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As of today ICMag has his own Discord server. In this Discord server you can chat, talk with eachother, listen to music, share stories and pictures...and much more. Join now and let's grow together! Join ICMag Discord here! More details in this thread here: here.
Have you looked at the North Pole lately?
- Thread starter igrowone
- Start date
Look at the data from the last 600 million years NOT the cherry picked data from the last 100 years with the 'hockeystick' graph.
If you think electric cars are going to help watch this, also take note of the fires which cannot be put out with water as lithium reacts with water burning hotter just like sodium and magnesium.
And 'renewables' are anything but as they have to be replaced every 20 years.
And 'renewables' are anything but as they have to be replaced every 20 years.
Dumped turbine blades reveal Green energy grift
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The Arctic Ocean’s Changing Beaufort Gyre System: An Assessment of Current Understanding, Open Questions and Future Research Directions
The Arctic Ocean’s Changing Beaufort Gyre System: An Assessment of Current Understanding, Open Questions and Future Research Directions
"The Arctic Ocean’s Changing Beaufort Gyre System: An Assessment of Current Understanding, Open Questions and Future Research Directions" published on 14 Jul 2023 by American Meteorological Society.
SCoPEx: Stratospheric Controlled Perturbation Experiment
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SCoPEx is a scientific experiment to advance understanding of stratospheric aerosols that could be relevant to solar geoengineering. It aims to improve the fidelity of simulations (computer models) of solar geoengineering by providing modelers with experimental results vital to addressing specific science questions. Such simulations are the primary tool for estimating the risks and benefits of solar geoengineering, but current limitations may make the simulations look too good. SCoPEx will make quantitative measurements of aspects of the aerosol microphysics and atmospheric chemistry that are currently highly uncertain in the simulations. It is not a test of solar geoengineering per se. Instead, it will observe how particles interact with one another, with the background stratospheric air, and with solar and infrared radiation. Improved understanding of these processes will help answer applied questions such as, is it possible to find aerosols that can reduce or eliminate ozone loss, without increasing other physical risks?
At the heart of SCoPEx is a scientific balloon, fitted with repurposed off-the-shelf airboat propellers. The repurposed propellers serve two functions. First, the propeller wake forms a well mixed volume (roughly 1 km long and 100 meters in diameter) that serves as an experimental ‘beaker’ in which we can add gasses or particles. Second, the propellers allow us to reposition the gondola to different locations within the volume to measure the properties of the perturbed air. The payload can achieve speeds of a few meters per second (walking speed) relative to the surrounding air, generally for about ten minutes at a time.
The advantage of the SCoPEx propelled balloon is that it allows us to create a small controlled volume of stratospheric air and observe its evolution for (we hope) over 24 hours. Hence the acronym, Stratospheric Controlled Perturbation Experiment. If we used an aircraft instead of a balloon, we would not be able to use such a small perturbed volume nor would we be able to observe it for such long durations.
SCoPEx builds on four decades of research on the environmental chemistry of the ozone layer in the Anderson/Keith/Keutsch groups. SCoPEx will use or adapt many of the high-performance sensors and flight-system engineering experience developed for this ozone research. Analyzing these experiments will improve our knowledge beyond what is currently available within computer models or is measurable with confidence under laboratory conditions.
We plan to use a high-altitude balloon to lift an instrument package approximately 20 km into the atmosphere. Once it is in place, a very small amount of material (100 g to 2 kg) will be released to create a perturbed air mass roughly one kilometer long and one hundred meters in diameter. We will then use the same balloon to measure resulting changes in the perturbed air mass including changes in aerosol density, atmospheric chemistry, and light scattering.
For more background, sulfate aerosol (chemically sulfuric acid) is one of the most studied materials for stratospheric aerosol geoengineering because it already exists naturally in the stratosphere. This means that researchers have some level of understanding of its potential effects even though there are still many uncertainties. However, this also means we know that sulfate aerosol, despite its potential benefits, has two major first order stratospheric impacts: ozone destruction and stratospheric heating. The dangers of ozone destruction are fairly well documented, but stratospheric heating is a poorly understood risk because we don’t yet understand how it could change the dynamics of the stratosphere (the motion of the stratosphere). Materials that could therefore reduce these first order risks will reduce the undesirable stratospheric perturbations, which will in turn reduce any further risks that would result in the troposphere and at the Earth’s surface due to the complex coupling of the Earth system. Harvard researchers have analyzed a range of alternative materials, including diamond, and have found that calcium carbonate could be promising. Early research suggests that it has near-ideal optical properties, meaning that for a given amount of reflected sunlight it would absorb far less radiation than sulfate aerosols, causing significantly less stratospheric heating; and it has the potential to greatly reduce the activation of ozone-depleting halogen species compared to sulfate aerosol, meaning that it could reduce ozone loss. Yet, calcium carbonate does not exist naturally in the stratosphere even though it is non-toxic and earth abundant. Therefore, though we can almost certainly expect that calcium carbonate will not have the stratospheric reactivity of sulfate, the actual stratospheric reactivity is not known, which means laboratory and outdoor studies are needed.
Moreover, despite the fact that recent laboratory results suggest that calcium carbonate could reduce ozone loss compared to sulfate, many uncertainties remain that could affect this hypothesis, e.g., some potentially important heterogenous reactions have not been studied (HOCl+ClONO2 for example) and conditions have not explored polar vortex conditions sufficiently. With SCoPEx the latter conditions will not be explored but the conditions will include all species that occur in the mid-latitude stratosphere, not just those studied in our recent laboratory work.
