A historical perspective on atmospheric engineering. A periodization.

1. A historical perspective on atmospheric engineering.A periodization. Régis Briday PhD Student at Centre Alexandre Koyré PhD Supervisors: Amy Dahan (Centre Alexandre Koyré) & Sophie Godin-Beekmann (LATMOS)

2. INTRODUCTION • Definitions of GE: • David Keith: “Geoengineering is defined as intentional large-scale manipulation of the environment. Scale and intent play central roles in the definition.” “As we will see, the definition of geoengineering is ambiguous, and the distinction between geoengineering and other responses to climate change is of degree, not of kind. Three core attributes will serve as markers of geoengineering: scale, intent, and the degree to which the action is a countervailing measure.” Keith, 2000, pp. 247 • Royal Society: Geoengineering is “the deliberate large-scale manipulation of the planetary environment to counteract anthropogenic climate change” Royal Society, 2009, p. 1. => GE usually refers to intentional in situ modifications of some important parameters of the global environment and especially of global climate, which appeals to Industry. • Plan: • GE between 1890 and 1940 • GE between 1940 and 1965 • GE between 1965 and 1990 • GE between 1990 and 2012

3. 1) 1890-1940a: A radiative definition of the atmosphere • Mid-19th century definition for climate At the beginning of 19th century, the concept of “climate” refers to “the whole set of dynamical processes, which produces the character of a specific place: precipitations, pressure, winds, emanations, topography, soils, water, vegetation, light, electricity, smokes, etc.” Fressoz & Locher, 2010 • From the end of the 19th century on, a Radiative definition of climate: “In the middle decades of the nineteenth century John Tyndall (1820-1893), … established beyond a doubt that the radiative properties of water vapor and carbon dioxide were significant factors in explaining meteorological phenomena such as the formation of dew, the energy of the solar spectrum, and, possibly, the variation of climates over geological time.” “The carbon dioxide content of human lungs and in regional air samples was also a focus of Tyndall’s investigations. On a more cosmic level, Tyndall thought that changes in the amount of any of the radiatively active constituents of the atmosphere – water vapor, carbon dioxide, ozone, or hydrocarbons – could have produced “all the mutations of climate which the researches of geologists reveal… they constitute true causes, the extent alone of the operation remaining doubtful. Tyndall gave credit to his predecessors, including Joseph Fourier, for the intuition that “the rays from the sun and fixed stars could reach the earth through the atmosphere more easily than the rays emanating from the earth could get back to space”.” Fleming, 2007(c)

4. 1) 1890-1940b: Two main technological trajectories for global climate modification Brahic Catherine, 2009, “Geoengineering weighed up” (Figure), “Earth’s Plan B” (Article), New Scientist, 2009, “Earth 2099. How to survive the century”, n°2697 (28 February 2009), p. 10. Solar Radiation Management CO2 Management

5. 1) 1890-1940c: Favorable, “positivist” social context for deliberate global warming • A Positivist ideology Harvard Geologist Nathaniel Shaler, proposing to melt the Arctic ice cap by channeling more of the warm Kuroshio Current through the Bering Strait:“Whenever the Alaskan gates to the pole are unbarred, the whole of the ice-cap of the circumpolar regions must at once melt away; all the plants of the northern continents, now kept in narrow bounds by the arctic cold, would begin their march towards the pole. … It is not too much to say that the life-sustaining power of the lands north of forty degrees of latitude would be doubled by the breaking down of the barrier which cuts off the Japanese current from the pole”.” Shaler Nathaniel, 1877, “How to Change the North American Climate”, Atlantic Monthly, December 1877, pp. 724-731 in Fleming, 2010, p. 401 • CO2 becomes an agent for climate modification and for crop production enhancement • Fossil fuel burning, a safe way of positively modifying climate • No inquiry on large-scale ecosystems such as ocean ecosystems (the ocean was only a sink that could take CO2 up); • Very few atmospheric scientists were involved in the production of an expertise on air pollution or paid attention to this issue.

