Why Climate Intervention Is Needed
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We need to plan for the possibility that pro-actively cooling the planet will be necessary in the coming decades. Climate scientists have told us that we must limit warming to 1.5 degrees C (2.7 degrees F) in order to prevent the increasingly devastating and irreversible impacts of climate change. The global temperature increase (since pre-industrial times) for 2023 will likely exceed 1.5°C and 2024 will likely be even warmer. Assuming the Earth continues to warm at current rate, the global average temperature increase will likely exceed 1.5°C well before 2030 and will likely remain above 1.5°C for decades. Because greenhouse gas emissions are not expected to decline significantly for decades and because the cost of removing CO2 from the atmosphere will be too expensive for decades, it might not be possible to prevent the increasingly devastating and irreversible impacts of climate change unless steps are taken to cool the Earth by increasing the Earth's albedo. I.e., we are likely past the point where (realistic) greenhouse gas emissions reductions will be sufficient for preventing unacceptable damages from climate change because society will not likely be willing to pay for the costs of removing many tens of billions of tons of CO2 per year (which could be $4 Trillion per year if we need to remove 40 GTCO2 per year at $100/ton CO2). To get an understanding of why this is the case, we need to look at realistic projections for the next 30 years for (1) anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions, (2) greenhouse gas emission-equivalents from natural source, (3) costs of removing CO2 from the atmosphere, (4) the amount of CO2 removed from the atmosphere by CO2 removal processes (e.g., CCS, DAC, OIF, etc.), (5) the expected temperature increase, and (6) the expected impact of the temperature increase on the Earth (ecosystems collapse, cost of natural disasters, etc.). |
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Anthropogenic greenhouse emissions are not expected to change significantly in the next several decades |
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Emissions (and emission equivalents) from natural sources are expected to increase in the coming years |
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LTE |
Climate crisis “out of control” (Letter sent to the Guardian containing SAI proposal but not published) |
10/10/23 |
11/26/23 |
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LTE |
Climate crisis “out of control” (Letter sent to the Guardian containing SAI proposal but not published) |
10/10/23 |
11/26/23 |
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| Author | John Nissen (On behalf of the Planetary Restoration Action Group (PRAG)) |
| Description | We have a historically unprecedented climate emergency. The planet is now heating so fast that the Paris-agreed ceiling of 1.5°C global mean temperature is liable to be reached next year and 2°C within a decade or two. This rapid heating will be boosted by Arctic meltdown: with less sunshine reflected by snow and ice, and with the release of the potent greenhouse gas, methane, from thawing permafrost. Arctic meltdown also affects the jet stream: we can expect the double-whammy of increased global heating and stuck jet stream patterns to produce ever more extreme heatwaves, droughts and wildfires. The climate crisis is indeed spiralling “out of control” (the Guardian headline on 6th October). Our only chance of seizing control, before catastrophe becomes inevitable, is through rapid, emergency cooling intervention. We owe it to the young people of today that we grasp the nettle and prepare for solar geoengineering: injecting sulphur dioxide into the stratosphere to mimic the cooling action of major volcanic eruptions. Experimental injection could even start next year: injection anywhere between 45N and 65N would safely limit the lifetime of the aerosol produced to a few months according to climate models. The risks from rapid full-scale intervention could prove tiny in comparison with the risk of leaving intervention too late to prevent catastrophic climate change for much of the world. To boot, a variety of appropriate interventions, together with a drastic cut in greenhouse gas emissions, could restore the planet to a safe, sustainable, biodiverse and productive state within the lifetimes of our young people. |
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| 2 |
URL link to Article |
An earth system model shows self-sustained thawing of permafrost even if all man-made GHG emissions stop in 2020 |
11/12/20 |
11/8/23 |
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| 2 |
URL link to Article |
An earth system model shows self-sustained thawing of permafrost even if all man-made GHG emissions stop in 2020 |
11/12/20 |
11/8/23 |
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| Description | The risk of points-of-no-return, which, once surpassed lock the world into new dynamics, have been discussed for decades. Recently, there have been warnings that some of these tipping points are coming closer and are too dangerous to be disregarded. In this paper we report that in the ESCIMO climate model the world is already past a point-of-no-return for global warming. In ESCIMO we observe self-sustained thawing of the permafrost for hundreds of years, even if global society stops all emissions of man-made GHGs immediately. We encourage other model builders to explore our discovery in their (bigger) models, and report on their findings. The thawing (in ESCIMO) is the result of a continuing self-sustained rise in the global temperature. This warming is the combined effect of three physical processes: (1) declining surface albedo (driven by melting of the Arctic ice cover), (2) increasing amounts of water vapour in the atmosphere (driven by higher temperatures), and (3) changes in the concentrations of the GHG in the atmosphere (driven by the absorption of CO2 in biomass and oceans, and emission of carbon (CH4 and CO2) from thawing permafrost). This self-sustained, in the sense of no further GHG emissions, thawing process (in ESCIMO) is a causally determined, physical process that evolves over time. It starts with the man-made warming up to the 1950s, leading to a rise in the amount of water vapour in the atmosphere--further lifting the temperature, causing increasing release of carbon from thawing permafrost, and simultaneously a decline in the surface albedo as the ice and snow covers melts. To stop the self-sustained warming in ESCIMO, enormous amounts of CO2 have to be extracted from the atmosphere. |
| Contents | The possibility of points-of-no-return in the climate system has been discussed for two decades1,2,3. A point-of-no-return can be seen as a threshold which, once surpassed, fundamentally changes the dynamics of the climate system. For example, by triggering irreversible processes like thawing of the permafrost, drying of the rainforests, or acidification of surface waters. Recently, Lenton et al.4 summarized the global situation and warned that thresholds may be closer in time than commonly believed. The purpose of this article is to report that we have identified a point-of-no-return in our climate model ESCIMO - and that it is already behind us. ESCIMO is a "reduced complexity earth system" climate model5 which we run from 1850 to 2500. In ESCIMO the global temperature keeps rising to 2500 and beyond, irrespective of how fast humanity cuts the emissions of man-made greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. The reason is a cycle of self-sustained thawing of the permafrost (caused by methane release), lower surface albedo (caused by melting ice and snow) and higher atmospheric humidity (caused by higher temperatures). This cycle appears to be triggered by global warming of a mere?+?0.5 °C above the pre-industrial level. |
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URL link to Video (1:11) |
Yuri Felshtinsky - Russia Went from Red Terror to a Terrorist State led by the Intelligence Services |
11/24/23 |
11/28/23 |
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| 1 |
URL link to Video (1:11) |
Yuri Felshtinsky - Russia Went from Red Terror to a Terrorist State led by the Intelligence Services |
11/24/23 |
11/28/23 |
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| Description | |
| Contents | 6. I go through the lessons offered by paleoclimate in my new book Our Fragile Moment: How Lessons from Earth's Past Can Help Us Survive the Climate Crisis, and I come away with very different conclusions about what we collectively learn from the Cenozoic cooling, the Pliocene, and the Holocene. The collective evidence from the paleoclimate record tells us that climate models have the climate sensitivity (how much warming we can expect for a specified increase in carbon dioxide concentrations) about right, at least for the range of warming we are likely facing (less than 3C/5F given policies already in place). Of course, if we keep greenhouse gas concentrations elevated for centuries, there is the potential for greater amounts of warming as longer-term climate responses kick in. So it is important to think about strategies for carbon drawdown down the road. Here I agree with Hansen and co-authors. But in terms of what we can expect in the decades ahead, there is no reason, based on the collective evidence from the paleoclimate record, to expect a climate trajectory substantially different from what current generation (i.e. IPCC) models predict. And there is no reason that we can't prevent dangerous levels of warming through concerted efforts to decarbonize the global economy. The obstacles, at least at present, are political, not physical or even technological. |
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URL link to Article |
Deforestation is pushing the Amazon rainforest closer to a point of no return |
10/8/23 |
11/8/23 |
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| 3 |
URL link to Article |
Deforestation is pushing the Amazon rainforest closer to a point of no return |
10/8/23 |
11/8/23 |
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| Description | Human survival depends on this iconic ecosystem, and only one thing will save it. |
| Contents | Human survival depends on this iconic ecosystem, and only one thing will save it. |
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| 4 |
URL link to Article |
South American monsoon heading towards 'tipping point' likely to cause Amazon dieback |
10/4/23 |
11/8/23 |
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| 4 |
URL link to Article |