Yes. A number of environmental science experiments release or have released materials outdoors to create controlled perturbation for the same essential reason as we plan to do in SCoPEx—to directly control an experimental variable, which is crucial to scientific understanding. Examples of experiments include Free-Air Carbon Dioxide Enrichment (FACE) experiments, which release ozone and carbon dioxide (CO2) in the air for long durations to understand the impacts of climate and air pollution on crops and natural ecosystems; or Dispersion of Air Pollution and its Penetration into the Local Environment (DAPPLE) experiments, which have released sulfur hexafluoride (SF6) and perfluoromethylcyclohexane into urban air to study the transport of air pollutants. These experiments differ in various ways, e.g., they have not released material into the stratosphere (the upper atmosphere); they are listed here to merely show that there are environmental science experiments that release materials outdoors.
This balloon flight would be managed by Swedish Space Corporation (SSC), flying out of Esrange Space Center in Kiruna, Sweden. This test would not be the experiment itself, but rather a test of the SCoPEx platform without the release of any particles. Specifically, we would like to review the gondola’s horizontal and vertical control using the winch system and propellers as well as the power, data, navigation, and communication systems. An aerosol injection/release system would not be part of this test flight and no aerosols would be released. Still, the team will not proceed with this flight without a formal recommendation from the Advisory Committee to Harvard leadership authorizing the flight.
You can request notification about the results of the societal engagement process and any upcoming decisions by the Advisory Committee by signing up to this SCoPEx science email list. You can also receive updates on the governance of the experiment by signing up to this separate SCoPEx governance mailing list, which is managed independently by the experiment's Advisory Committee.
Why is a platform test needed before a science flight?
A platform test is needed before the science experiment because SCoPEx will use a new flight platform that has not flown before. In other words, there are significant technical challenges in developing it as an operational vehicle independent of the challenges of the actual solar geoengineering experiment. For example, only a few propelled balloon systems have flown in the stratosphere to date. Balloon operators have told us about a few other simple gondolas with propellers that are analogous to SCoPEx, but we do not have access to the details of those systems. We therefore need to test the new platform and concept of operations before conducting the science flight so we can examine its novel capabilities, e.g., verify its operation, controls, and communications. Yet, this platform will not carry systems for releasing particles.
The timing of the science flights will be contingent on the results from this proposed platform test. It’s possible that we will need additional platform flights if we do not resolve sufficient engineering issues on this flight, which might occur if we have a major equipment or concept of operations failure. The timing of the science flights will also depend, of course, on the Advisory Committee’s review and authorization and on other relevant regulatory bodies. Additionally, the location of the science flights is undetermined at this time because it will depend on the evolving balloon launch industry, scientific objectives, and input from the Advisory Committee and other stakeholders.
How often are stratospheric balloons flown?
Because this is not the science flight, the platform test is a rather standard stratospheric balloon flight when viewed in the context of other balloon flights. In 2019, for example, estimates suggest there were more than 300 stratospheric balloon flights over the course of the year. This platform test is interesting to us as engineers and scientists because we are hoping it will provide information about our equipment for the science flight, but stratospheric balloons are flown regularly. For example, Google launched at least 35 balloons in 2020 as it sought to build a new layer of connectivity technology in the stratosphere to expand internet access worldwide, and NASA usually launches 10 or more balloons each year as it carries out scientific and technological investigations, including fundamental scientific discoveries that contribute to our understanding of the Earth, the solar system, and the universe. Swedish Space Corporation, for example, has flown balloons in partnership with NASA, CNES (the French space agency), and STRATOS (the Canadian space agency balloon program).
Why was Sweden chosen as a location for the platform test?
We chose to partner with Swedish Space Corporation and fly in Sweden because of their availability for summer 2021, promising flight trajectories, and significant experience launching scientific balloons. We also looked at several US balloon operators, but because of COVID-19 and other logistical and scheduling challenges, there were no US based options that could provide a 2021 early-summer launch with a landing on land, and that had already secured launch equipment. (Landing on land is important because we need to recover and reuse our platform equipment. And launch equipment, such as a crane or bucket loader and balloon spool, is needed to safely get the payload off the ground. Indeed, US based Raven Aerostar had to cancel our prior agreement many months ago because they could no longer obtain launch services, as we noted on our website at the time.)
We also needed to make sure we identified a partner who could successfully manage the needs of the SCoPEx balloon, as flight safety is of utmost importance to us. The experimental design for future SCoPEx science flights requires a balloon that will fly a 600 kg payload near an altitude of 20 km. This is a lower altitude than many other stratospheric balloon missions, and launch equipment for this weight class and balloon size is not readily available. We also required that the launch site have relatively low winds, the ability to fly a 4-6 hour flight, and the capability to land on land, as noted above. Swedish Space Corporation performed a trajectory analysis based on wind data from 2018 and 2019 and showed favorable trajectories with suitable landings for the entire summer season (April 15-September 15). For example, these projected landings are in extremely low population areas, which is important from a flight safety perspective.
Swedish Space Corporation is a global provider of advanced space services and has been launching scientific balloons for over 40 years. They have been launching balloons out of Esrange Space Center in Kiruna, Sweden since 1974 and they have also provided launches from outside Esrange since 2018. They will be an exceptional partner for SCoPEx. And we hope that the significant partnerships between Swedish Space Corporations and various US balloon operations could lead to enhanced international collaboration and future launches both from Esrange and within the US. Moreover, and perhaps most importantly, working in Sweden will enable us to increase international scientific collaboration around the SCoPEx experiment, which is critical to us. We have already begun to reach out to Swedish scientists, and we are in discussion with German scientists who have now expressed some interest in collaborating on this flight. We are looking forward to forming new partnerships that will enhance the diversity of perspectives studying SCoPEx and improve the science.
1) We do not accept anonymous donations.
2) We do not accept donations from corporations, foundations, or individuals if the majority of their current profits or wealth come from the fossil fuel industry unless they can clearly demonstrate that they do not have a conflict of interest and present a strong track record of supporting efforts to address climate change.