6. 1) 1900-1940d: Political and scientific limits to global warming venture • Epistemological and technical limits to climate control: the long scales of scientists and geoengineers • Political limits to climate control: belligerent states have different and shorter-scale goals

7. 2) 1940-1965a: The apogee of weather and climate modification within the “military-industrial-scientific complex” • Unlimited funding of local scale experiments during WWII and the post-war decades’ civil and military weather modification programmes “By the 1950s, the Pentagon had “convened a committee to study the development of a Cold War weather weapon. It was hoped that cloud seeding could be used surreptitiously to release the violence of the atmosphere against an enemy, tame the winds in the service of an all-weather air force, or, on a larger scale, perhaps disrupt (or improve) the agricultural economy of nations and alter the global climate for strategic purposes. Military planners generated strategic scenarios such as hindering the enemy’s military campaigns by causing heavy rains or snows to fall along lines of troop movement and on vital airfields, or using controlled precipitation as a delivery system for biological and radiological agents. Tactical possibilities included dissipating cloud decks to enable visual bombing attacks on targets, opening airfields closed by low clouds or fog, and relieving aircraft icing.”Fleming, 2007(a), pp. 52-55 • Turning climate into a weapon. The power of the Bomb. Three belligerent GE possibilities exposed by Wexler in 1962: • To increase the global temperature of the Earth by 1.7°C, “by injecting a cloud of ice crystals into the polar atmosphere by detonating 10 H-bombs in the Arctic Ocean – the subject of his 1958 article in Science magazine” (Wexler H., 1958, “Modifying Weather on a Large Scale,” Science, n.s. 128 (Oct. 31, 1958): 1059-1063). • To diminish the global temperature by 1.2°C could be doable, “by launching a ring of dust particles into equatorial orbit, a modification of an earlier Russian proposal to warm the Arctic”. • To destroy the ozone layer and hence increase abruptly the surface temperature of the Earth, by spraying “several hundred thousand tons of chlorine or bromine” with a stratospheric airplane. Fleming, 2007(a), pp. 56-57; Fleming, 2007(b), “note n° viii” p. 9 & p. 5

8. 2) 1940-1965b: Strategic and utopian purposes of geoengineering in the 1950s-60s. Atmospheric engineering in political and diplomatic arenas • Military intelligence, nuclear deterrence and scientific peaceful cooperation In his 1962 speech to meteorologists “on the Possibilities of Weather Control”, Harry Wexler cites “Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev’s mention of weather control in an address to the Supreme Soviet …. In a 1961 speech to the United Nations , President John F. Kennedy proposed “cooperative efforts between all nations in weather prediction and eventually in weather control.” Fleming, 2007(a), p. 57 • To bring Prosperity to Mankind: Global Utopias and political domination “Climate fears, fantasies, and the possibility of global climate control were widely discussed by scientists and in the popular press in the third quarter of the twentieth century. Some chemists, physicists, mathematicians, and, yes, meteorologists tried to “interfere” with natural processes, not with dry ice or silver iodide but with new Promethean possibilities of climate tinkering opened up by the technologies of digital computing, satellite remote sensing, nuclear power, and atmospheric nuclear testing. Aspects of this story involve engineers’ pipe dreams of mega-construction projects that would result in an ice-free Arctic Ocean, a well-regulated Mediterranean Sea, or an electrified and well-watered Africa. Along with “weaponizing” the climate, pundits also fantasized about engineering it.” Fleming, 2010, p. 189 • Terraforming Mars and Venus (Terraforming is “the engineering of planetary environments so that they can support life”)

