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Climate – Change – Intervention -- Inscription

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Climate – Change – Intervention -- Inscription

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  1. Volcanologists report only 3-4 kt (0.003-0.004 Mt) of SO2 from the Eyjafjallajökull volcanic eruption in Iceland as compared to 5 Mt from Katmai in 1912 and 20 Mt from Pinatubo. Furthermore, it only went into the troposphere, with a lifetime of a week or so. So expect absolutely no climatic effect based on emissions so far. In other words, a much larger injection for a period of years (essentially geoengineering implementation scenario) would be needed to detect a climate response.

  2. Climate – Change – Intervention -- Inscription Some highlights Jim Fleming STS Program Colby College

  3. Recent a-historical statements, Asilomar 2010 • “We Don’t have a history of geoengineering to fall back on…” • Yes we do. • “Things are moving quickly, so we don’t have the luxury of looking at history.” • We must take the time. • “It is time to make a first impression on an uninformed public.” This is like whitewashing an old fence. • “We are the first generation to think about these things.” History says otherwise.

  4. “Apprehending” Climate Change • Awareness and Understanding • Fix not too rashly upon your first apprehensions —Richard Baxter (1670) Anticipation and Dread — Fear The bare fears of such things and apprehensions of their approach —Robert Sanderson (1648) Intervention and Control A warrant for his apprehension, was obtained. —Chambers Edinburgh Journal (1881)

  5. WHEN DID HUMANS FIRST BECOME CONCERNED ABOUT CLIMATE CHANGE?

  6. The Pleistocene!

  7. HOW ARE PRIVILEGED POSITIONS ESTABLISHED? • Authority / Prestige

  8. Theophrastuson climate change • If… the winters are more severe, and more snow falls than formerly…. It follows that the monsoon has greater duration. • Is it possible for humans to change the climate? • Yes! through deforestation and irrigation.

  9. Abbé Du Bos (1719) Genius is not born in every climate

  10. HOW ARE PRIVILEGED POSITIONS ESTABLISHED? • Authority / Prestige • Data

  11. Thomas Jefferson • Emphasized data collection • Climate could be “improved” "We want. . . [an index of climate] for all the States, and the work should be repeated once or twice in a century, to show the effect of clearing and culture towards the changes of climate."

  12. HOW ARE PRIVILEGED POSITIONS ESTABLISHED? • Authority / Prestige • Data • Experiment / Theory

  13. John Tyndall (1859) • IR absorption by trace gases is “a perfectly unexplored field of inquiry” • “Elementary gases,” oxygen, nitrogen, and hydrogen, are almost transparent to radiant heat, • More complex molecules, such as H2O, CO2, O3 and hydrocarbons, even in very small quantities, absorb much more strongly than the atmosphere itself.

  14. HOW ARE PRIVILEGED POSITIONS ESTABLISHED? • Authority / Prestige • Data • Experiment / Theory • Models

  15. Svante ArrheniusPhilosophical Magazine, 1896 • Model of CO2 controlling ice ages and interglacials. • Geometric decline in CO2 causes a linear decrease in temperature. • Industrial emissions not yet of concern to him. • His climate model is often cited, but it is not continuous with modern results or concerns.

  16. Eclipse of the CO2 theory of climate change. 1900-1950

  17. Guy Stewart Callendar • The Callendar Effect -- Climatic change brought about by anthropogenic increases in the concentration of atmospheric carbon dioxide, primarily through the processes of combustion. AGW in 1938! Rising temperaturesRising fossil fuel consumptionRising CO2 concentrations Detailed understanding of IR

  18. Rising temperatures ca. 1858-1939

  19. Rising CO2 Levels (1958)

  20. IR Spectrum (1941)

  21. HOW ARE PRIVILEGED POSITIONS ESTABLISHED? • Authority / Prestige • Data • Experiment / Theory • Models • Technology

  22. Bumper V-2 Cape Canaveral 24 July 1950

  23. HOW ARE PRIVILEGED POSITIONS ESTABLISHED? • Authority / Prestige • Data • Experiment / Theory • Models • Technology • Consensus

  24. Roger RevelleReport of The Environmental Pollution Panel, President’s Science Advisory Committee, 1965 – Appendix Y. • By the year 2000 there will be about 25% more CO2 in our atmosphere than at present. This will modify the heat balance of the atmosphere to such an extent that marked changes in climate, not controllable through local or even national efforts, could occur.

  25. Jule CharneyNational Academy of Sciences,Carbon Dioxide and Climate: A Scientific Assessment (1979) • The consensus has been that increasing carbon dioxide will lead to a warmer earth with a different distribution of climatic regimes. • Doubling CO2 in models results in 1.5 to 4.5 C warming. • Positive feedbacks will increase the warming.

  26. Establishing the IPCC • 1979 First World Climate Conference, WMO. • 1985 Assessment of the Role of Carbon Dioxide and of Other Greenhouse Gases in Climate Variations and Associated Impacts (UNEP, WMO, ICSU). • 1988 IPCC established by WMO and UNEP.

  27. Original IPCC Charge (1988) • Science of climate and climatic change • Social and economic impacts • Possible response strategies • International legal instruments • International convention on climate

  28. Our understanding of climate is based on authority, prestige, data, experiments, theory, modeling, technology, and consensus…

  29. WHAT ROLE FOR HISTORY?

  30. Students of climate dynamics would be well-served to study science dynamics (history). • History matters – it shapes identity and behavior; it is not just a celebratory record of inevitable progress. • Our species emerged during an ice age, and all of history has occurred in an interglacial era. In facing unprecedented challenges, it is good to seek historical precedents. Clarity of communication (for dreamers) Appropriate interventions and inscriptions (for doers)

  31. Here’s a reason to be nice to historians “God cannot alter the past, but historians can” — Dr. Samuel Johnson (18th C)

  32. Managing Solar Radiation

  33. A critique of climate engineering • The Climate Engineers: Playing God to Save the Planet • http://www.colby.edu/sts/climateengineers.pdf

  34. Columbia University Press, 2010 • http://cup.columbia.edu/book/978-0-231-14412-4/fixing-the-sky

  35. “Give me a lever long enough and a place to stand, and I will move the world” —Archimedes • — but where will it roll?

  36. Leverage • “It occurred to me at once that this was the lever by which the meteorologist was to move the world!” – James Espy, The Philosophy of Storms, 1841.

  37. Eliza Leslie James Espy

  38. Wexler and V.A. Bugaev in Geneva, 19 Mar 1962

  39. Wexler 1962: prevent all O3 from forming

  40. Starfish PrimeAurora “Tropicalis”and Rainbow Bomb Parties

  41. “But how do you know destroying the inner Van Allen belts will create havoc until you try it?” • – New Yorker, 1962

  42. A male hand, god-like in scale, is on the thermostat • Thermostat is “nowhere,” but perhaps in outer space • Temperature is 73 F but is being turned back to 54 F or 5 degrees cooler than its long-term average • The thermostat dial is centered on Roswell, NM

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