The Advisory Committee has been carrying out a financial review of the experiment. You can learn more about our funding sources and policies by reading the details on their website.
If it were possible, SGRP would actually forbid patenting for any solar geoengineering related technologies it supported, but there is not a legal way to do so. Harvard owns the intellectual property arising from research conducted using university resources, based on Harvard’s IP Policy and the individual Participation Agreements faculty and researchers sign. But as a practical matter Harvard would not file to protect or enforce intellectual property against the wishes of the contributing faculty member. Because of this, key SCoPEx personnel have personally committed to not file for patents associated with SCoPEx, including Frank Keutsch, David Keith, Norton Allen, Martin Breitenlechner, John Dykema, Mike Greenberg, Michael Litchfield, Terry Martin, Marco Rivero, and Yomay Shyur. Moreover, neither SGRP nor its donors can make any claim on the intellectual property related to the experiment or other research endeavors.
As it relates to activities outside of Harvard, we cannot prevent third-party contractors from filing for patents since they (not we) own the technology that they create. Importantly, however, we have not and do not expect to contract with a third-party vendor for work that could result in a patent of a core piece of solar geoengineering technology. For example, in the case of SCoPEx, any hardware that the balloon vendor develops will not be core to solar geoengineering. It may, for example, be useful to a range of stratospheric balloon flights, including those unrelated to solar geoengineering experiments (if, of course, any new technology is developed at all), but it will not be specific or central to solar geoengineering. This is largely because stratospheric solar geoengineering would most likely be deployed by aircraft, not balloons, if deployed at all.
The Advisory Committee included a series of questions on intellectual property in their financial review of the experiment. You can learn more about their questions and our detailed responses by visiting their website.
The Conference of the Parties to the CBD adopted a decision that includes a section on climate related geoengineering. It states, "that no climate-related geo-engineering activities that may affect biodiversity take place, until there is an adequate scientific basis on which to justify such activities and appropriate consideration of the associated risks for the environment and biodiversity and associated social, economic and cultural impacts, with the exception of small scale scientific research studies that would be conducted in a controlled setting in accordance with Article 3 of the Convention, and only if they are justified by the need to gather specific scientific data and are subject to a thorough prior assessment of the potential impacts on the environment."
SCoPEx would not affect biodiversity because it would pose no significant hazard to people or the environment, as noted above.
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SCoPEx: Stratospheric Controlled Perturbation Experiment
SCoPEx is a scientific experiment to advance understanding of stratospheric aerosols that could be relevant to solar geoengineering. It aims to improve the fidelity of simulations (computer models) of solar geoengineering by providing modelers with experimental results vital to addressing specific science questions. Such simulations are the primary tool for estimating the risks and benefits of solar geoengineering, but current limitations may make the simulations look too good. SCoPEx will make quantitative measurements of aspects of the aerosol microphysics and atmospheric chemistry that are currently highly uncertain in the simulations. It is not a test of solar geoengineering per se. Instead, it will observe how particles interact with one another, with the background stratospheric air, and with solar and infrared radiation. Improved understanding of these processes will help answer applied questions such as, is it possible to find aerosols that can reduce or eliminate ozone loss, without increasing other physical risks?
At the heart of SCoPEx is a scientific balloon, fitted with repurposed off-the-shelf airboat propellers. The repurposed propellers serve two functions. First, the propeller wake forms a well mixed volume (roughly 1 km long and 100 meters in diameter) that serves as an experimental ‘beaker’ in which we can add gasses or particles. Second, the propellers allow us to reposition the gondola to different locations within the volume to measure the properties of the perturbed air. The payload can achieve speeds of a few meters per second (walking speed) relative to the surrounding air, generally for about ten minutes at a time.
The advantage of the SCoPEx propelled balloon is that it allows us to create a small controlled volume of stratospheric air and observe its evolution for (we hope) over 24 hours. Hence the acronym, Stratospheric Controlled Perturbation Experiment. If we used an aircraft instead of a balloon, we would not be able to use such a small perturbed volume nor would we be able to observe it for such long durations.
SCoPEx builds on four decades of research on the environmental chemistry of the ozone layer in the Anderson/Keith/Keutsch groups. SCoPEx will use or adapt many of the high-performance sensors and flight-system engineering experience developed for this ozone research. Analyzing these experiments will improve our knowledge beyond what is currently available within computer models or is measurable with confidence under laboratory conditions.
FAQ
This FAQ aims to answer some basic questions about the SCoPEx experiment. We will update this FAQ periodically. For a more in-depth overview, see our 2014 publication.
What is the experiment?
We plan to use a high-altitude balloon to lift an instrument package approximately 20 km into the atmosphere. Once it is in place, a very small amount of material (100 g to 2 kg) will be released to create a perturbed air mass roughly one kilometer long and one hundred meters in diameter. We will then use the same balloon to measure resulting changes in the perturbed air mass including changes in aerosol density, atmospheric chemistry, and light scattering.Why conduct the experiment?
This experiment will help us learn more about the efficacy and risks of solar geoengineering. Computer modeling and laboratory work tell us some very useful things about solar geoengineering, but as with all other aspects of environmental science, computer models ultimately rest on observations of the real environment. Measuring the ways that aerosols alter stratospheric chemistry can, for example, improve the ability of global models to predict how large-scale geoengineering could possibly disrupt stratospheric ozone. Outdoor experiments can provide in situ perspective that is impossible to obtain in the laboratory and SCoPEx can help us validate important model parameters that have yet to been tested against measurements. Learn more here.What material will be released?