South American monsoon heading towards 'tipping point' likely to cause Amazon dieback |
10/4/23 |
11/8/23 |
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| Description | 'Shocking' study finds Amazon rainforest will be unable to sustain itself and transport moisture once 'regime shift' occurs |
| Contents | 'Shocking' study finds Amazon rainforest will be unable to sustain itself and transport moisture once 'regime shift' occurs |
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| Description | Tipping elements are components of the Earth system which may respond nonlinearly to anthropogenic climate change by transitioning toward substantially different long-term states upon passing key thresholds or “tipping points.” In some cases, such changes could produce additional greenhouse gas emissions or radiative forcing that could compound global warming. Improved understanding of tipping elements is important for predicting future climate risks and their impacts. Here we review mechanisms, predictions, impacts, and knowledge gaps associated with 10 notable Earth system components proposed to be tipping elements. We evaluate which tipping elements are approaching critical thresholds and whether shifts may manifest rapidly or over longer timescales. Some tipping elements have a higher risk of crossing tipping points under middle-of-the-road emissions pathways and will possibly affect major ecosystems, climate patterns, and/or carbon cycling within the 21st century. However, literature assessing different emissions scenarios indicates a strong potential to reduce impacts associated with many tipping elements through climate change mitigation. The studies synthesized in our review suggest most tipping elements do not possess the potential for abrupt future change within years, and some proposed tipping elements may not exhibit tipping behavior, rather responding more predictably and directly to the magnitude of forcing. Nevertheless, uncertainties remain associated with many tipping elements, highlighting an acute need for further research and modeling to better constrain risks. |
| Contents | Plain Language Summary
In recent years, discussions of climate change have shown growing interest in “tipping elements” of the Earth system, also imprecisely referred to as “tipping points.” This refers to Earth system components like the tropical rainforests of Amazonia or the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets which may exhibit large-scale, long-term changes upon reaching critical global warming, greenhouse gas, or other thresholds. Once such thresholds are passed, some tipping elements could in turn produce additional greenhouse gas emissions or change the Earth's energy balance in ways that moderately reinforce warming. In this review, we summarize the current state of scientific knowledge on 10 systems that some have referred to as potential tipping elements of the climate system. We describe the mechanisms important to each system, highlight the response of these systems to climate change so far, and explain the dynamics of potential future changes that these systems could undergo in response to further climate change. Overall, even considering remaining scientific uncertainties, tipping elements will influence future climate change and may involve major impacts on ecosystems, climate patterns, and the carbon cycle starting later this century. Aggressive efforts to stabilize climate change could significantly reduce such impacts. |
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Reduction in Arctic sea ice |
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URL link to Video (16) |
On the Deployment of Ocean Spraying Vessels to Brighten Marine Clouds to Cool the Planet: 4 of 4 |
6/23/21 |
11/20/23 |
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| 1 |
URL link to Video (16) |
On the Deployment of Ocean Spraying Vessels to Brighten Marine Clouds to Cool the Planet: 4 of 4 |
6/23/21 |
11/20/23 |
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I was recently in a great video discussion with Peter Wadhams and Stephen Salter, hosted by Metta Spencer, to hash out the cloud brightening technique as conceptualized by Emeritus Professor Stephen Salter in the Engineering and Design Department at the University of Edinburgh over the last couple of decades.
Marine Cloud Brightening (MCB) has the potential to cool the planet in a highly controllable fashion. Essentially, sea water is pumped to high pressure through nozzles where it generates water jets that then break apart (via Rayleigh instability) to form tiny water droplets. The nozzle size, number of nozzles, water pressure, etc"¦ are engineered to produce water droplets of 800 nm size (0.8 micron) so that when the water evaporates we are left with 200 nm salt crystals. These salt crystals are then transported within the turbulent boundary layer above the surface of the ocean up to heights about 1 km to 1.5 km where they act as cloud condensation nuclei, ensuring that the clouds that do form are of extremely high albedo (reflectivity) and thus can reflect enough incoming sunlight to cool the surface of the Earth.
The spray nozzles are transported around the oceans of the planet by hydrofoil ships powered by the wind using so-called Flettner Rotors. The ships are sailed to specific areas of the ocean at specific times of the year to brighten the clouds in specific regions to get the desired regional cooling, for example to reduce Atlantic Basin hurricane strength, protect coral reefs, cool the Arctic enough to restore Arctic Sea Ice, and!or modify monsoons or redistribute rainfall to reduce droughts or torrential rainfalls.
This technology has enormous potential to cool the planet enough to buy us time to slash fossil fuel emissions and deploy carbon removal technologies.
Please donate to http://paulbeckwith.net to support my research and videos on abrupt climate change science, consequences, and solutions. |  (Click HERE to view the transcrript) |
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Reduction in Northern Hemisphere snow-cover extent |
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URL link to Article |
An earth system model shows self-sustained thawing of permafrost even if all man-made GHG emissions stop in 2020 |
11/12/20 |
11/8/23 |
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| 1 |
URL link to Article |
An earth system model shows self-sustained thawing of permafrost even if all man-made GHG emissions stop in 2020 |
11/12/20 |
11/8/23 |
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| Description | The risk of points-of-no-return, which, once surpassed lock the world into new dynamics, have been discussed for decades. Recently, there have been warnings that some of these tipping points are coming closer and are too dangerous to be disregarded. In this paper we report that in the ESCIMO climate model the world is already past a point-of-no-return for global warming. In ESCIMO we observe self-sustained thawing of the permafrost for hundreds of years, even if global society stops all emissions of man-made GHGs immediately. We encourage other model builders to explore our discovery in their (bigger) models, and report on their findings. The thawing (in ESCIMO) is the result of a continuing self-sustained rise in the global temperature. This warming is the combined effect of three physical processes: (1) declining surface albedo (driven by melting of the Arctic ice cover), (2) increasing amounts of water vapour in the atmosphere (driven by higher temperatures), and (3) changes in the concentrations of the GHG in the atmosphere (driven by the absorption of CO2 in biomass and oceans, and emission of carbon (CH4 and CO2) from thawing permafrost). This self-sustained, in the sense of no further GHG emissions, thawing process (in ESCIMO) is a causally determined, physical process that evolves over time. It starts with the man-made warming up to the 1950s, leading to a rise in the amount of water vapour in the atmosphere--further lifting the temperature, causing increasing release of carbon from thawing permafrost, and simultaneously a decline in the surface albedo as the ice and snow covers melts. To stop the self-sustained warming in ESCIMO, enormous amounts of CO2 have to be extracted from the atmosphere. |
| Contents | The possibility of points-of-no-return in the climate system has been discussed for two decades1,2,3. A point-of-no-return can be seen as a threshold which, once surpassed, fundamentally changes the dynamics of the climate system. For example, by triggering irreversible processes like thawing of the permafrost, drying of the rainforests, or acidification of surface waters. Recently, Lenton et al.4 summarized the global situation and warned that thresholds may be closer in time than commonly believed. The purpose of this article is to report that we have identified a point-of-no-return in our climate model ESCIMO - and that it is already behind us. ESCIMO is a "reduced complexity earth system" climate model5 which we run from 1850 to 2500. In ESCIMO the global temperature keeps rising to 2500 and beyond, irrespective of how fast humanity cuts the emissions of man-made greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. The reason is a cycle of self-sustained thawing of the permafrost (caused by methane release), lower surface albedo (caused by melting ice and snow) and higher atmospheric humidity (caused by higher temperatures). This cycle appears to be triggered by global warming of a mere?+?0.5 °C above the pre-industrial level. |
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The cost of removing CO2 from the atmosphere will remain too high to allow significant removal before 2050 |
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URL link to Website |
Reflecting Sunlight to Cool the Ocean Surface and Reduce Global Warming |
11/1/23 |
11/14/23 |
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URL link to Website |
Reflecting Sunlight to Cool the Ocean Surface and Reduce Global Warming |
11/1/23 |
11/14/23 |
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| Description | Rebrighten.org is a not for profit organization newly established to study, promote and deploy Marine Cloud Brightening (MCB) as the most effective, safe and rapid available method to reverse global warming. We seek to raise USD $5 million to implement our proposal to prove the feasibility of MCB as a way to cool and re-brighten the planet, alongside broader existing efforts to mitigate warming by cutting and removing greenhouse gases. Help us create a brighter, safer future for the planet & humanity by supporting this crucial project. |
| Contents | What is Marine Cloud Brightening and Why is it necessary?
