume of biomass in which 1 tonne of carbon is embedded will occupy roughly 10 m3 and 1 Gt carbon would be 10 cubic km biomass. So, 600 Gt C is 6,000 km3 of say, compressed seaweed. It also happens to be 50 Gt C more than the total amount of carbon in the biosphere, including the deep biosphere.

 

Now imagine a wall of compressed seaweed biomass or any plant material 1 km high, 1 km broad and 6,000 km long to visualise the dimensions of the legacy CO2.

 

BTW a meteorologist from my institute checked the website Windy (thanks Stephen!) and found that it was warmer over Greenland than in the US during the December "bomb cyclone".

 

Best wishes, see you all later today,

Victor

 


From: planetary-...@googlegroups.com <planetary-...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of rob...@rtulip.net <rob...@rtulip.net>
Sent: 16 January 2023 13:42
To: 'John Nissen'; 'Planetary Restoration'
Cc: 'healthy-planet-action-coalition'; ''Eelco Rohling' via NOAC Meetings'; 'Achim Hoffmann'
Subject: RE: [prag] PRAG zoom meeting 16 January 8 pm UK time

 

The link for our meeting is https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89101098507?pwd=TlhaVFgvR2RKbk1HRU1wd254cXBSZz09

 

8pm Monday UK = Noon Monday California = 7am Australia AEDT

 

Look forward to seeing you then.  I am interested to discuss John’s agenda points against the theme of Cooling Credits.  I have written the attached rough notes on this.

 

Regards

 

Robert Tulip

 

From: planetary-...@googlegroups.com <planetary-...@googlegroups.com> On Behalf Of John Nissen
Sent: Monday, 16 January 2023 9:45 AM
To: Planetary Restoration <planetary-...@googlegroups.com>; Robert Tulip <rob...@rtulip.net>
Cc: healthy-planet-action-coalition <healthy-planet-...@googlegroups.com>; 'Eelco Rohling' via NOAC Meetings <noac-m...@googlegroups.com>; Achim Hoffmann <ac...@woxon.com>
Subject: [prag] PRAG zoom meeting 16 January 8 pm UK time

 

Hi all,

 

You are all warmly invited to the fortnightly Planetary Restoration Action Group meeting, 16th January 8 pm UK time (GMT).  Robert T will send us the link.

 

Last meeting we had various items on the agenda which have not been followed up.  I'm afraid I still have a persistent cough and on top of this a bug last week.

 

We have the possibility to comment on the AGU draft, with its deadline moved to 20th January. Also we can provide input to the overshoot commission. And we need a robust response to the US Arctic strategy which expresses a desire to exploit the Arctic rather than refreeze it. 

 

All of these statements and initiatives totally lack any sense of urgency over the Arctic situation, despite the dramatic extremes of weather we have been experiencing, which threaten to make parts of the world uninhabitable if the jet stream regularly gets stuck in the same position.  The urgency for cooling intervention in the Arctic is now critical - supercritical.  The principle tipping points have already been activated.  Since the tipping processes are accelerating, the precautionary principle dictates immediate, rapid and at-scale intervention to cool the Arctic [1].  This is the nub of the climate crisis.

 

Therefore all efforts are needed to persuade influential people and the authorities that action is needed to prepare for deployment, with a view to ramping up SRM sufficiently to halt Arctic warming within 5 years.  This implies we need better data on the Brewin-Dolphin circulation in the stratosphere for stratospheric aerosol injection (SAI); we need to know how much cooling power is going to be needed (it could be as much a petawatt), and we need to have the modelling and monitoring capability for optimising effectiveness.

 

Please feel free to add to this list anything which I've missed and you think is important.  See you tomorrow.

 

Cheers, John

 

 

Second, if you understand regression to the tail it is clear what the main mitigating measures should be once a pandemic develops, namely: (a) cut the tail (by breaking the chain of transmissions through, e.g., lockdowns, personal protection equipment like face masks, testing, development of vaccines, etc.) and (b) the precautionary principle (rather a lockdown too many than one too few) – rolled out immediately, at speed, and at scale, worldwide

 

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Tom Goreau

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Jan 17, 2023, 11:00:04 PM1/17/23
to Reiss Jones, Michael MacCracken, Victor Smetacek, rob...@rtulip.net, John Nissen, Planetary Restoration, healthy-planet-action-coalition, 'Eelco Rohling' via NOAC Meetings, Achim Hoffmann, Peter Wadhams

They release dimethyl sulfide, which goes into the atmosphere where it is precursor to non-saltspray sulfate in aerosol cloud condensation nuclei.

 

Their role in regulating temperature, and the possibility of enhancing it, are of great interest for those trying to increase clouds there to reflect sunlight back to space and stop global warming at its source.

Tom Goreau

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Jan 17, 2023, 11:00:05 PM1/17/23
to Reiss Jones, Michael MacCracken, Victor Smetacek, rob...@rtulip.net, John Nissen, Planetary Restoration, healthy-planet-action-coalition, 'Eelco Rohling' via NOAC Meetings, Achim Hoffmann, Peter Wadhams

And it works! See today’s cloud image below

 

Tom Goreau

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Jan 17, 2023, 11:00:05 PM1/17/23
to Reiss Jones, Michael MacCracken, Victor Smetacek, rob...@rtulip.net, John Nissen, Planetary Restoration, healthy-planet-action-coalition, 'Eelco Rohling' via NOAC Meetings, Achim Hoffmann, Peter Wadhams

Bear in mind much of the cloud nuclei are salt spray in strong circum-Antarctic winds and waves, the strongest in the world.

Tom Goreau

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Jan 17, 2023, 11:00:05 PM1/17/23
to Michael MacCracken, Victor Smetacek, rob...@rtulip.net, John Nissen, Planetary Restoration, healthy-planet-action-coalition, 'Eelco Rohling' via NOAC Meetings, Achim Hoffmann, Peter Wadhams

It’s summertime in Antarctica and phytoplankton are blooming in 24 hour sunlight!

 

You can clearly see that from today’s satellite SO2 image below.

 

Be interesting to see how it affects albedo, temperature, and CO2.

 

Tom Goreau

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Jan 17, 2023, 11:00:17 PM1/17/23
to Reiss Jones, Michael MacCracken, Victor Smetacek, rob...@rtulip.net, John Nissen, Planetary Restoration, healthy-planet-action-coalition, 'Eelco Rohling' via NOAC Meetings, Achim Hoffmann, Peter Wadhams, Stephen Salter

That’s because of the huge low pressure zone over Antarctica, surrounded by a circumpolar high pressure zone.

 

Pressure at North Pole 1041, at South Pole 977 what used to be called millibars now hPa

 

Antarctica is so cold it sucks, so it really blows from all sides! Huge waves and lots of salt spray!

 

It also is the major location of CO2 flux between atmosphere and ocean.

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