In the future, if a science flight is approved by the independent Advisory Committee, we plan to release calcium carbonate, a common mineral dust. We may also release other materials such as sulfates in response to evolving scientific interests.For more background, sulfate aerosol (chemically sulfuric acid) is one of the most studied materials for stratospheric aerosol geoengineering because it already exists naturally in the stratosphere. This means that researchers have some level of understanding of its potential effects even though there are still many uncertainties. However, this also means we know that sulfate aerosol, despite its potential benefits, has two major first order stratospheric impacts: ozone destruction and stratospheric heating. The dangers of ozone destruction are fairly well documented, but stratospheric heating is a poorly understood risk because we don’t yet understand how it could change the dynamics of the stratosphere (the motion of the stratosphere). Materials that could therefore reduce these first order risks will reduce the undesirable stratospheric perturbations, which will in turn reduce any further risks that would result in the troposphere and at the Earth’s surface due to the complex coupling of the Earth system. Harvard researchers have analyzed a range of alternative materials, including diamond, and have found that calcium carbonate could be promising. Early research suggests that it has near-ideal optical properties, meaning that for a given amount of reflected sunlight it would absorb far less radiation than sulfate aerosols, causing significantly less stratospheric heating; and it has the potential to greatly reduce the activation of ozone-depleting halogen species compared to sulfate aerosol, meaning that it could reduce ozone loss. Yet, calcium carbonate does not exist naturally in the stratosphere even though it is non-toxic and earth abundant. Therefore, though we can almost certainly expect that calcium carbonate will not have the stratospheric reactivity of sulfate, the actual stratospheric reactivity is not known, which means laboratory and outdoor studies are needed.
Moreover, despite the fact that recent laboratory results suggest that calcium carbonate could reduce ozone loss compared to sulfate, many uncertainties remain that could affect this hypothesis, e.g., some potentially important heterogenous reactions have not been studied (HOCl+ClONO2 for example) and conditions have not explored polar vortex conditions sufficiently. With SCoPEx the latter conditions will not be explored but the conditions will include all species that occur in the mid-latitude stratosphere, not just those studied in our recent laboratory work.
Is this material dangerous?
The test will pose no significant hazard to people or the environment. Calcium carbonate is a nontoxic chemical commonly found in nature, for example as limestone, and sub-micron precipitated calcium carbonate particles like the ones we will use are a common additive to consumer products such as paper and toothpaste. In general, the amount of materials to be released (less than 2 kilograms for calcium carbonate) will be very small compared to other routine releases of material into the stratosphere by aircraft, rockets, or routine balloon flights. For example, the release of experimental materials will be small compared to the release of the iron filling ballast that are commonly released to control the altitude of stratospheric balloons. Additionally, if we test sulfate in this experiment, the amount we would use would be less than the amount released during a one minute of flight of a typical commercial aircraft. Aircraft release sulfates due to residual sulfur content of aviation fuel.
Do other environmental science experiments release materials outdoors?
Yes. A number of environmental science experiments release or have released materials outdoors to create controlled perturbation for the same essential reason as we plan to do in SCoPEx—to directly control an experimental variable, which is crucial to scientific understanding. Examples of experiments include Free-Air Carbon Dioxide Enrichment (FACE) experiments, which release ozone and carbon dioxide (CO2) in the air for long durations to understand the impacts of climate and air pollution on crops and natural ecosystems; or Dispersion of Air Pollution and its Penetration into the Local Environment (DAPPLE) experiments, which have released sulfur hexafluoride (SF6) and perfluoromethylcyclohexane into urban air to study the transport of air pollutants. These experiments differ in various ways, e.g., they have not released material into the stratosphere (the upper atmosphere); they are listed here to merely show that there are environmental science experiments that release materials outdoors.Are there other risks?
As with any aircraft flight, when flying a balloon there is a possibility of malfunction and need for early and safe flight termination. The flight will therefore undergo standard environmental health and safety reviews, such as those administered by the FAA. The balloon flight provider will also engage in this process. We were working with Raven Aerostar, but due to scheduling constraints, we are now seeking to identify a new partner. We will update this page once we select a new balloon flight provider.What is the location and timing of the first flight?
We formally asked the independent SCoPEx Advisory Committee to review our plans for a proposed platform test in Sweden in June 2021. In March 2021, the Advisory Committee recommended that we suspend the platform test until a more thorough societal engagement process can be conducted to address issues related to solar geoengineering research in Sweden.This balloon flight would be managed by Swedish Space Corporation (SSC), flying out of Esrange Space Center in Kiruna, Sweden. This test would not be the experiment itself, but rather a test of the SCoPEx platform without the release of any particles. Specifically, we would like to review the gondola’s horizontal and vertical control using the winch system and propellers as well as the power, data, navigation, and communication systems. An aerosol injection/release system would not be part of this test flight and no aerosols would be released. Still, the team will not proceed with this flight without a formal recommendation from the Advisory Committee to Harvard leadership authorizing the flight.
You can request notification about the results of the societal engagement process and any upcoming decisions by the Advisory Committee by signing up to this SCoPEx science email list. You can also receive updates on the governance of the experiment by signing up to this separate SCoPEx governance mailing list, which is managed independently by the experiment's Advisory Committee.
Why is a platform test needed before a science flight?
A platform test is needed before the science experiment because SCoPEx will use a new flight platform that has not flown before. In other words, there are significant technical challenges in developing it as an operational vehicle independent of the challenges of the actual solar geoengineering experiment. For example, only a few propelled balloon systems have flown in the stratosphere to date. Balloon operators have told us about a few other simple gondolas with propellers that are analogous to SCoPEx, but we do not have access to the details of those systems. We therefore need to test the new platform and concept of operations before conducting the science flight so we can examine its novel capabilities, e.g., verify its operation, controls, and communications. Yet, this platform will not carry systems for releasing particles.
