Wednesday, August 8, 2018

Oxford Climate Physicist Raymond Pierrehumbert Calls Scientists' "Hail Mary" Idea "Barking Mad"

Read Joel Achenbach's August 8, 2018, Washington Post article here. Excerpts include:
"[Pierrehumbert added] It’s just a lunatic idea to think [use of 'sunlight-blocking aerosols']
is a good thing to have in our portfolio of responses to global warming [ . . . . ] If there is a sudden termination, then it’s like being hit by a heat wave without having made the adaptations.”

Other quotes from the article include: "To replenish the supply of sunlight-blocking aerosols, future generations would have to be fully committed to the project without interruption. Otherwise the planet's temperature would spike virtually overnight."

"The technology doesn't even exist yet. Planes that spew sulfur dioxide exist only in PowerPoint presentations."

"It might be done with a large fleet of planes flying at something like 70,000 feet. The fuel in the planes could be modified to burn a high percentage of sulfur, though the planes would probably use special furnaces to burn sulfur and spew it into the air, Pierrehumbert said."

"A better idea, said Alan Robock, a climate scientist at Rutgers University, is to stop pumping carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. [par break] 'We all know the solution to global warming is — stop using the atmosphere as a sewer for our greenhouse gases,' he said."

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