Marine Cloud Brightening (MCB) is potentially the first feasible way to start cooling the planet by reflecting more sunlight back to space.
Deployment would help slow global temperature rise, refreeze the poles and mitigate extreme weather such as storms, fires, droughts, heatwaves and floods.
Sea salt sprayed into the lower atmosphere in targeted areas is expected to prove a harmless way to reverse warming.
MCB has potential to reverse sea level rise with benefit to cost ratio estimated at 50,000 to 1.
MCB has been recognised for 50 years as a simple way to cool the oceans. It relies on the ‘Twomey Effect’, from its discoverer Dr Sean Twomey, who showed that clouds with smaller drops reflect more sunlight and are brighter than clouds with larger drops. Dr John Latham then showed that the optimal cloud drop size for MCB can be produced with sea salt particles smaller than one micron. |
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| Author | Peter Fiekowsky and Carole Douglis |
| Description | Costs determine scalability, and costs vary by a factor of 30,000 |
| Contents | One purpose of CDR is to provide “offsets” that legitimize continuing emissions.
The other is to restore the pre-industrial climate by 2050 by removing legacy CO2.
Carbon-dioxide removal (CDR)) tops the tech headlines with increasing frequency, leading to the impression that we are rapidly developing a multitude of mostly industrial options for creating a safe climate.
What many miss is that the vast majority of “carbontech” CDR approaches are designed to develop the carbon-offset market. By definition, offsets only compensate for continued emissions. They do not touch the 1,000 gigatons of legacy CO2 that is causing most of the climate havoc.
In fact, CDR today serves two distinct policy purposes. Each has merit, yet achieving the two goals requires quite different approaches and budgets and would create strikingly different results.
The two goals of CDR are:
Developing a CDR industry that underpins the carbon-offset market—thus adhering literally to the 1992 United Nations goal to “stabilize” greenhouse gas levels. Today this means stabilizing at dangerous levels never before experienced by our species. This is of course now called “net-zero emissions;” and
Following what appears to be the original intent of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change: to restore GHG levels proven safe for humanity and nature as we know it. Restoring historically safe GHG levels is commonly called “climate restoration.”
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| Description | We need a new way of talking about global warming. UN Secretary General António
Guterres underscored this when he said the “era of global boiling” has arrived. Although
we have made remarkable progress on a very complex problem over the past thirty years,
we have a long way to go before we can keep the global temperature increase to below 2°C
relative to the pre-industrial times. Climate models suggest that this next decade is critical
if we are to avert the worst consequences of climate change. The world must continue
to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and find ways to adapt and build resilience among
vulnerable communities. At the same time, we need to find new ways to remove carbon
dioxide from the atmosphere in order to chart a “net negative” emissions pathway. Given
their large capacity for carbon storage, the oceans must be included in consideration of
our multiple carbon dioxide removal (CDR) options (1).
This report focused on ocean iron fertilization (OIF) for marine CDR. This is by no
means a new scientific endeavor. Several members of ExOIS (Exploring Ocean Iron
Solutions) have been studying this issue for decades, but the emergence of runaway climate
impacts has motivated this group to consider a responsible path forward for marine
CDR. That path needs to ensure that future choices are based upon the best science and
social considerations required to reduce human suffering and counter economic and ecological
losses, while limiting and even reversing the negative impacts that climate change
is already having on the ocean and the rest of the planet.
Prior studies have confirmed that the addition of small amounts of iron in some parts
of the ocean is effective at stimulating phytoplankton growth. Through enhanced photosynthesis,
carbon dioxide can not only be removed from the atmosphere but a fraction
can also be transferred to durable storage in the deep sea. However, prior studies were
not designed to quantify how effective this storage can be, or how wise OIF might be as
a marine CDR approach. |
| Contents | needed to answer critical questions about the potential efficiency and ecological impacts
of marine CDR (http://oceaniron.org). Owing to concerns surrounding the ethics of marine
CDR, ExOIS is organized around a responsible code of conduct that prioritizes activities
for the collective benefit of our planet with an emphasis on open and transparent
studies that include public engagement (2; see inset pg. 3).
Our goal is to establish open-source conventions for implementing OIF for marine
CDR that can be assessed with appropriate monitoring, reporting, and verification
(MRV) protocols, going beyond just carbon accounting, to assess ecological and other
non-carbon environmental effects (eMRV). As urgent as this is, it will still take 5 to 10
years of intensive work and considerable resources to accomplish this goal.
We present here a “Paths Forward’’ report that stems from a week-long workshop held
at the Moss Landing Marine Laboratories in May 2023 that was attended by international
experts spanning atmospheric, oceanographic, and social sciences as well as legal specialists
(see inside back cover). At the workshop, we reviewed prior OIF studies, distilled
the lessons learned, and proposed several paths forward over the next decade to lay the
foundation for evaluating OIF for marine CDR. Our discussion very quickly resulted in
a recommendation for the need to establish multiple “Ocean Iron Observatories’’ where,
through observations and modeling, we would be able to assess with a high degree of
certainty both the durable removal of atmospheric carbon dioxide—which we term the
“centennial tonne”—and the ecological response of the ocean.
3 PATHS FORWARD FOR EXPLORING OCEAN IRON FERTILIZATION
In a five-year phase I period, we prioritize five major research activities:
1. Next generation field studies
Studies of long-term (durable) carbon storage will need to be longer (year or more) and
larger (>10,000 km2) than past experiments, organized around existing tools and models, but
with greater reliance on autonomous platforms. While prior studies suggested that ocean
systems return to ambient conditions once iron infusion is stopped, this needs to be verified.
We suggest that these next field experiments take place in the NE Pacific to assess the
processes controlling carbon removal efficiencies, as well as the intended and unintended
ecological and geochemical consequences.
2. Regional, global and field study modeling
Incorporation of new observations and model intercomparisons are essential to accurately
represent how iron cycling processes regulate OIF effects on marine ecosystems and carbon
sequestration, to support experimental planning for large-scale MRV, and to guide decision
making on marine CDR choices.
3. New forms of iron and delivery mechanisms
Rigorous testing and comparison of new forms of iron and their potential delivery
mechanisms is needed to optimize phytoplankton growth while minimizing the financial
and carbon costs of OIF. Efficiency gains are expected to generate responses closer to those
of natural OIF events.
4. Monitoring, reporting, and verification
Advances in observational technologies and platforms are needed to support the development,
validation, and maintenance of models required for MRV of large-scale OIF deployment. In
addition to tracking carbon storage and efficiency, prioritizing eMRV will be key to developing
regulated carbon markets.
5. Governance and stakeholder engagement
Attention to social dimensions, governance, and stakeholder perceptions will be essential
from the start, with particular emphasis on expanding the diversity of groups engaged in
marine CDR across the globe. This feedback will be a critical component underlying future
decisions about whether to proceed, or not, with OIF for marine CDR.
Paramount in the plan is the need to move carefully. Our goal is to conduct these five activities in parallel
to inform decisions steering the establishment of ocean iron observatories at multiple locations in phase
II. When completed, this decadal plan will provide a rich knowledge base to guide decisions about if,
when, where, and under what conditions OIF might be responsibly implemented for marine CDR.
The consensus of our workshop and this report is that now is the time for actionable studies to begin.