The timing of the science flights will be contingent on the results from this proposed platform test. It’s possible that we will need additional platform flights if we do not resolve sufficient engineering issues on this flight, which might occur if we have a major equipment or concept of operations failure. The timing of the science flights will also depend, of course, on the Advisory Committee’s review and authorization and on other relevant regulatory bodies. Additionally, the location of the science flights is undetermined at this time because it will depend on the evolving balloon launch industry, scientific objectives, and input from the Advisory Committee and other stakeholders.
How often are stratospheric balloons flown?
Because this is not the science flight, the platform test is a rather standard stratospheric balloon flight when viewed in the context of other balloon flights. In 2019, for example, estimates suggest there were more than 300 stratospheric balloon flights over the course of the year. This platform test is interesting to us as engineers and scientists because we are hoping it will provide information about our equipment for the science flight, but stratospheric balloons are flown regularly. For example, Google launched at least 35 balloons in 2020 as it sought to build a new layer of connectivity technology in the stratosphere to expand internet access worldwide, and NASA usually launches 10 or more balloons each year as it carries out scientific and technological investigations, including fundamental scientific discoveries that contribute to our understanding of the Earth, the solar system, and the universe. Swedish Space Corporation, for example, has flown balloons in partnership with NASA, CNES (the French space agency), and STRATOS (the Canadian space agency balloon program).
Why was Sweden chosen as a location for the platform test?
We chose to partner with Swedish Space Corporation and fly in Sweden because of their availability for summer 2021, promising flight trajectories, and significant experience launching scientific balloons. We also looked at several US balloon operators, but because of COVID-19 and other logistical and scheduling challenges, there were no US based options that could provide a 2021 early-summer launch with a landing on land, and that had already secured launch equipment. (Landing on land is important because we need to recover and reuse our platform equipment. And launch equipment, such as a crane or bucket loader and balloon spool, is needed to safely get the payload off the ground. Indeed, US based Raven Aerostar had to cancel our prior agreement many months ago because they could no longer obtain launch services, as we noted on our website at the time.)
We also needed to make sure we identified a partner who could successfully manage the needs of the SCoPEx balloon, as flight safety is of utmost importance to us. The experimental design for future SCoPEx science flights requires a balloon that will fly a 600 kg payload near an altitude of 20 km. This is a lower altitude than many other stratospheric balloon missions, and launch equipment for this weight class and balloon size is not readily available. We also required that the launch site have relatively low winds, the ability to fly a 4-6 hour flight, and the capability to land on land, as noted above. Swedish Space Corporation performed a trajectory analysis based on wind data from 2018 and 2019 and showed favorable trajectories with suitable landings for the entire summer season (April 15-September 15). For example, these projected landings are in extremely low population areas, which is important from a flight safety perspective.
Swedish Space Corporation is a global provider of advanced space services and has been launching scientific balloons for over 40 years. They have been launching balloons out of Esrange Space Center in Kiruna, Sweden since 1974 and they have also provided launches from outside Esrange since 2018. They will be an exceptional partner for SCoPEx. And we hope that the significant partnerships between Swedish Space Corporations and various US balloon operations could lead to enhanced international collaboration and future launches both from Esrange and within the US. Moreover, and perhaps most importantly, working in Sweden will enable us to increase international scientific collaboration around the SCoPEx experiment, which is critical to us. We have already begun to reach out to Swedish scientists, and we are in discussion with German scientists who have now expressed some interest in collaborating on this flight. We are looking forward to forming new partnerships that will enhance the diversity of perspectives studying SCoPEx and improve the science.
Will SCoPEx test geoengineering itself?
This is an experiment not a test. A test could make sense late in the development of an engineering system when design and development have proceeded far enough that it could be useful to test whether some part of the system works as designed. That's not our goal. This is a science experiment that will (we hope) improve knowledge of some aspects of stratospheric aerosol physics and chemistry relevant to solar geoengineering. This knowledge will improve large-scale models (which are all ultimately dependent on physical observations) that will in turn improve estimates of the overall efficacy and risks of solar geoengineering. This may seem like an idle distinction, but it matters. We are not, for example, testing whether it's possible to scatter sunlight back to space, because there is no meaningful scientific uncertainty about that question.Will SCoPEx develop hardware for geoengineering deployment?
We are not conducting SCoPEx to develop hardware that can be used for deployment. In fact, this is one of the reasons why we chose to loft the particles using a balloon rather than an aircraft (since aircraft are more likely to be used for deployment). Overall, the purpose of SCoPEx is NOT to advance our understanding of the aircraft or other platforms for deployment of solar geoengineering. It aims to reduce the uncertainty around specific science questions by making quantitative measurements of some of the aerosol microphysics and atmospheric chemistry required for estimating the risks and benefits of solar geoengineering in large atmospheric models.Who is providing the funding?
We think it's essential that SCoPEx is transparent about all funding sources and fundraising principles. Experimental hardware and operations are funded from internal Harvard research funds provided to Professors David Keith and Frank Keutsch. Additional research funding is provided by Harvard’s Solar Geoengineering Research Program (SGRP). All donations to SGRP are philanthropic. Also, in addition to Harvard’s standard funding policies, SGRP follows two further policies:1) We do not accept anonymous donations.
2) We do not accept donations from corporations, foundations, or individuals if the majority of their current profits or wealth come from the fossil fuel industry unless they can clearly demonstrate that they do not have a conflict of interest and present a strong track record of supporting efforts to address climate change.
The Advisory Committee has been carrying out a financial review of the experiment. You can learn more about our funding sources and policies by reading the details on their website.
How will intellectual property be managed?
