Proposed emergency geoengineering solution to cool planet: Dump huge quantities of sulfur particles

1995 Nobel Prize winner (for his work with the Ozone hole) Professor Paul Crutzen has proposed a plan to thwart global warming.

His idea consists of balloons and artillery guns propelling burning sulphur into the stratosphere to reflect sunlight.

He wrote a paper on this " "Albedo Enhancement by Stratospheric Sulfur Injections: A Contribution to Resolve a Policy Dilemma?"?", that was published in Climatic Change, a science journal. The paper is availible in .pdf format HERE

It could be possible. There are plots that show how three large volcanic eruptions have actually cooled off the planet: PLOT

But the potential problems out-weigh the benefits:

Quoted and sourced from Meteorologist Dr. Jeff Masters:

1) The climate might undergo substantial and disruptive changes. Evaporation from the oceans would lessen, changing precipitation patterns. The sulfate aerosols would warm the upper troposphere and lower stratosphere, changing the stability of the atmosphere. This would affect thunderstorm activity and large-scale weather patterns. Increased warming of Europe and Asia in winter has been noted after volcanic eruptions, for example. A 2005 studytied an increase in greenhouse gases and sulfur particles to drought in the Sahel region of Africa. Increasing greenhouse gases and sulfur particles even further might intensify drought conditions there.


2) The small sulfur particles might settle into the upper troposphere, where they might act as condensation nuclei for the formation of cirrus clouds. An increase in these high cirrus clouds may warm the planet, since they keep heat from escaping to space.


3)Stratospheric sulfur causes destruction of the protective ozone layer. The 1982 eruption of the El Chichon volcano reduced ozone by 16% at 20 km altitude at mid-latitudes. Decreased ozone would result in an increase of ultraviolet light at the surface, potentially increasing skin cancer rates.

4) Acid rain would increase.

5) The scheme would do nothing to reduce CO2, and the oceans would continue to acidify. The rate of acidification of the Earth's oceans is causing concern that regional collapses of the food chain may occur later this century.

6) A sudden collapse of the effort to keep firing sulfur into the stratosphere, due to the lack of political will to continue to fund this expensive effort, would result in a sudden transition of the climate to a radically warmer state. The resulting shock to the world's weather might cause dramatic changes that would be difficult to adapt to.

7) What do you do if the scheme causes serious climate problems in a country that then threatens war unless the effort is stopped?

That's a lot of money proposed for this, do you think it's worth it? I mean, you have to start somewhere, right? Something will most likely be tested out in the Obama presidency, since he vowed to do something about it, as Bush declined.

Personally, I don't really think it should be all up to us (the U.S.) to come up, and follow through with climate change plans. We need other countries to step up to the plate as well.














[edit on 19-12-2008 by SpadeofAces]

[edit on 19-12-2008 by SpadeofAces]

The mining industry, and coal burning electrical plants were forced through legislation to drastically cut the SO2 emissions from the smelters. They complied by using advanced technologies to, essentially, shut down the smelters
in order to stay in production. Some, like mines in AZ, had tried to reduce emissions by installing scrubbers to clean the smoke of sulfur particulates, at costs, per plant of up to 500 million dollars!

The concerns were acid rain,and general pollution. Since then, I believe, all copper smelters have been shut down, or engineered to greatly reduce all materials coming from the smoke stack. Cutting the efficiency of the plants,and raising production costs, has tied the hands of the major copper producers, domestically.

Now, TPTB want to reverse all of that to put MORE sulfur into the atmosphere?

How crazy is that? But of course, any "FIX" that is recommended is not going to be greeted well by everyone. AND it will cost the taxpayers more in the long run than if everything was left the way it was back in the seventies.
Only, if things had been left alone, we would not have to contend with clean-ups of spilled chemicals now used to process the ores.
And the number of jobs lost due to innovation by opening/ expanding operations in foreign countries may have been forestalled.

Oh well, that's progress for you.

That's all we need...

More snow in Las Vegas...

Oh Brother, Global Warming, mass stupidity for the masses..

totally crazed nuts.

they compleined about acidic rain once, now they want more SO2 in the air? imho, these publicity seeking wackos have no place in positions of responsibility. there are plenty of doubts about GW and for all we know it might be beneficial to the vast majority of people on Earth, just ask a few Australians whether they hate their constant mild weather and diverse flora.... i recently had that conversation in the follwing thread:

www.abovetopsecret.com...

maybe they're merely trying to pull a flouridation type scenario, where they dump their waste on us and call it a cure.

Considering that a huge whole in earth's natural defense shield has been discovered roughly over the north pole, 4 times larger than earth allowing cosmic particles to get in, and considering that it is rumoured 9 nukes were exploded under the ocean relatively close, I cannot imagine that there is anything but absolute contempt for human life here, and a furthering of a plot to bring about cataclysms of biblical or predicted proportions. These guys are absolutely insane in the membrane in an extremely conniving criminal way.

Total farce, what kind of a stupid idea is that, christ, man made global warming is a complete and utter LIE!!!We should be concentrating our efforts on harmonising our technology with nature, for a cleaner greener, and safer planet, but nooooo, instead wackos spout theories to thwart a non-existent threat, that involve poisoning us even more.

Ive really had enough of these nutjobs running the planet.

It's funny, I live in southern California, and we just had 3-4 days of snow in very low elevations as I'm sure you all know. Well, at least 75% of the customers I spoke with during that time flapped about global warming this and that, we are starting to use more gas now, and holiday traffic contributes to it...I chuckled in the back of my head. These cold storms are common, on a global basis, and locally. Lived here most of my life, since Early 80's, and I notice a frequency of warm winters, and cold winters, cool summers, and downright COOKING summers. It's just a balancing act done by the planet, and the storm/jet patterns in the hemispheres on a yearly basis. Sure it may fluctuate and have 2-3 warm years, and suddenly drop to below normal temps and no rainfall, but sure enough, it always reverses.