Quite simply, we suggest that some form of marine CDR will be essential to slow down and reverse the
most severe consequences of our disrupted climate. OIF has the potential to be one of these climate
mitigation strategies. We have the opportunity and obligation to invest in the knowledge necessary to
ensure that we can make scientifically and ethically sound decisions for the future of our planet. |
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Opinion | Africa Needs Its Debts Paused So It Can Prepare for Climate Catastrophe - The New York Times |
10/8/23 |
11/8/23 |
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| 4 |
URL link to Article |
Opinion | Africa Needs Its Debts Paused So It Can Prepare for Climate Catastrophe - The New York Times |
10/8/23 |
11/8/23 |
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| Description | Instead of receiving funds to address the climate crisis, African nations are borrowing money to rebuild at a cost up to eight times that of the rich world. |
| Contents | By William Ruto, Moussa Faki Mahamat, Akinwumi Adesina and Patrick Verkooijen |
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URL link to Article |
FROZEN ARCTIC. A compendium of interventions to slow down, halt, and reverse the effects of climate change in the Arctic and northern regions |
10/4/23 |
10/24/23 |
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| 5 |
URL link to Article |
FROZEN ARCTIC. A compendium of interventions to slow down, halt, and reverse the effects of climate change in the Arctic and northern regions |
10/4/23 |
10/24/23 |
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| Description | Phase I of the Frozen Arctic Conservation project was a literature review to identify and and document the range of interventions that have been proposed to reverse, stabilize, or delay climate change impacts in the northern and Arctic regions. A total of 61 interventions were identified in six categories: ice sheets and glaciers, sea ice and icebergs, atmosphere and radiation management, marine measures, land-based measures, and industry. The interventions were evaluated according to a set of 12 criteria: technological readiness level, scalability, timeliness for near future effects, potential to make a difference in Arctic and northern regions given enough time, potential to make a global difference given enough time, cost to benefit comparison, likelihood of environmental risks, effects on Indigenous/local communities, ease of reversibility, and likelihood of termination shock. the aim is to follow up this initial evaluation with in-depth analyses of the most promising schemes according to clear, understandable, bias-free, and comparable metrics, including from a right-based approach. |
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Agenda
John N – BBC News says 1.5C will arrive twice as soon as previously thought.
- Letter to Guardian re Hansen Global warming in pipeline paper
Chris V – Report from Chatham House – focusing on 1.5 is flawed, focus on tipping points
Hugh H – MCB and controlling hurricanes
Chris V – Compendium of interventions – in the chat
Sev – NOAC website progress – integration of Blue Cooling Initiative, HPAC ,PRAG
Ron – Comments on bunker fuel letter?
Clive – Just Have A Think – recent video very good.
– Radiative forcing to -0.26 W/m2 waterfall chart demo.
Chat
20:06:23 From Chris Vivian - GESAMP WG 41 : Carbon emissions threaten 1.5C climate threshold sooner than thought – report - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-67242386
20:07:16 From Chris Vivian - GESAMP WG 41 : Global warming: Why focusing on 1.5C is flawed - https://www.chathamhouse.org/publications/the-world-today/2023-10/global-warming-why-focusing-15c-flawed?utm_source=Chatham%20House&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=14169358_CH%20-%20Content%20Newsletter%20-%2017.10.23&utm_content=Global-Title&dm_i=1S3M,8FP5A,NODY6,YTVON,1
20:10:08 From Chris Vivian - GESAMP WG 41 : FROZEN ARCTIC: Compendium of interventions to slow down, halt, and reverse the effects of climate change in the Arctic and northern regions - https://new.uarctic.org/media/to0bjpal/frozen-arctic-rra-compendium.pdf
20:10:48 From Ron Baiman : First part of Sharpe's book is very good on risk analysis and climate.
20:12:43 From Ron Baiman : Bunker fuel letter link: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1WNsRI8GbyZgdso39ptKuKFI2HA6ZuBni/edit?usp=sharing&ouid=116465941111195452408&rtpof=true'sd=true
20:13:23 From Herb Simmens : The Nov 16th HPAC meeting will feature Mike McCracken discussing the differing approaches to addressing risk that various professions and institutions take
20:15:28 From Herb Simmens : This Thursday Nov 2 HPAC meeting at 3:30 PM EDT 19:30 PM GMT will feature Doug MacMartin of Cornell on SRM/SAI..
20:17:00 From Robert Chris : https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-023-01848-5
20:19:42 From Herb Simmens : This blog post has a link to the paper in the first sentence https://scienceisshiny.wordpress.com/2023/10/30/carbon-budgets-how-hard-is-the-paris-agreement-now/
20:21:37 From Bill Chapman, Brooklyn : I was horrified when Trump and some Republicans started talking about |  (Click HERE to view the transcrript) |
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URL link to Article |
EGUsphere - The interaction of Solar Radiation Modification and Earth System Tipping Elements |
10/10/23 |
11/5/23 |
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URL link to Article |
EGUsphere - The interaction of Solar Radiation Modification and Earth System Tipping Elements |
10/10/23 |
11/5/23 |
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| Description | Abstract. The avoidance of hitting tipping points is often considered a key benefit of Solar Radiation Modification (SRM) techniques, however, the physical science underpinning this has thus far not been comprehensively assessed. This review assesses the available evidence for the interaction of SRM with a number of earth system tipping elements in the cryosphere, the oceans, the atmosphere and the biosphere , with a particular focus on the impact of SAI. We review the scant available literature directly addressing the interaction of SRM with the tipping elements or for closely related proxies to these elements. However, given how limited this evidence is, we also identify and describe the drivers of the tipping elements, and then assess the available evidence for the impact of SRM on these. We then briefly assess whether SRM could halt or reverse tipping once feedbacks have been initiated. Finally, we suggest pathways for further research. We find that SRM mostly reduces the risk of hitting tipping points relative to same emission pathway scenarios without SRM, although this conclusion is not clear for every tipping element, and large uncertainties remain. |
| Contents | <p><strong class= |
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URL link to Article |
EGUsphere - The interaction of Solar Radiation Modification and Earth System Tipping Elements |
10/10/23 |
11/8/23 |
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URL link to Article |
EGUsphere - The interaction of Solar Radiation Modification and Earth System Tipping Elements |
10/10/23 |
11/8/23 |
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| Description | Abstract. The avoidance of hitting tipping points is often considered a key benefit of Solar Radiation Modification (SRM) techniques, however, the physical science underpinning this has thus far not been comprehensively assessed. This review assesses the available evidence for the interaction of SRM with a number of earth system tipping elements in the cryosphere, the oceans, the atmosphere and the biosphere , with a particular focus on the impact of SAI. We review the scant available literature directly addressing the interaction of SRM with the tipping elements or for closely related proxies to these elements. However, given how limited this evidence is, we also identify and describe the drivers of the tipping elements, and then assess the available evidence for the impact of SRM on these. We then briefly assess whether SRM could halt or reverse tipping once feedbacks have been initiated. Finally, we suggest pathways for further research. We find that SRM mostly reduces the risk of hitting tipping points relative to same emission pathway scenarios without SRM, although this conclusion is not clear for every tipping element, and large uncertainties remain. |
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South American monsoon heading towards 'tipping point' likely to cause Amazon dieback |
10/4/23 |
11/8/23 |
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URL link to Article |
South American monsoon heading towards 'tipping point' likely to cause Amazon dieback |
10/4/23 |
11/8/23 |
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| Description | 'Shocking' study finds Amazon rainforest will be unable to sustain itself and transport moisture once 'regime shift' occurs |
| Contents | 'Shocking' study finds Amazon rainforest will be unable to sustain itself and transport moisture once 'regime shift' occurs |
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URL link to Video (1:26) |
TPDS: Ecological tipping points and resilience: when it may occur and when not ( |
10/2/23 |
11/7/23 |
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URL link to Video (1:26) |
TPDS: Ecological tipping points and resilience: when it may occur and when not ( |
10/2/23 |
11/7/23 |
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This webinar is part of the AIMES, Earth Commission, Future Earth, WCRP Safe Landing Climates Lighthouse Activity, and partners discussion series on tipping elements, irreversibility, and abrupt changes in the Earth system. The event discussed different concepts for ecological systems change. We investigate regime shifts and resilience loss and if thresholds exist for biodiversity change.