One of SGRP’s core principles is to operate in a way that is open access across all activities. As we list publicly on our website, we aim to provide “full transparency with open-access publications and liberal data sharing,” and we “discourage patents and any form of IP protection.”If it were possible, SGRP would actually forbid patenting for any solar geoengineering related technologies it supported, but there is not a legal way to do so. Harvard owns the intellectual property arising from research conducted using university resources, based on Harvard’s IP Policy and the individual Participation Agreements faculty and researchers sign. But as a practical matter Harvard would not file to protect or enforce intellectual property against the wishes of the contributing faculty member. Because of this, key SCoPEx personnel have personally committed to not file for patents associated with SCoPEx, including Frank Keutsch, David Keith, Norton Allen, Martin Breitenlechner, John Dykema, Mike Greenberg, Michael Litchfield, Terry Martin, Marco Rivero, and Yomay Shyur. Moreover, neither SGRP nor its donors can make any claim on the intellectual property related to the experiment or other research endeavors.
As it relates to activities outside of Harvard, we cannot prevent third-party contractors from filing for patents since they (not we) own the technology that they create. Importantly, however, we have not and do not expect to contract with a third-party vendor for work that could result in a patent of a core piece of solar geoengineering technology. For example, in the case of SCoPEx, any hardware that the balloon vendor develops will not be core to solar geoengineering. It may, for example, be useful to a range of stratospheric balloon flights, including those unrelated to solar geoengineering experiments (if, of course, any new technology is developed at all), but it will not be specific or central to solar geoengineering. This is largely because stratospheric solar geoengineering would most likely be deployed by aircraft, not balloons, if deployed at all.
The Advisory Committee included a series of questions on intellectual property in their financial review of the experiment. You can learn more about their questions and our detailed responses by visiting their website.
Does SCoPEx violate the Convention on Biological Diversity?
SCoPEx does not violate the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD).The Conference of the Parties to the CBD adopted a decision that includes a section on climate related geoengineering. It states, "that no climate-related geo-engineering activities that may affect biodiversity take place, until there is an adequate scientific basis on which to justify such activities and appropriate consideration of the associated risks for the environment and biodiversity and associated social, economic and cultural impacts, with the exception of small scale scientific research studies that would be conducted in a controlled setting in accordance with Article 3 of the Convention, and only if they are justified by the need to gather specific scientific data and are subject to a thorough prior assessment of the potential impacts on the environment."
SCoPEx would not affect biodiversity because it would pose no significant hazard to people or the environment, as noted above.
How will the experiment be governed?
The SCoPEx team seeks to perform the experiments in a manner that exemplifies good governance by developing and implementing norms, mechanisms, and practices that can serve as useful templates for possible future solar geoengineering field experiments. Initial oversight of environmental, health, and safety issues is being managed by responsible entities from Harvard University and Swedish Space Corporation. Scientific peer review and broader research governance matters are being overseen by an independent Advisory Committee. The purpose of the Advisory Committee is to provide advice on the research and governance of SCoPEx, operating independently from the research team. You can learn more here.
25 July 2023
Ocean Currents
Important ocean currents that redistribute heat, cold and precipitation between the tropics and the northernmost parts of the Atlantic region will shut down around the year 2060 if current greenhouse gas emissions persist. This is the conclusion based on new calculations from the University of Copenhagen that contradict the latest report from the IPCC.
Photo: Getty
Contrary to what we may imagine about the impact of climate change in Europe, a colder future may be in store. In a new study, researchers from the University of Copenhagen’s Niels Bohr Institute and Department of Mathematical Sciences predict that the system of ocean currents which currently distributes cold and heat between the North Atlantic region and tropics will completely stop if we continue to emit the same levels of greenhouse gases as we do today.
Using advanced statistical tools and ocean temperature data from the last 150 years, the researchers calculated that the ocean current, known as the Thermohaline Circulation or the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC), will collapse – with 95 percent certainty – between 2025 and 2095. This will most likely occur in 34 years, in 2057, and could result in major challenges, particularly warming in the tropics and increased storminess in the North Atlantic region.
"Shutting down the AMOC can have very serious consequences for Earth's climate, for example, by changing how heat and precipitation are distributed globally. While a cooling of Europe may seem less severe as the globe as a whole becomes warmer and heat waves occur more frequently, this shutdown will contribute to an increased warming of the tropics, where rising temperatures have already given rise to challenging living conditions," says Professor Peter Ditlevsen from the Niels Bohr Institute.
"Our result underscores the importance of reducing global greenhouse gas emissions as soon as possible," says the researcher.
The AMOC (Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation), is very important for the redistribution of heat from the tropics to the northern parts of the Atlantic. Photo: Getty
The calculations, just published in the renowned scientific journal, Nature Communications, contradict the message of the latest IPCC report, which, based on climate model simulations, considers an abrupt change in the thermohaline circulation very unlikely during this century.
Facts about the ocean current
"Using new and improved statistical tools, we’ve made calculations that provide a more robust estimate of when a collapse of the Thermohaline Circulation is most likely to occur, something we had not been able to do before," explains Professor Susanne Ditlevsen of UCPH’s Department of Mathematical Sciences.
The thermohaline circulation has operated in its present mode since the last ice age, where the circulation was indeed collapsed. Abrupt climate jumps between the present state of the AMOC and the collapsed state has been observed to happen 25 times in connection with iceage climate. These are the famed Dansgaard-Oeschger events first observed in ice cores from the Greenlandic ice sheet. At those events climate changes were extreme with 10-15 degrees changes over a decade, while present days climate change is 1.5 degrees warming over a century.
science.ku.dk
Gloomy climate calculation: Scientists predict a collapse of the Atlantic ocean current to happen mid-century
Ocean Currents
Important ocean currents that redistribute heat, cold and precipitation between the tropics and the northernmost parts of the Atlantic region will shut down around the year 2060 if current greenhouse gas emissions persist. This is the conclusion based on new calculations from the University of Copenhagen that contradict the latest report from the IPCC.