9. 3) 1965-1990a: Weather modification rejection:Technological Failures and Cultural Shift • Technological failure of atmospheric engineering “Cloud seeding apparently can augment “orographic” precipitation (which falls on the windward side of mountains) by up to 10 percent. It is also possible to clear cold fogs and suppress frost with heaters in very small areas. That is the extent of what has been proved so far (before 2007). Nevertheless, millions are still spent on cloud seeding today, largely by local water and power companies.” Fleming, 2007(a), p. 54 • Cultural failure of atmospheric engineering: the “environmental turn” and the anti-war movements. Citizens demand transparency In addition “to uncertainties about effectiveness, but also to competing economic interests and to legal constraints, uncertainties of a new type had been added at the turn of the 1970s.Environmental concerns were clearly of prime importance in bringing down the field of weather and climate modification.” Kwa, 2001 • Cloud seeding during the Vietnam war, and the subsequent international legislation on atmospheric engineering “During the Vietnam war, the US experimented with cloud seeding to create mud that would bog the enemy down. During this so-called “OPERATION POPEYE”, the air force flew more than 2,600 cloud seeding sorties over the Ho Chi Minh trail. This led 70 nations, including the US, to ratify a UN treaty named "Convention on the Prohibition of Military or Any Other Hostile Use of Environmental Modification Techniques (ENMOD)" – opened for signature in 1977.” Brahic, 2009

10. 3) 1965-1990b: Biogeochemical Cycles and “a spirit of optimism” • Investigations about ocean fertilization carry on ““Give me half a tanker of iron, and I’ll give you an ice age,” biogeochemist John Martin (a Colby College graduate) reportedly quipped in a Dr. Strangelove accent at a conference at Woods Hole in 1988.” Martin, 1988 in Fleming, 2010, p. 249 • From the 1980s on, the Developments in Global Biogeochemistry theory are almost always linked to global environmental risks, and especially CC. The tone of expert’s discourses is still rather optimistic though. 1982 NASA report: “In the twentieth century, humanity has become a factor in the global cycles of carbon, nitrogen, phosphorus, and sulfur and can affect global and regional air quality and climate; even control of the powerful hydrological cycle is within its grasp. An understanding of the overall system is essential if the human race is to live successfully with global change.” NASA, 1982, p. iii

11. 4) 1990-2012a) The multiple Strategies of geoengineers • The “catastrophist” argument “Modelling of climate engineering is in its infancy. However, continued growth in CO2 emissions and atmospheric CO2 concentration, combined with preliminary numerical simulations such as those presented here, constitute a prima facie case for exploring climate engineering options – and associated costs, risks and benefits – in greater detail.” Caldeira & Wood, 2008 in Schneider, 2008, p. 3853 • Will GE need international consensus and cooperation? “Of course, it would be strongly preferable to obtain international consensus and cooperation before deployment and operation of any climate engineering system. … However, unlike CO2 emissions reduction, the success of climate engineering does not depend fundamentally on such consensus and cooperation. Putting aside the question of whether or not such a course of action would be wise, a climate engineering scheme could be deployed and operated unilaterally by a single actor, perhaps at remarkably low economic expense.” Caldeira & Wood, 2008 in Schneider, 2008, p. 3852 • To rub boundaries outbetween the Natural and the Artificial, between Local and Global Scales, between Public and Private Research, between Earth and Space, etc. • To get through the multidisciplinary watch of the environment

12. 4) 1990-2012b) The use of a specific history of GE and a specific history of environmental policies by Geoengineers • The building of a specific history of GE and climate policies by David Keith: • To create a feeling of ‘déjà vu’: the history of GE can be “measured in centuries”; today’s “GE” is very similar to what was called “climate modification” in the Cold War. • A sharp contrast between US NAS expertise and IPCC expertise in the way they take GE into account and consider it? “Neither the FAR First Assessment Report of IPCC (1990) nor the SAR Second Assessment Report of IPCC (1995) include a general framework for categorizing of response strategies as was done in the NAS studies of 1977, 1982, and 1992. …In contrast to NAS92 there is no attempt at cost estimation, nor is there mention of broad ethical implications of geoengineering. Risks and uncertainties are stressed, but again in contrast to NAS 92, no general heuristics for assessing risk (e.g. comparison of the magnitude of natural to engineered effect) are mentioned. Despite the absence of any cost calculations or attempts at risk assessment, the WGII report and the SAR “Summary for Policy Makers” conclude that geoengineering is “likely to be ineffective, expensive to sustain and/or to have serious environmental and other effects that are in many cases poorly understood”. … As for the coming TAR Third Assessment Report of IPCC (published in 2001), while it includes some new technical details, it will not significantly improve in the SAR’s assessment of geoengineering. Keith, 2000, p. 256 & 256-257

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