Presentations:
â–º Ecosystems are showing signs of resilience loss - Juan Rocha (Stockholm Resilience Centre)
â–º Are there thresholds for biodiversity change? - Helmut Hillebrand (Carl von Ossietzky University of Oldenburg)
Moderated by Awaz Mohamed (University of Hamburg)
https://ecological-tipping-points-and-resilience.confetti.events |  (Click HERE to view the transcrript) |
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While most projections of future climate change focus on the temperature increase in the year 2100, what happens in the next three decades in much more important. This is because (1) the global average temperature increase will almost certainly exceed 1.5°C well before 2030 and (2) if the average temperature exceeds 1.5°C for a significant period of time we can expect the collapse of major ecosystems, very significant emissions from natural feedbacks, devastating impacts from natural disasters, etc.
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Requirements Needed to Set Realistic Expectations |
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What is lacking in discussions on global warming are reasonable planning numbers for:1. CO2 emissions from industry (the IEA and EIA project emissions will not change much before 2050)2. CO2 emissions from deforestation ? there has been lots of talk and very little action3. CH4 (methane emissions) ? the CO2 budget assumes that emissions will be cut in half by 2050 ? I do not think this is realistic4. Emissions from natural feedbacks ? climate scientists seem reluctant to provide a reasonable planning number5. Extra warming due to albedo changes in the Arctic ? "climate sensitivity" includes some change to albedo but climate scientists seem reluctant to say how much6. Ecosystems collapse ? very difficult to "quantify" ? e.g., loss of over 90% of coral reefs expected by 20507. Desired temperature increase since pre-industrial times (ideally < 1°C, but we also need to think about what is realistic)8. Quantity of CO2 that needs to be removed from the atmosphere (depends on numbers for #1-#7 9. Cost per ton of removing CO2 from the atmosphere in 2040, 2050, and 2060 (what are reasonably "cost learning curves" and maximum removal quantities for the various techniques)10. Cost to reduce the global temperature by 0.1°C11. Annual CO2 removal costs from 2040 to 206012. Percentage of the removal costs that the US will be responsible forAlthough we can "afford" to limit the temperature increase, will politicians be willing to allocate (and spend) the necessary funds? |
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From a recent (November 16, 2023) MSN article: Bill Gates made waves with his statements on climate change. HereSimgleQuotes why heSimgleQuotes right?and what most people missed ( https://www.msn.com/en-us/weather/topstories/bill-gates-made-waves-with-his-statements-on-climate-change-here-s-why-he-s-right-and-what-most-people-missed/ar-AA1k1K0u)"Essentially, his argument is that emissions will peak and then start to go down. They wonSimgleQuotet go down as fast as we want them to, so temperatures will continue to rise. Reversing this trend will require massive carbon removal. The goal of staying below 2 degrees Celsius (much less 1.5) appears lost, but we will not find ourselves in worst-case scenarios, and it is unlikely we will go above 3C. Planting trees will not solve the climate problem, he says. Doing climate policy by brute force will not work either. Better to invest in new technologies for carbon removal, clean energy, and electric vehicles and to implement policies like carbon taxes that could fund future green technologies.ItSimgleQuotes a solid argument, but one that depends on nature playing its part in the transition. There is no chance we can limit the worst effects of climate change without saving our remaining ecosystems."Although Bill Gates is not a climate scientist, his thinks "deeply" on many technical topics and his "pronouncements" on climate change should not be ignored. I think he underestimates the importance of greenhouse gas emissions from natural sources and I am much less optimistic about the chances of implementing a carbon tax. |
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Many environmental organizations continue push the false narrative that all that it takes to meet the various emissions reduction goals (e.g., "50% reduction of CO2 emissions by 2030", "net-zero emission by 2050", etc.) is "bold, transformative change across institutions, society, sectors, and the economy". Although meeting the goals might be technically possible, the assumptions behind the analyses (climate sensitivity, greenhouse gas emissions from all sources, amount of carbon dioxide removal, cost and inconvenience to taxpayers, etc.) are rarely mentioned. In addition, the "bold, transformative change across institutions, society, sectors, and the economy" at the scale and speed necessary is very, very unlikely.
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Example from the Union of Concerned Scientists |
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(Email received 11/16/2023 "A Path to a Clean Energy Future") In the face of the mounting climate crisis, the United States must cut its heat-trapping emissions rapidly, in line with science and international commitments. A new analysis from the Union of Concerned Scientists shows how we can achieve this ambitious and necessary goal while securing significant economic and public health benefits. It will require bold, transformative change across institutions, society, sectors, and the economy. How we go about this transformation, including ensuring we do so in a way that addresses longstanding racial and economic inequities inherent in our present energy system, is crucial for the benefits of a clean, resilient economy to be accessible to all communities. These kinds of choices will be made on the local, state, and federal level?as well as at the upcoming international climate negotiations. The 2022 Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) doubles the rate of US annual emissions reductions to three percent, but to meet 2030 targets, we'll need five percent annual reductions. That means enacting additional federal and state policies that drive a fast and fair phaseout of fossil fuels. We can't repeat the mistakes of the past, which forced a disproportionate burden of fossil fuel pollution on the health and environments of low-income people and people of color. We must build a future where all of us have clean, healthy, resilient communities to call home for generations to come |
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Realistic Emissions Scenarios |
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| | Scenario 1 | Scenario 2 | | Climate Factor | 2020 | 2030 | 2040 | 2050 | 2020 | 2030 | 2040 | 2050 | | CO2 Emissions | | | | | | | | | | CH4 Emissions | | | | | | | | | | N2O Emissions | | | | | | | | | | Aerosol Equiv Em. | | | | | | | | | | Other Equiv Em. | | | | | | | | | | Natural Equiv Em. | | | | | | | | | | ???? | | | | | | | | | | | Table 1. Emissions |
| | Total RF | Temperature Increase | | Scenario | 2020 | 2030 | 2040 | 2050 | 2020 | 2030 | 2040 | 2050 | | 1 | | | | | | | | | | 2 | | | | | | | | | | 3 | | | | | | | | | | 4 | | | | | | | | | | 5 | | | | | | | | | | 6 | | | | | | | | | | | Table 1. Emissions | |
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Consequences of Global Warming |
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Reflecting Sunlight to Cool the Ocean Surface and Reduce Global Warming |
11/1/23 |
11/14/23 |
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URL link to Website |
Reflecting Sunlight to Cool the Ocean Surface and Reduce Global Warming |
11/1/23 |
11/14/23 |
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| Description | Rebrighten.org is a not for profit organization newly established to study, promote and deploy Marine Cloud Brightening (MCB) as the most effective, safe and rapid available method to reverse global warming. We seek to raise USD $5 million to implement our proposal to prove the feasibility of MCB as a way to cool and re-brighten the planet, alongside broader existing efforts to mitigate warming by cutting and removing greenhouse gases. Help us create a brighter, safer future for the planet & humanity by supporting this crucial project. |
| Contents | What is Marine Cloud Brightening and Why is it necessary?
Marine Cloud Brightening (MCB) is potentially the first feasible way to start cooling the planet by reflecting more sunlight back to space.
Deployment would help slow global temperature rise, refreeze the poles and mitigate extreme weather such as storms, fires, droughts, heatwaves and floods.
Sea salt sprayed into the lower atmosphere in targeted areas is expected to prove a harmless way to reverse warming.
MCB has potential to reverse sea level rise with benefit to cost ratio estimated at 50,000 to 1.