Contrary to what we may imagine about the impact of climate change in Europe, a colder future may be in store. In a new study, researchers from the University of Copenhagen’s Niels Bohr Institute and Department of Mathematical Sciences predict that the system of ocean currents which currently distributes cold and heat between the North Atlantic region and tropics will completely stop if we continue to emit the same levels of greenhouse gases as we do today.
Using advanced statistical tools and ocean temperature data from the last 150 years, the researchers calculated that the ocean current, known as the Thermohaline Circulation or the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC), will collapse – with 95 percent certainty – between 2025 and 2095. This will most likely occur in 34 years, in 2057, and could result in major challenges, particularly warming in the tropics and increased storminess in the North Atlantic region.
"Shutting down the AMOC can have very serious consequences for Earth's climate, for example, by changing how heat and precipitation are distributed globally. While a cooling of Europe may seem less severe as the globe as a whole becomes warmer and heat waves occur more frequently, this shutdown will contribute to an increased warming of the tropics, where rising temperatures have already given rise to challenging living conditions," says Professor Peter Ditlevsen from the Niels Bohr Institute.
"Our result underscores the importance of reducing global greenhouse gas emissions as soon as possible," says the researcher.
The calculations, just published in the renowned scientific journal, Nature Communications, contradict the message of the latest IPCC report, which, based on climate model simulations, considers an abrupt change in the thermohaline circulation very unlikely during this century.
Early warning signals present
The researchers' prediction is based on observations of early warning signals that ocean currents exhibit as they become unstable. These Early Warning Signals for the Thermohaline Circulation have been reported previously, but only now has the development of advanced statistical methods made it possible to predict just when a collapse will occur.Facts about the ocean current
- The Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) is part of a global system of ocean currents. By far, it accounts for the most significant part of heat redistribution from the tropics to the northernmost regions of the Atlantic region – not least to Western Europe.
- At the northernmost latitudes, circulation ensures that surface water is converted into deep, southbound ocean currents. The transformation creates space for additional surface water to be moved northward from equatorial regions. As such, thermohaline circulation is critical for maintaining the relatively mild climate of the North Atlantic region.
"Using new and improved statistical tools, we’ve made calculations that provide a more robust estimate of when a collapse of the Thermohaline Circulation is most likely to occur, something we had not been able to do before," explains Professor Susanne Ditlevsen of UCPH’s Department of Mathematical Sciences.
The thermohaline circulation has operated in its present mode since the last ice age, where the circulation was indeed collapsed. Abrupt climate jumps between the present state of the AMOC and the collapsed state has been observed to happen 25 times in connection with iceage climate. These are the famed Dansgaard-Oeschger events first observed in ice cores from the Greenlandic ice sheet. At those events climate changes were extreme with 10-15 degrees changes over a decade, while present days climate change is 1.5 degrees warming over a century.
Gloomy climate calculation: Scientists predict a collapse of the Atlantic ocean current to happen mid-century
Important ocean currents that redistribute heat, cold and precipitation between the tropics and the northernmost parts of the Atlantic region will shut down around the year 2060 if current greenhouse gas emissions persist. This is the conclusion based on new calculations from the University of...
science.ku.dk
Long-term changes in waves and storm surges have not impacted global coastlines.
Changes in ocean wave and storm conditions have not caused long-term impacts on sandy coastlines in the past 30 years, a new study has found.Published today in Nature Scientific Reports, the study draws on data from 30 years of global satellite and model studies to investigate whether changes in ocean wave conditions will have an impact on the stability of coastal environments.
The compounding effect of climate change driven variations in waves, storm surge and sea level rise is projected to lead to shoreline position change along most of the world’s sandy coasts.
A team of researchers, led by University of Melbourne PhD candidate Mandana Ganavati and Professor Ian Young, together with colleagues from IHE Delft Institute for Water Education and Deltares of the Netherlands, looked at the changes in shoreline position over the past 30 years globally. These changes in shoreline position were compared to changes in wave and storm surge properties along the same coastlines.
“Although many shorelines around the world are dynamic, responding to wave and storm surge events, these changes tend to be short to medium term. However, we saw no evidence in the last 30 years or so of data that the long-term changes in waves and storm surge are directly causing long-term recession of coastlines.” said Professor Young.
Ms Ganavati said it is commonly inferred that climate change-induced increases in wind speeds and the ocean waves are impacting global shorelines.
“Changes in mean sea level due to global warming are expected to result in recession of our coastlines, in many places threatening homes, infrastructure and ecosystems. However, in a global sense, the magnitude of the observed changes in waves and storm surge over the last 30 years appears too small to have a measurable impact.
“Variations in the supply of sediment from rivers, longshore gradients in sediment transport and human management of coastlines are likely to have had a bigger impact on changing shoreline position than changes in wave and storm surge climate over the last 30 years.” Ms Ganavati said.
Climate change and mean sea level rise is projected to result in widespread coastal recession along sandy coasts through the twenty-first century, potentially disrupting lives and leading to massive socioeconomic losses. This study found the available datasets do not show clear linkages between long-term shoreline change and changes in waves and storm surge over the past three decades.
Long-term changes in waves and storm surges have not impacted global coastlines
Long-term changes in waves and storm surges have not impacted global coastlines
www.unimelb.edu.au
Long-term changes in waves and storm surges have not impacted global coastlines
Long-term changes in waves and storm surges have not impacted global coastlines
www.unimelb.edu.au
Professor of Meteorology at MIT says there's little evidence of man-made climate change
time to come back from the land of fantasy and make believe to the real world
and the real world is having some issues, this is a plot of this year's Greenland melt
this is the fierce melting spike that Greenland had this year
you're literally looking at the record heating the earth has experienced this summer
and the idle grasshoppers fiddle away as the earth burns
and the real world is having some issues, this is a plot of this year's Greenland melt
this is the fierce melting spike that Greenland had this year
you're literally looking at the record heating the earth has experienced this summer
and the idle grasshoppers fiddle away as the earth burns
Yeah right, because of global boiling now, that should be global boyling due to all the paedophiles involved.
