Jan 5, 2009
Reflecting on Climate Change
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A radical plan to curb global warming and apparently reverse climate change caused by our rampant burning of fossil fuels since the industrial revolution would involve simply covering large areas of the world’s deserts with reflective sheeting.
The idea is discussed in detail in the January issue of the International Journal of Global Environmental Issues and was reported widely in the press and across the blogosphere over the holiday period. Is it so much science fantasy or might it actually work? Engineers Takayuki Toyama of company Avix, Inc., in Kanagawa, Japan, and Alan Stainer of Middlesex University Business School, London, UK, suggest that there is too much pessimism around concerning our ability to realistically reduce atmospheric carbon dioxide levels so other measures may need to be taken.
Reader Thomas Hewitt emailed his concerns about the proposal, he was worried that reflective sheeting would be expensive and intrusive and points out that diluted white latex paint can increase the reflectivity of porous surfaces, such as concrete, by ten percent. “An even better deployment [than painting desert rocks], would be to use it on manmade surfaces, in hot areas,” he says, “Locally, this could be seen as a rollback of the urban heat island effect. If done to enough surface area in high insolation areas, it might have a noticeable effect on global temperatures.”
I asked Toyama about the viability of the team’s proposals. Is it ever likely to be viable to cover such large areas of the desert with reflective sheets weighted down with sandbags? “Yes it is viable,” he says, “We are often questioned if the area we propose is too small! Of course, compared to the surface area of the earth, it is fairly small.”
But, how will such sheets be kept clean and maintained? And what will stop them being covered with dust in a desert? “The sheets would be laid in dry desert, with little rainfall, remembering that half the world’s desert area is composed of rock,” he adds, “Two known relevant examples come to mind: the NAZCA Lines in Peru have been unpaved for 1000 years and the successful covering sheets over snow in the North of Japan to reserve snow for summer skiing. Of course, the issue of maintenance work for sheets preservation needs to be investigated this would certainly provide jobs and benefit the area.”
But, couldn’t the problem be solved by every household simply painting their roofs white instead? “Roof area would be insufficient and would contribute a small percentage,” he added, “However, as a supplemental solution, it would be helpful in contributing to energy saving to cool rooms. Indeed, this is already used in flat-roofed houses of rich people in Middle and Near East. In Japan, it is seen as effective in improving family comfort but is not perceived as sufficient to tackle global problems.”
It still seems as far-fetched a macro-engineering project as subliming millions of tonnes of carbon dioxide at the bottom of the oceans. However, Toyama suggests that this is an unfair comparison. “Our concept is basically to alter the flow of heat whilst subliming relates to treating carbon dioxide stock problems itself, not a well established, suspicious and unreliable technology from the safety angle. As an overview, in management of technology terms, there must be a multi-faceted bold approach to carbon dioxide reduction or the target set of 50% by 2050 at the Touyako Summit will never be reached.”
The obvious thing to note of course, is that surface albedo changes
are
not a
complete replacement for
greenhouse gas reductionsalbedo changes are not a complete replacement for greenhouse gas reductions, adds Hewitt. “For one, the distribution of the cooling effect will never be a good match to the warming effects of greenhouse gases,” he suggests, “Secondly, we still have the serious issue of ocean acidification. The key trick (if cooling via deliberate surface albedo intervention is technically doable), will be to prevent it from being used an excuse to continue business as usual emissions.”
The team’s paper was apparently submitted in order to respond to current discussions about how a more cosmic view of Earth’s energy balance might be addressed regarding human activities. “Carbon dioxide reduction is insufficient from such a viewpoint,” Toyama adds.
Takayuki Toyama, Alan Stainer (2009). Cosmic Heat Emission concept to ’stop’ global warming International Journal of Global Environmental Issues, 9 (1/2) DOI: 10.1504/IJGENVI.2009.022093
David Bradley
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April 24th, 2009 at 8:26 pm
i had a dream that in the future gliders roam the air above deserts and spray lime/calcium powder which covers the deserts like a tennis player wears a white t-shirt–
and this is done on a continued maintenance schedule to cool the earth s surface and deflect the heat of the sun back into space
is this a crack pot dream??????????? i never heard of this anywhere i just dreamed it..but i would never tell anyone cause it sounds like a crack pot idea
but why would i have dreamed it if it didnt make sense to me on some level????? in my dream the “glider program” was a silver bullet fix to the climate change problem– my point is, if i dreamed it..then on some level it must make some sense to me…and i am not a crack pot
January 12th, 2009 at 3:31 am
Start with two-tone sheets. Start by spreading them white side down, so the black side will help to warm us back up.
