Accidental geoengineering

[RankStranger]

 

I came across an article this morning.  Have we accidentally 'caused' this nasty hot summer by reducing air pollution?

 

 

https://www.science.org/content/article/changing-clouds-unforeseen-test-geoengineering-fueling-record-ocean-warmth

 

 

 

Quote

 

Crisscrossing clouds known as ship tracks can be seen off the coast of Spain in this 2003 satellite image. With the phasing out of high-sulfur ship fuel, these reflective clouds have become scarcer, leading to ocean warming.ACQUES DESCLOITRES/MODIS LAND RAPID RESPONSE TEAM; MARK GRAY/MODIS

 

 

 

 

The Atlantic Ocean is running a fever. Waters off Florida have become a hot tub, bleaching the third-largest barrier reef in the world. Off the coast of Ireland, extreme heat was implicated in the mass death of seabirds. For years, the north Atlantic was warming more slowly than other parts of the world. But now it has caught up, and then some. Last month, the sea surface there surged to a record 25°C—nearly 1°C warmer than the previous high, set in 2020—and temperatures haven’t even peaked yet. “This year it’s been crazy,” says Tianle Yuan, an atmospheric physicist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center.

The obvious and primary driver of this trend is society’s emissions of greenhouse gases, which trap heat that the oceans steadily absorb. Another influence has been recent weather, especially stalled high-pressure systems that suppress cloud formation and allow the oceans to bake in the Sun.

But researchers are now waking up to another factor, one that could be filed under the category of unintended consequences: disappearing clouds known as ship tracks. Regulations imposed in 2020 by the United Nations’s International Maritime Organization (IMO) have cut ships’ sulfur pollution by more than 80% and improved air quality worldwide. The reduction has also lessened the effect of sulfate particles in seeding and brightening the distinctive low-lying, reflective clouds that follow in the wake of ships and help cool the planet. The 2020 IMO rule “is a big natural experiment,” says Duncan Watson-Parris, an atmospheric physicist at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography. “We’re changing the clouds.”

 

 

[☆ DarkBishop ☆]

I really wish I got more notifications from this club. I don't see a follow button from my phone tho. So I miss a lot of post. Didn't even know you posted yoir last 4 topics until I commented on my college football post the other day. 

 

Anyway, I'm not sold on global warming. My personal theory is that the earths natural climate is tropical. We know that it was during the age of the dinosaurs. And it took cataclysmic events to throw the earth into the ice ages. 

 

The longer we go without a cataclysmic geological event or a meteor strike, the warmer it gets. Naturally. 

 

But I'm not going to deny that our presence on earth doesn't expedite the situation. But I think the biggest problem is the fact that we have obliterated a massive amount of earths natural foliage which absorbs and uses the sun's energy in favor of concrete and asphalt. 

 

We already know that the air over cities is 10-20 degrees warmer than the suburbs. And we have dotted the while earth with those hot spots. It seems logical to me that if we've put millions of small heaters (cities) all over the earth. That it would collectively bring the earths temperature up. 

 

But that's just my theories. They make a lot more sense to me than fucking cow farts tho. 

 

DB

[RankStranger]

I don't use the app... I use an ancient surplus desktop most of the time.  This thing was a state-of-the-art industrial workstation... 14 years ago

 

I think it will auto-follow now that you've posted.

 

Personally I'm pretty sold on 'man-made climate change' as a thing that's happening (not as a political issue).  CO2 and methane do what they do (the physics themselves aren't controversial), and we've measurably increased both in our atmosphere.  And as you mentioned, deforestation, urbanization are having major impacts too.  I'll add industrial monoculture farming, microplastics already covering the planet, ocean acidification, and the fact that we humans are perpetuating by far the greatest mass extinction seen since the dinosaurs were taken out.

 

I'm not sold on our ability as humans to predict how any this will play out.  I don't agree with AOC that the world is going to end in 12 years (well, 8 years... since that claim was made 4 years ago) if we don't "address climate change" (whatever that means).  But we humans are doing obviously unsustainable things on a planet-wide scale.  Mother Nature will put on the brakes one way or another... arguably she already is with the birth rate being below replacement in most of the world.  That doesn't mean the world is ending, but IMO it's going to look very different in the future.  

 

And I'm definitely not sold on any of the global-warming 'solutions' we've been threatened with.  IMO nothing short of world-wide nuclear power and an array of orbiting mirrors can stop what's coming.  But in the meantime we could start those ship-tracks back up and buy a few years