MCB has been recognised for 50 years as a simple way to cool the oceans. It relies on the ‘Twomey Effect’, from its discoverer Dr Sean Twomey, who showed that clouds with smaller drops reflect more sunlight and are brighter than clouds with larger drops. Dr John Latham then showed that the optimal cloud drop size for MCB can be produced with sea salt particles smaller than one micron. |
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Antarctic ice is disappearing, threatening massive sea level rise : NPR |
10/27/23 |
11/8/23 |
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URL link to Article |
Antarctic ice is disappearing, threatening massive sea level rise : NPR |
10/27/23 |
11/8/23 |
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| Description | West Antarctica is headed for decades of rapid melting no matter how quickly humans cut greenhouse gas emissions, and 2023 shattered records for missing sea ice around the continent. |
| Contents | A trio of new scientific analyses about the loss of ice in Antarctica paint a picture of a continent in trouble. Sea ice is disappearing, gigantic portions of the West Antarctic ice sheet are crumbling and even relatively stable East Antarctica is showing worrying changes. |
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| Description | Carbon dioxide receives a lot of attention because it is warming the climate. However, we think it’s also important to understand the cooling processes that occur naturally in the troposphere. For example:
What is the process that removes powerful greenhouse warming agents such as methane and soot from the air?
What makes bright clouds form in the air?
Moreover, could these processes be safely increased to delay or even reverse today’s melting of Earth’s polar ice sheets? If so, they could prevent the catastrophic effects of carbon dioxide not being drawn down fast enough. Our solutions aim to do that using the same or similar methods that have been operating naturally in the troposphere for millions of years. |
| Contents | Around 90% of the extra heat absorbed by the Earth from climate warming has been taken up by the oceans. Today this is equivalent to 7 Hiroshima bombs exploding in them every second. However, today’s sharp rise in sea surface temperatures is of particular concern to climate scientists and oceanographers. As these warmer seas naturally flow into the polar regions they melt the ice there, sometimes from beneath the ice sheets. In addition, more evaporation puts more water vapour in the air, and water vapour itself acts as a greenhouse gas. Higher humidity in the dark polar winters also produces thick clouds that trap even more heat. This slows the rate of polar ice refreezing, accelerating sea level rise.
The Opportunity
Around 23% of the sun’s energy is reflected away from the Earth by clouds. Typically, only around 40% of the tropical and subtropical oceans are covered by cloud at any time. Increasing cloud cover in these regions by 3-4% could provide sufficient cooling to halt today’s warming trend.
Where do marine clouds come from? Phytoplankton, seaweed, and corals produce the ‘smell of the sea’ (dimethyl sulphide, or DMS). This substance reacts and combines with airborne sea salt and mineral dust to produce microscopic particles known as cloud condensation nuclei (CCN). These CCN particles float naturally in the air, and water vapour naturally condenses onto them up high where the air is cold, forming clouds in the sky. The more DMS there is in the air over the oceans, the brighter the clouds, the longer they last before ‘burning off’ in the sun, and the greater their total cooling effect. |
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| Description | Innovative Methods of Marine Ecosystem Restoration offers a ray of hope in an increasingly gloomy scenario. This book is the first presentation of revolutionary new methods for restoring damaged marine ecosystems. It discusses new techniques for greatly increasing the recruitment, growth, survival, and resistance to stress of marine ecosystems, fisheries, and eroding shorelines, maintaining biodiversity and productivity where it would be lost. The book provides experimental proof that mild elect |
| Contents | Dedication to Wolf Hilbertz, Thomas J. Goreau
Innovative Methods of Marine Ecosystem Restoration: An Introduction, Thomas J. Goreau
Restoring Reefs to Grow Back Beaches and Protect Coasts from Erosion and Global Sea Level Rise, Thomas J. Goreau, Wolf Hilbertz, Abdul Azeez, Abdul Hakeem, Thomas Sarkisian, Frank Gutzeit, and Ari Spenhoff
Reef Restoration Using Seawater Electrolysis in Jamaica, Thomas J. Goreau and Wolf Hilbertz
Electrically Stimulated Corals in Indonesia Reef Restoration Projects Show Greatly Accelerated Growth Rates, Jamaludin Jompa, Suharto, Eka Marlina Anpusyahnur, Putra Nyoman Dwjja, Jobnico Subagio, Ilham Alimin, Rosihan Anwar, Syarif Syamsuddin, Thri Heni Utami Radiman, Heri Triyono, R. Ahmad Sue, and Nyoman Soeyasa
Biorock Reef Restoration in Gili Trawangan, North Lombok, Indonesia, Lalu Arifin Aria Bakti, Arben Virgota, Luh Putu Ayu Damayanti, Thri Heni Utami Radiman, Ambar Retnowulan, Hernawati, Abdus Sabil, and Delphine Robbe
Electrical Current Stimulates Coral Branching and Growth in Jakarta Bay, Neviaty P. Zamani, Khalid I. Abdallah, and Beginer Subhan
Electricity Protects Coral from Overgrowth by an Encrusting Sponge in Indonesia, Jens Nitzsche
Gorgonian Soft Corals Have Higher Growth and Survival in Electrical Fields, Diannisa Fitri and M. Aspari Rachman
Suitability of Mineral Accretion as a Rehabilitation Method for Cold-Water Coral Reefs, Susanna M. Strömberg, Tomas Lundälv, and Thomas J. Goreau
Utilization of Low-Voltage Electricity to Stimulate Cultivation of Pearl Oysters Pinctada maxima (Jameson), Prawita Tasya Karissa, Sukardi, Susilo Budi Priyono, N. Gustaf F. Mamangkey, and Joseph James Uel Taylor
Increased Oyster Growth and Survival Using Biorock Technology, Nikola Berger, Mara Haseltine, J. T. Boehm, and Thomas J. Goreau
Electrical Stimulation Increases Oyster Growth and Survival in Restoration Projects, Jason Shorr, James Cervino, Carmen Lin, Rand Weeks, and Thomas J. Goreau
Restoration of Seagrass Mats (Posidonia oceanica) with Electrical Stimulation, Raffaele Vaccarella and Thomas J. Goreau
Electrical Fields Increase Salt Marsh Survival and Growth and Speed Restoration in Adverse Conditions, James Cervino, Dajana Gjoza, Carmen Lin, Rand Weeks, and Thomas Goreau
Fish Postlarval Capture and Culture for Restoring Fisheries, Gilles Lecaillon
Mariculture Potential of Gracilaria Species [Rhodophyta] in Jamaican Nitrate-Enriched Back-Reef Habitats: Growth, Nutrient Uptake, and Elemental Composition, Arlen Havenner Macfarlane
Sustainable Reef Design to Optimize Habitat Restoration, Mara G. Haseltine
Marine Ecosystem Electrotherapy: Practice and Theory, Thomas J. Goreau |
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| Description | PRAG’s MISSION is to identify means and promote action for planetary restoration: restoring norms of temperature, climate and sea level rise close to late Holocene norms, such as to achieve a sustainable, biodiverse, productive and safe state for our planet. |
| Contents | Reduce & remove fossil-fuel emissions while saving the ice to save humanity |
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| Author | Peter Fiekowsky and Carole Douglis |
| Description | Costs determine scalability, and costs vary by a factor of 30,000 |
| Contents | One purpose of CDR is to provide “offsets” that legitimize continuing emissions.
The other is to restore the pre-industrial climate by 2050 by removing legacy CO2.
Carbon-dioxide removal (CDR)) tops the tech headlines with increasing frequency, leading to the impression that we are rapidly developing a multitude of mostly industrial options for creating a safe climate.
What many miss is that the vast majority of “carbontech” CDR approaches are designed to develop the carbon-offset market. By definition, offsets only compensate for continued emissions. They do not touch the 1,000 gigatons of legacy CO2 that is causing most of the climate havoc.
In fact, CDR today serves two distinct policy purposes. Each has merit, yet achieving the two goals requires quite different approaches and budgets and would create strikingly different results.
The two goals of CDR are:
Developing a CDR industry that underpins the carbon-offset market—thus adhering literally to the 1992 United Nations goal to “stabilize” greenhouse gas levels. Today this means stabilizing at dangerous levels never before experienced by our species. This is of course now called “net-zero emissions;” and
Following what appears to be the original intent of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change: to restore GHG levels proven safe for humanity and nature as we know it. Restoring historically safe GHG levels is commonly called “climate restoration.”
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| Description | Climate catalyst, the main aerosol described herein, is designed to remove methane and other powerful warming pollutants from the air, adding to its cooling effect. |
| Contents | In this paper we propose that as air pollution is cleaned up, the lost cloud reflectivity could be safely replaced and further increased with benign aerosols. The effect would be to cool the world's oceans and restore more clement weather conditions. One study has suggested that carefully targeted increases of cloud reflectivity could not only restore rainfall patterns but further improve them (Ref Norwegian study).
