posted
I've heard people suggest pumping sulfur into the atmosphere as a solution (albeit a temporary one) for global warming before, but I've never heard of anyone seriously working to have the solution implemented before. Wouldn't doing this result in acid rain? I could be misunderstanding something here, but this sounds like a cure (and not even a cure--more of a bandaid) that would be as damaging as the disease.
If I'm wrong could somebody explain why?
Posts: 16059 | Registered: Aug 2000
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posted
If my astronomy classes still remain intact. Putting Sulfur in THAT section of the atmosphere would not effect rain fall as clouds form at much lower levels of the atmosphere.
Take that with a grain of salt, maybe even two.
Posts: 14316 | Registered: Jul 2005
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posted
The proposal I've heard most recently, involves pumping SO2 into the Stratosphere basically mimicing what happens in a major volcanic eruption. The idea is that we inject SO2 into the stratosphere. It reacts with oxygen and water to from sulfate aerosol. The aerosol scatters incoming solar radiation and so cools the earth. We know that this works because it is the process that happens with a major volcanic eruption. Over a period of around 2 years the sulfate aerosol will find there way into the troposphere where they will act as condensation nuclei for clouds and ultimately come down in the rain.
There are two big problems with this sulfate aerosol. First, it has significant adverse health effects for people, plants and animals and second, it cause acidification of the rain which also kills plants and animals. The theory behind this proposal is that injecting the SO2 into the stratosphere will reduce these two disadvantages.
The assumption is that since the aerosol will be rained out more or less uniformly over the entire planet, the acid rain problem will be far less than from sulfates that are released in the troposphere, which tend to deposit in smaller regions. Based on the data I've seen so far, I'm not convinced that this is a good assumption, but I'm keeping an open mind.
The big problems with this proposal, as I see it are:
1. The climate forcing effect of atmospheric aerosols is still the most poorly understood part of the entire global warming picture. Aerosols have both a primary impast on climate as the scatter incoming light and a secondary effect when they promote cloud formation. We are really far from being able to predict quantitatively how introducing aerosol into the stratosphere will influence climate. There is a serious potential for catostrophic mistakes. For example, in 1815 Mount Tambora erupted in Indonesia leading Year without a Summer . The large amounts of volcanic ash and sulfate in the upper atmosphere, lead to extremely cold summer temperatures and major crop failures over most of the world. The result was severe famine and severe storms over much of the northern hemisphere.
2. The half life of aerosol in the atmosphere (even the stratosphere) is 2 to 3 years where as CO2 has a half life in the atmosphere of about 100 years. This means that in order to compensate for greenhouse gas emissions, we will have to pump SO2 into the stratosphere for centuries. What's more the CO2 in the atmosphere will keep growing for as long as we keep burning fossil fuels, so even if CO2 emissions remain constant, we would half to pump more and more SO2 into the atmosphere to compensate. On the upside, because aerosol only stay in the atmosphere for 2 or 3 years, if we really screw up and drop the temperature of the atmosphere too far, it will only last a few years.
3. The potential for unforseen consequences is astronomical. We would be putting a very reactive chemical into our atmosphere, and creating highly reactive surfaces on the sulfate aerosol. We simply have know idea how that will effect chemistry in the stratosphere (like ozone formation).
4. The economics of this are highly questionable. The energy resources that would have to be dedicated to pumping SO2 into the atmosphere are comparable to the costs associated with reducing CO2 emissions. This isn't a quick easy fix under any circumstances.
On the one hand, I think this is an idea with sufficient potential that it deserves further investigation. On the other hand there is absolutely no reason to believe that this is the solution to our global warming crisis and that it won't cause more problems than it solves. I'm very concerned that those people who are resisting doing anything to combat global climate change, will see this as one more reason to maintain the status quo.
Posts: 12591 | Registered: Jan 2000
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But here's my non-partisan question on the whole thing: Logistically, how do we put that much sulfur into the atmosphere? Mt. Pinatubo in 91 sent MILLIONS of TONS of sulfur into the atmosphere, and it resulted in a single degree change.
How much would it cost to get, package, and then release that kind of amount of sulfur into the air ourselves? Wouldn't it be easier just to drop a nuke down the hole of some volcano on a deserted island somewhere and let nature do the job for us? Forget that even, wouldn't it be cheaper just to use that massive effort and funds to stop using CO2 entirely?
This sounds like a really expensive, laborious, drawn out, uncertain band-aid, when the hated alternative already has more realistic applications.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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posted
Pixiest, You have a talent for posting things which although true are nonetheless totally irrelevant. The Venitian atmosphere is so utterly dissimilar from ours that comparisons are virtually meaningless. Sulfuric acid clouds on Venus almost certainly do have a cooling effect on Venus in much the same way that water vapor clouds have a cooling effect on this planet. But we aren't talking about trying to create sulfuric acid clouds in the stratosphere that bear any resemblance with the Venetian atmosphere. We are talking about injecting aerosol into0 the stratosphere the way volcanoes inject aerosol into the stratosphere and that unquestionable does have a cooling effect on this planet.
Posts: 12591 | Registered: Jan 2000
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Crutzen is talking about injecting 5.3 billion kg/year of sulfur into the upper atmosphere. He has suggested this could be done using balloons or artillery.
The volcano alternative, while intriguing, has numerous draw backs that make it a non option.
First, we don't understand volcanos well enough to be able to reliably trigger one even with a nuclear explosion.
Second, most volcanoes don't get high enough to put much SO2 into the stratosphere, they just pollute the troposphere (which is where we live).
Third, This has to be done in a very controlled fashion or we risk catastrophic global cooling (for at least a few years). That kind of control wouldn't be possible by triggering volcanos.
Posts: 12591 | Registered: Jan 2000
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posted
And um...what would happen if, after pumping the SO2 into the atmosphere, we had a major volcanic eruption? We still can't acurately predict when volcanos are going to erupt so isn't that dangerous?
Posts: 1214 | Registered: Aug 2005
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posted
Ye gods. I'm all for the technofix to global warming, after all I like my standard of living, but there must be better ways. It seems to me that shooting one-half of America's population would be both cheaper and safer.
Posts: 10645 | Registered: Jul 2004
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posted
Or getting rid of Scandinavia and storing all our C02 in underground caverns there. That works too.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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