A research center is being set up at the University of Cambridge to work on radical ways to combat global warming.
Supporters of geoengineering - that is, artificially influencing the environment in order to combat global warming (see “Ideas”) - are considered to be a kind of climatic marginals, inventing things that are inadmissible from the point of view of serious scientists. However, a very serious University of Cambridge in the UK is now creating a research center for climate recovery (Center for Climate Repair) - can be translated as a Center for Climate Repair.
The new structure will be led by Professor Sir David King, ex-British government adviser on climate change. The goal of his team is to explore radical and unexpected ways to combat global warming. Not necessarily geoengineering philosophy. The main thing is more active than the current strategy: reducing greenhouse gas emissions. This approach was called "climate repair".
The creation of the center is part of the large Carbon Neutral Futures Initiative at Cambridge University.
- What we do over the course of 10 years will determine the fate of humanity for the next 10 thousand years, - quoted by King BBC.
“When it comes to such a complex and urgent problem as climate change, we must consider the widest range of ideas, including radical ones,” says Dr. Emily Schukburg, head of the Carbon Neutral Futures Initiative.
Simply reducing greenhouse gas emissions is good, but not enough, joins colleagues Peter Wadhams, professor of ocean physics at Cambridge. Yes, it will help slow down global warming. But it's too hot now! The average temperature on Earth is 1 degree higher than in the pre-industrial era (one and a half centuries ago). Everything goes to the fact that by the end of the 21st century it will rise by 3 - 3.5 degrees.
And a lot of carbon dioxide is impermissible. Fresh data from the US National Atmospheric and Oceanic Administration and the Scripps Oceanographic Institute: On May 11, 2019, a record CO2 content in the Earth's atmosphere was recorded. The figure of 415 parts per million does not say anything to the layman, another thing is impressive - such an amount of carbon dioxide has not been in the air in the last 4.5 million years!
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So we need to clean up the atmosphere from him, concludes Wadhams. And return the temperature back to the coolness of the 19th century. This is “climatic repair”.
IDEAS
5 non-trivial ways to combat global warming
CLOUDS FILLING
Perhaps, soon there will be drone ships with very high masts from the oceans. They will suck in seawater, pump up and spray microscopic droplets high, high into the sky. The marine spray will turn into clouds containing the finest salt particles. Such clouds are larger than usual and better reflect the sun's rays - thereby preventing the atmosphere from warming up. They are planned to be created primarily in the Arctic, on which the climate of the entire Northern Hemisphere depends. And this is just one of the topics that they intend to explore in the new center in the first place.
ARTIFICIAL VOLCANIC WINTER
The method was spied on by nature itself. More precisely, near volcanoes. After powerful eruptions, it becomes cooler on Earth - ashes work as a barrier to sunlight, they are reflected and do not penetrate into the atmosphere. And if you do the same, only without the volcano: spray sulfur dioxide aerosol or other substance in the stratosphere? This idea has been discussed since the 1970s, and was first proposed by the Soviet climatologist Mikhail Budyko. Serious projects were developed in the USA and Great Britain. And then the American Harvard seizes the initiative from Cambridge. There is a solar geoengineering research program there. And already in 2019 a practical experiment is planned. A controlled stratospheric balloon will be launched over the southwest of the United States. At an altitude of about 20 km, it will spray the smallest particles of calcium carbonate - chalk, in fact. This substance is more environmentally friendly and safer than sulfur dioxide. A little - several servings of 100 grams each, for a total of less than a kilogram.
SPACE MIRRORS
The idea is similar: to prevent the sun's rays from heating the Earth and thereby make the climate cooler. Only, unlike the previous idea, the barrier is supposed to be placed in space. Technically, different solutions are possible - mirrors that reflect the sun's rays, or lenses that do not transmit part of the radiation (like sunglasses), millions of small devices, or one giant lens, in orbit or even farther in space, between our planet and the Sun. It is clear that this is wildly expensive and difficult.
GORGEOUS OCEANS
Let me remind you that carbon dioxide is the main culprit of the greenhouse effect. But what if its surplus "drowns" in the ocean? This is still happening, but not in such volumes as the adherents of another idea dream: with the help of special chemicals-fertilizers, cause a rapid growth of plankton in the seas. And they will get very hungry for CO2. And they will eat everything that we have thrown out of our factories and cars.
CARBON ACID WAREHOUSES
You can also collect CO2 and other emissions from factories and CHP pipes before they enter the atmosphere (and intensify warming). Recycle into solid and store underground. This method, by the way, does not affect natural processes. The pilot project is currently being developed by the British University of Sheffield and the Tata Steel in Wales.
EXPERT COMMENTARY
It's all about the scale of the experiments
Does climate repair make sense? Is there more benefit or danger? Alexey Kokorin, Director of the Climate and Energy Program of the World Wildlife Fund (WWF Russia), argues:
- The ideas are not really new, they have been talked about for a long time. It's all about the scale of the experiments. If we are talking about an area of 100 square kilometers - yes, it is quite possible to do something and see how the air temperature and other indicators change. Such experiments have a right to exist. They will not have any impact on global processes. Physically speaking, the idea of clouds, for example, will probably work. But even if British scientists create a screen of white-white clouds over the entire kingdom, this will not affect the climate of the entire planet. Great Britain is very small compared to the entire globe.
If you start something on a global scale, then questions immediately arise. Yes, computer models show that if, for example, an artificial screen for sunlight is created in the atmosphere, the average temperature on Earth will drop. But will there be fewer dangerous weather events, natural disasters? Will we shake the climate even more? Let's say the average temperature in Moscow will be one degree lower. But won't it be composed of waves of abnormal heat and cold? Will it turn out that during the summer there will be one powerful downpour, and then a drought? I'm exaggerating, but that's the point. We will “treat” the temperature, but we will not get to many symptoms and even more the causes of the disease - we will not reduce the human influence on the climate system.
Therefore, our position is: to explore any ideas is great. Experiments on a scale of one hundred or even five hundred kilometers, please. But then - not a foot. In any case, one University of Cambridge or the United Kingdom will not be able to implement one of these ideas on a global scale. The consent of Russia, China, the United States and other countries is needed. It is impossible to imagine that all of them will give permission.
So far, the situation is developing in such a way that the projected increase in average temperature by 3 - 3.5 degrees by the end of the 21st century, the largest countries are not very scary. They do not see catastrophic consequences for themselves. Russia as well. Maybe sometime in the 22nd century, the center of St. Petersburg will have to be surrounded by a high dam to save it from rising sea levels. But we are not talking about a global flood, not about the death of people, but simply about financial costs and technical solutions. But in such a relatively comfortable situation in the face of global warming, far from everything. For the Netherlands and Great Britain it is more difficult, for small island states it is even worse. About a hundred countries at all international climate forums shout: we are dying! They are given money for adaptation and resettlement. But no more. Breaking bad like geoengineeringthe world's largest powers are clearly not ready to start. So for now, this is an abstract science.
YULIA SMIRNOVA