Climate catalyst, the main aerosol described herein, is additionally designed to remove methane and other powerful warming pollutants from the air, adding to its cooling effect. However, even if only cloud reflectivity were to be increased at sufficient scale in the appropriate places, the effect would be an immediate reversal of the current warming trend. That would buy more time for the important goal of Net Zero emissions to be achieved globally. In the meantime, it would also save countless lives, infrastructure, money, ecosystems, and species from extinction. However, even if only cloud reflectivity were to be increased at sufficient scale in the appropriate places, the effect would be an immediate reversal of the current warming trend. That would buy more time for the important goal of Net Zero emissions to be achieved globally. In the meantime, it would also save countless lives, infrastructure, money, ecosystems, and species from extinction. |
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Scientists have identified nine so-called 'Earth System boundaries' beyond which life on our planet will become extremely difficult for many species, not least us humans. That analysis has often been met with scepticism, but risk managers at the world's largest financial institutions have been watching the rapid 'real-world' changes in earth's atmosphere and the catastrophic impacts on their asset portfolios, and they're beginning to factor 'Planetary Boundary' science into their spreadsheets. And when the 'money-men' change, the whole world changes!!
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Research Links
The Emperors New Climate Scenarios - Main Paper
https://actuaries.org.uk/media/qeydewmk/the-emperor-s-new-climate-scenarios.pdf
A Safe Operating Space for Humanity - Rockström et al
https://www.nature.com/articles/461472a
Earth beyond six of nine planetary boundaries - Richardson et el
https://www.science.org/doi/pdf/10.1126/sciadv.adh2458?trk=public_post_comment-text
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/humans-have-crossed-6-of-9-planetary-boundaries/
Climate Central - flood maps
https://coastal.climatecentral.org/
Global Carbon Project
https://www.globalcarbonproject.org/carbonbudget/22/files/GCP_CarbonBudget_2022.pdf
Carbon Tracker
https://carbontracker.org/
IPCC AR6 Report
https://www.ipcc.ch/assessment-report/ar6/
Climate Crisis Advisory Group paper
https://static1.squarespace.com/static/60ccae658553d102459d11ed/t/6253ff0eb27d617aac93cde0/1649671961939/CCAG_PositionPaper_CriticalPathway.pdf
Chatham House article
https://www.chathamhouse.org/2023/07/climate-change-threatens-cause-next-economic-mega-shock
'The Conversation' article
https://theconversation.com/climate-change-could-lead-to-food-related-civil-unrest-in-uk-within-50-years-say-experts-214754
Check out other YouTube Climate Communicators
zentouro: https://www.youtube.com/user/zentouro
Climate Adam: https://www.youtube.com/user/ClimateAdam
Kurtis Baute: https://www.youtube.com/user/ScopeofScience
Levi Hildebrand: https://www.youtube.com/user/The100LH
Simon Clark: https://www.youtube.com/user/SimonOxfPhys
Sarah Karvner: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCRwMkTu8sCwOOD6_7QYrZnw
Rollie Williams / ClimateTown: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCuVLG9pThvBABcYCm7pkNkA
Jack Harries: https://www.youtube.com/user/JacksGap
Beckisphere: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCT39HQq5eDKonaUV8ujiBCQ
Our Changing Climate : https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCNXvxXpDJXp-mZu3pFMzYHQ
Engineering With Rosie https://www.youtube.com/c/EngineeringwithRosie
Ella Gilbert https://www.youtube.com/c/DrGilbz
Planet Proof https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCdtF58iBRQ2C3QPeKKzxwiA
Our Eden https://www.youtube.com/@OurEden |  (Click HERE to view the transcrript) |
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Scientists sound alarm after research finds new danger for tropical trees: 'The tip of the iceberg in terms of effects' |
9/29/23 |
11/8/23 |
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URL link to Article |
Scientists sound alarm after research finds new danger for tropical trees: 'The tip of the iceberg in terms of effects' |
9/29/23 |
11/8/23 |
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| Description | Trees in tropical forests may soon reach a critical temperature at which they begin to fail to take in carbon dioxide. |
| Contents | “There could be massive leaf death, possible tree mortality, and species turnover across all tropical forests.” |
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URL link to Article |
Study finds human-driven mass extinction is eliminating entire branches of the tree of life |
9/18/23 |
11/8/23 |
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URL link to Article |
Study finds human-driven mass extinction is eliminating entire branches of the tree of life |
9/18/23 |
11/8/23 |
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| Description | The passenger pigeon. The Tasmanian tiger. The Baiji, or Yangtze river dolphin. These rank among the best-known recent victims of what many scientists have declared the sixth mass extinction, as human actions are wiping out vertebrate animal species hundreds of times faster than they would otherwise disappear. |
| Contents | The passenger pigeon. The Tasmanian tiger. The Baiji, or Yangtze river dolphin. These rank among the best-known recent victims of what many scientists have declared the sixth mass extinction, as human actions are wiping out vertebrate animal species hundreds of times faster than they would otherwise disappear. |
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Reflecting Sunlight to Cool the Ocean Surface and Reduce Global Warming |
11/1/23 |
11/14/23 |
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URL link to Website |
Reflecting Sunlight to Cool the Ocean Surface and Reduce Global Warming |
11/1/23 |
11/14/23 |
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| Description | Rebrighten.org is a not for profit organization newly established to study, promote and deploy Marine Cloud Brightening (MCB) as the most effective, safe and rapid available method to reverse global warming. We seek to raise USD $5 million to implement our proposal to prove the feasibility of MCB as a way to cool and re-brighten the planet, alongside broader existing efforts to mitigate warming by cutting and removing greenhouse gases. Help us create a brighter, safer future for the planet & humanity by supporting this crucial project. |
| Contents | What is Marine Cloud Brightening and Why is it necessary?
Marine Cloud Brightening (MCB) is potentially the first feasible way to start cooling the planet by reflecting more sunlight back to space.
Deployment would help slow global temperature rise, refreeze the poles and mitigate extreme weather such as storms, fires, droughts, heatwaves and floods.
Sea salt sprayed into the lower atmosphere in targeted areas is expected to prove a harmless way to reverse warming.
MCB has potential to reverse sea level rise with benefit to cost ratio estimated at 50,000 to 1.
MCB has been recognised for 50 years as a simple way to cool the oceans. It relies on the ‘Twomey Effect’, from its discoverer Dr Sean Twomey, who showed that clouds with smaller drops reflect more sunlight and are brighter than clouds with larger drops. Dr John Latham then showed that the optimal cloud drop size for MCB can be produced with sea salt particles smaller than one micron. |
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| Author | Peter Fiekowsky and Carole Douglis |
| Description | Costs determine scalability, and costs vary by a factor of 30,000 |
| Contents | One purpose of CDR is to provide “offsets” that legitimize continuing emissions.
The other is to restore the pre-industrial climate by 2050 by removing legacy CO2.
Carbon-dioxide removal (CDR)) tops the tech headlines with increasing frequency, leading to the impression that we are rapidly developing a multitude of mostly industrial options for creating a safe climate.
What many miss is that the vast majority of “carbontech” CDR approaches are designed to develop the carbon-offset market. By definition, offsets only compensate for continued emissions. They do not touch the 1,000 gigatons of legacy CO2 that is causing most of the climate havoc.
In fact, CDR today serves two distinct policy purposes. Each has merit, yet achieving the two goals requires quite different approaches and budgets and would create strikingly different results.
The two goals of CDR are:
Developing a CDR industry that underpins the carbon-offset market—thus adhering literally to the 1992 United Nations goal to “stabilize” greenhouse gas levels. Today this means stabilizing at dangerous levels never before experienced by our species. This is of course now called “net-zero emissions;” and
Following what appears to be the original intent of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change: to restore GHG levels proven safe for humanity and nature as we know it. Restoring historically safe GHG levels is commonly called “climate restoration.”