January 7th, 2009 at 8:46 am
David – yes you are correct the reflected IR component will be re-radiated down about 40 % of the balance will be used in stimulating the gas molecules or will pass on through the inter-molecular spaces or radiate out from the molecules. This would be a degenerative iterative process as the returning IR is re-radiated again, but new energy will also be continuously re-radiating.
The critical issue is the fact that discussions of global warming always use average temperature – a 1 degree C rise at the equator brings 2-3 degrees rise at the poles. The last Ice age was terminated by a rise of only 7-8 degrees at the poles i.e.such a small change melted the ice sheets. Consequently 2 degrees at the equator will cause the biggest increase in sea depth since that event.
January 7th, 2009 at 7:31 am
Good idea Tony. (Just for the record I personally wasn’t recommending covering the deserts in tin foil or painting our roofs white). However, you say “grazing” crops, doesn’t that imply grazers…by which I presume you mean cattle…aren’t they wasteful producers of methane? I think goats are the way forward…seriously.
January 7th, 2009 at 4:03 am
May I humbly suggest that instead of covering the Earth’s rapidly expanding deserts with a reflective sheet , that we spend this money on encouraging the adoption of proven changed grazing management techniques on the planet’s 5 billion hectares of arid and semi-arid grasslands. This will allow us to can cover their surface with green and growing plants instead.
This will genuinely address not just climate change but also help to reverse desertification, reduce drought and flood, and boost bio-diversity.
Please take a look at the presentation on http://www.soilcarbon.com.au to learn more about what carbon farmers around the planet are doing now to restore the natural balance between soils, grasses and grazing animals.
January 6th, 2009 at 8:37 am
@Brian – that occurred to me too, but it won’t be 100% efficient reabsorption will it? I’m not suggesting that Toyama’s idea could be viable on that basis, but just saying that it’s not entirely discreditable on the IR issue.
January 6th, 2009 at 1:15 am
reflecting heat really depends upon the spectrum, if its IR it will warm the upper atmosphere and be re-radiated down.
Another solution using current technology is to remove gases from the upper atmosphere at the poles where warming is most felt. How this can be done read at http://technostrat.blogspot.com unfortunately those salivating about getting oil from the Arctic will see to it that nothing is done!!
January 5th, 2009 at 5:19 pm
@Albatrossity – I think you’re right, as I mentioned elsewhere, we should talk to the Australians about cane toads before we launch into these kinds of solutions.
@Tom – Thanks for the additional thoughts on whitewashing the problem ;-)
January 5th, 2009 at 5:18 pm
Yours is a pretty good reading of my thoughts on the matter. And your discussion of dust and maintenence adds to the discussion.
The amount of albedo increase by using diluted latex depends upon the level of dilution and how many coats are applied, and should be tunable to match the esthetics of the particular location. There is a lot more porous human created surface area than just rooftops,pavements and fencing come to mind. Of particular efficacy would be painting bare metal surfaces (which if untreated) have low infrared emissivities (i.e. they don’t reradiate heat away very efficiently). I think the ability to get environmental buyin to such a plan requires that manmade surfaces be the primary targets, at least early on.
The biggest problem of uneven distribution would probably be if the cooling were not well distributed across longitude, as a local cool spot will tend to create a dip in the jet stream at that longitude, so relative to typical atmospheric long waves scales (a thousand or two kilometers), we should strive to balance the cooling along longitude.
January 5th, 2009 at 5:14 pm
It is apparently very easy for humans to forget that other creatures live on the planet, even in deserts. They are not “just rocks”. As long as we continue to force other creatures on the planet to pay the price for our greed, we will not solve the true problem (greed).