A seasonally ice-free Arctic Ocean during the Last Interglacial - Nature Geoscience
The warm Last Interglacial led to a seasonally ice-free Arctic Ocean and a transformation to Atlantic conditions, according to planktic foraminifera records from central Arctic Ocean sediment cores.
www.nature.com
Abstract
The extent and seasonality of Arctic sea ice during the Last Interglacial (129,000 to 115,000 years before present) is poorly known. Sediment-based reconstructions have suggested extensive ice cover in summer, while climate model outputs indicate year-round conditions in the Arctic Ocean ranging from ice free to fully ice covered. Here we use microfossil records from across the central Arctic Ocean to show that sea-ice extent was substantially reduced and summers were probably ice free. The evidence comes from high abundances of the subpolar planktic foraminifera Turborotalita quinqueloba in five newly analysed cores. The northern occurrence of this species is incompatible with perennial sea ice, which would be associated with a thick, low-salinity surface water. Instead, T. quinqueloba’s ecological preference implies largely ice-free surface waters with seasonally elevated levels of primary productivity. In the modern ocean, this species thrives in the Fram Strait–Barents Sea ‘Arctic–Atlantic gateway’ region, implying that the necessary Atlantic Ocean-sourced water masses shoaled towards the surface during the Last Interglacial. This process reflects the ongoing Atlantification of the Arctic Ocean, currently restricted to the Eurasian Basin. Our results establish the Last Interglacial as a prime analogue for studying a seasonally ice-free Arctic Ocean, expected to occur this century.......
Science knows nothing the world is not round or heating up! Its flat and at the center of the universe just like when god created it a couple of thousand years ago.
Smoking a joint laughing my ass off. What are you going to do understand the science or believe wealthy owners of oil stocks?
Smoking a joint laughing my ass off. What are you going to do understand the science or believe wealthy owners of oil stocks?
Report: Russia Ships Oil to China Across the Arctic
John Hayward 11 Aug 2023
Russian tankers that would normally carry oil to European customers are instead being rerouted through the Arctic to China, according to an OilPrice report Friday.
“Russia sent two initial crude oil shipments to China in mid-July, with four more oil tankers currently headed the same way via the Arctic, each carrying around 750,000 barrels of crude oil,” the report said.
The Arctic Ocean Northern Sea Route (NSR) is about 30 percent faster for Russian shipments to Asia than the Suez Canal route. The Russians have been contemplating a switch to the NSR for some time, and the Nordic nations have been exploring it as well.
When Europe and the United States imposed sanctions after Russia invaded Ukraine and Europe began what appears to be a permanent move away from depending on Russian oil and gas, the NSR route became more attractive to Moscow.
Interest in Arctic shipping also picked up after the MV Ever Given disaster in March 2021, when a massive cargo ship got stuck in the Suez Canal and blocked a great deal of international shipping for several days. Chinese and Russian officials argued that opening another major trade route for nations with access to the Arctic would reduce dependence on the Suez and provide alternatives in the case of another blockage.
Of course, shipping through the Arctic poses some unique challenges. Analysts told OilPrice that Russia has been building up its fleet of ice-class tankers, and some Russian firms are in a position to switch almost all of their shipping to the NSR.
Nikkei Asia offered a lavishly illustrated and animated argument that the NSR could be a game changer for shipping between Asia and Europe, especially now that global warming has purportedly melted enough Arctic ice to make the waterway easier to navigate.
“The route is also easier to navigate as it does not pass through the politically volatile Middle East, and there are no pirate attacks,” Nikkei Asia noted. “However, it is expensive. The route comes with additional costs, like hiring the services of Russian icebreakers and building ships with special specifications.”
Of course, there are concerns about the environmental impact of heavy shipping through the Arctic, but advocates argue that the shorter shipping distances made possible by the NSR mean huge ships will burn less fuel, creating a distinct environmental advantage.
Moscow certainly likes the sound of that “hiring the services of Russian icebreakers” point Nikkei Asia made, and if the NSR becomes heavily traveled, Russia would also gain a commanding strategic position in international trade.
At a 2019 conference in Beijing, Russian leader Vladimir Putin touted the idea of linking the NSR to China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), giving China a shorter and strategically reliable shipping route to Europe. Since Japan and South Korea could also benefit from the NSR, this could eventually bring a great deal of the world’s shipping under the strategic control of Beijing and Moscow.
with all the excitement going on Greenland and Antarctica, I've been neglecting the Arctic
and interestingly the Arctic is pretty average at the moment, at least by current standards
this is, of course, relative to the records that are being shattered world wide
that said,the nortwest passage looks on track to open this year
and it appears the more northern passage could open
that would be another step closer to an ice free summer at the Arctic
and interestingly the Arctic is pretty average at the moment, at least by current standards
this is, of course, relative to the records that are being shattered world wide
that said,the nortwest passage looks on track to open this year
and it appears the more northern passage could open
that would be another step closer to an ice free summer at the Arctic
July 2023
The July global surface temperature was 1.12°C (2.02°F) above the 20th-century average of 15.8°C (60.4°F), making it the warmest July on record. This marked the first time a July temperature exceeded 1.0°C (1.8°F) above the long-term average. July 2023 was 0.20°C (0.36°F) warmer than the previous July record from 2021, but the anomaly was 0.23°C (0.41°F) lower than the all-time highest monthly temperature anomaly on record (March 2016). July 2023 marked the 47th-consecutive July and the 533rd-consecutive month with temperatures at least nominally above the 20th-century average.Climatologically, July is the warmest month of the year. As the warmest July on record, July 2023 was more likely than not the warmest month on record for the globe since 1850. The past nine Julys have been the warmest Julys on record.
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