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| Description | We need a new way of talking about global warming. UN Secretary General António
Guterres underscored this when he said the “era of global boiling” has arrived. Although
we have made remarkable progress on a very complex problem over the past thirty years,
we have a long way to go before we can keep the global temperature increase to below 2°C
relative to the pre-industrial times. Climate models suggest that this next decade is critical
if we are to avert the worst consequences of climate change. The world must continue
to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and find ways to adapt and build resilience among
vulnerable communities. At the same time, we need to find new ways to remove carbon
dioxide from the atmosphere in order to chart a “net negative” emissions pathway. Given
their large capacity for carbon storage, the oceans must be included in consideration of
our multiple carbon dioxide removal (CDR) options (1).
This report focused on ocean iron fertilization (OIF) for marine CDR. This is by no
means a new scientific endeavor. Several members of ExOIS (Exploring Ocean Iron
Solutions) have been studying this issue for decades, but the emergence of runaway climate
impacts has motivated this group to consider a responsible path forward for marine
CDR. That path needs to ensure that future choices are based upon the best science and
social considerations required to reduce human suffering and counter economic and ecological
losses, while limiting and even reversing the negative impacts that climate change
is already having on the ocean and the rest of the planet.
Prior studies have confirmed that the addition of small amounts of iron in some parts
of the ocean is effective at stimulating phytoplankton growth. Through enhanced photosynthesis,
carbon dioxide can not only be removed from the atmosphere but a fraction
can also be transferred to durable storage in the deep sea. However, prior studies were
not designed to quantify how effective this storage can be, or how wise OIF might be as
a marine CDR approach. |
| Contents | needed to answer critical questions about the potential efficiency and ecological impacts
of marine CDR (http://oceaniron.org). Owing to concerns surrounding the ethics of marine
CDR, ExOIS is organized around a responsible code of conduct that prioritizes activities
for the collective benefit of our planet with an emphasis on open and transparent
studies that include public engagement (2; see inset pg. 3).
Our goal is to establish open-source conventions for implementing OIF for marine
CDR that can be assessed with appropriate monitoring, reporting, and verification
(MRV) protocols, going beyond just carbon accounting, to assess ecological and other
non-carbon environmental effects (eMRV). As urgent as this is, it will still take 5 to 10
years of intensive work and considerable resources to accomplish this goal.
We present here a “Paths Forward’’ report that stems from a week-long workshop held
at the Moss Landing Marine Laboratories in May 2023 that was attended by international
experts spanning atmospheric, oceanographic, and social sciences as well as legal specialists
(see inside back cover). At the workshop, we reviewed prior OIF studies, distilled
the lessons learned, and proposed several paths forward over the next decade to lay the
foundation for evaluating OIF for marine CDR. Our discussion very quickly resulted in
a recommendation for the need to establish multiple “Ocean Iron Observatories’’ where,
through observations and modeling, we would be able to assess with a high degree of
certainty both the durable removal of atmospheric carbon dioxide—which we term the
“centennial tonne”—and the ecological response of the ocean.
3 PATHS FORWARD FOR EXPLORING OCEAN IRON FERTILIZATION
In a five-year phase I period, we prioritize five major research activities:
1. Next generation field studies
Studies of long-term (durable) carbon storage will need to be longer (year or more) and
larger (>10,000 km2) than past experiments, organized around existing tools and models, but
with greater reliance on autonomous platforms. While prior studies suggested that ocean
systems return to ambient conditions once iron infusion is stopped, this needs to be verified.
We suggest that these next field experiments take place in the NE Pacific to assess the
processes controlling carbon removal efficiencies, as well as the intended and unintended
ecological and geochemical consequences.
2. Regional, global and field study modeling
Incorporation of new observations and model intercomparisons are essential to accurately
represent how iron cycling processes regulate OIF effects on marine ecosystems and carbon
sequestration, to support experimental planning for large-scale MRV, and to guide decision
making on marine CDR choices.
3. New forms of iron and delivery mechanisms
Rigorous testing and comparison of new forms of iron and their potential delivery
mechanisms is needed to optimize phytoplankton growth while minimizing the financial
and carbon costs of OIF. Efficiency gains are expected to generate responses closer to those
of natural OIF events.
4. Monitoring, reporting, and verification
Advances in observational technologies and platforms are needed to support the development,
validation, and maintenance of models required for MRV of large-scale OIF deployment. In
addition to tracking carbon storage and efficiency, prioritizing eMRV will be key to developing
regulated carbon markets.
5. Governance and stakeholder engagement
Attention to social dimensions, governance, and stakeholder perceptions will be essential
from the start, with particular emphasis on expanding the diversity of groups engaged in
marine CDR across the globe. This feedback will be a critical component underlying future
decisions about whether to proceed, or not, with OIF for marine CDR.
Paramount in the plan is the need to move carefully. Our goal is to conduct these five activities in parallel
to inform decisions steering the establishment of ocean iron observatories at multiple locations in phase
II. When completed, this decadal plan will provide a rich knowledge base to guide decisions about if,
when, where, and under what conditions OIF might be responsibly implemented for marine CDR.
The consensus of our workshop and this report is that now is the time for actionable studies to begin.
Quite simply, we suggest that some form of marine CDR will be essential to slow down and reverse the
most severe consequences of our disrupted climate. OIF has the potential to be one of these climate
mitigation strategies. We have the opportunity and obligation to invest in the knowledge necessary to
ensure that we can make scientifically and ethically sound decisions for the future of our planet. |
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URL link to Article |
Opinion | Africa Needs Its Debts Paused So It Can Prepare for Climate Catastrophe - The New York Times |
10/8/23 |
11/8/23 |
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| 4 |
URL link to Article |
Opinion | Africa Needs Its Debts Paused So It Can Prepare for Climate Catastrophe - The New York Times |
10/8/23 |
11/8/23 |
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| Description | Instead of receiving funds to address the climate crisis, African nations are borrowing money to rebuild at a cost up to eight times that of the rich world. |
| Contents | By William Ruto, Moussa Faki Mahamat, Akinwumi Adesina and Patrick Verkooijen |
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| 5 |
URL link to Article |
FROZEN ARCTIC. A compendium of interventions to slow down, halt, and reverse the effects of climate change in the Arctic and northern regions |
10/4/23 |
10/24/23 |
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| 5 |
URL link to Article |
FROZEN ARCTIC. A compendium of interventions to slow down, halt, and reverse the effects of climate change in the Arctic and northern regions |
10/4/23 |
10/24/23 |
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| Description | Phase I of the Frozen Arctic Conservation project was a literature review to identify and and document the range of interventions that have been proposed to reverse, stabilize, or delay climate change impacts in the northern and Arctic regions. A total of 61 interventions were identified in six categories: ice sheets and glaciers, sea ice and icebergs, atmosphere and radiation management, marine measures, land-based measures, and industry. The interventions were evaluated according to a set of 12 criteria: technological readiness level, scalability, timeliness for near future effects, potential to make a difference in Arctic and northern regions given enough time, potential to make a global difference given enough time, cost to benefit comparison, likelihood of environmental risks, effects on Indigenous/local communities, ease of reversibility, and likelihood of termination shock. the aim is to follow up this initial evaluation with in-depth analyses of the most promising schemes according to clear, understandable, bias-free, and comparable metrics, including from a right-based approach. |
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| | Scenario 1 | Scenario 2 | | Climate Factor | 2020 | 2030 | 2040 | 2050 | 2020 | 2030 | 2040 | 2050 | | CO2 Emissions | | | | | | | | | | CH4 Emissions | | | | | | | | | | N2O Emissions | | | | | | | | | | Aerosol Equiv Em. | | | | | | | | | | Other Equiv Em. | | | | | | | | | | Natural Equiv Em. | | | | | | | | | | ???? | | | | | | | | | | | Table 1. Emissions |
| | Total RF | Temperature Increase | | Scenario | 2020 | 2030 | 2040 | 2050 | 2020 | 2030 | 2040 | 2050 | | 1 | | | | | | | | | | 2 | | | | | | | | | | 3 | | | | | | | | | | 4 | | | | | | | | | | 5 | | | | | | | | | | 6 | | | | | | | |
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