Volcanologists report only 3-4 kt (0.003-0.004 Mt) of SO2 from the Eyjafjallajökull volcanic eruption in Iceland as compared to 5 Mt from Katmai in 1912

Volcanologists report only 3-4 kt (0.003-0.004 Mt) of SO2 from the Eyjafjallajökull volcanic eruption in Iceland as compared to 5 Mt from Katmai in 1912 and 20 Mt from Pinatubo. Furthermore, it only went into the troposphere, with a lifetime of a week or so. So expect absolutely no climatic effect based on emissions so far. In other words, a much larger injection for a period of years (essentially geoengineering implementation scenario) would be needed to detect a climate response.

Climate – Change – Intervention -- Inscription

Jim FlemingSTS ProgramColby College

Some highlights

Recent a-historical statements, Asilomar 2010

“We Don’t have a history of geoengineering to fall back on…”

Yes we do.

“Things are moving quickly, so we don’t have the luxury of looking at history.”

We must take the time.

“It is time to make a first impression on an uninformed public.” This is like whitewashing an old fence.

“We are the first generation to think about these things.” History says otherwise.

“Apprehending” Climate Change

Awareness and UnderstandingFix not too rashly upon your first apprehensions

—Richard Baxter (1670)

Anticipation and Dread — FearThe bare fears of such things and apprehensions of their approach

—Robert Sanderson (1648)

Intervention and ControlA warrant for his apprehension, was obtained.

—Chambers Edinburgh Journal (1881)

WHEN DID WHEN DID HUMANS FIRST HUMANS FIRST

BECOME BECOME CONCERNED CONCERNED

ABOUT CLIMATE ABOUT CLIMATE CHANGE?CHANGE?

WHEN DID WHEN DID HUMANS FIRST HUMANS FIRST

BECOME BECOME CONCERNED CONCERNED

ABOUT CLIMATE ABOUT CLIMATE CHANGE?CHANGE?

The Pleistocene!

HOW ARE PRIVILEGED POSITIONS

ESTABLISHED?


ESTABLISHED? Authority / Prestige Authority / Prestige

Theophrastuson climate change

If… the winters are more severe, and more snow falls than formerly…. It follows that the monsoon has greater duration.

Is it possible for humans to change the climate?

Yes! through deforestation and irrigation.

Abbé Du Bos (1719)

Genius is not born in every climate


ESTABLISHED?


ESTABLISHED?• Authority / Prestige

Data

• Authority / Prestige

Data

Thomas Jefferson

Emphasized data collection

Climate could be “improved”

"We want. . . [an index of climate] for all the States, and the work should be repeated once or twice in a century, to show the effect of clearing and culture towards the changes of climate."


ESTABLISHED?



• Data

Experiment / Theory


• Data

Experiment / Theory

John Tyndall (1859)

IR absorption by trace gases is “a perfectly unexplored field of inquiry”

“Elementary gases,” oxygen, nitrogen, and hydrogen, are almost transparent to radiant heat,

More complex molecules, such as H2O, CO2, O3 and hydrocarbons, even in very small quantities, absorb much more strongly than the atmosphere itself.


ESTABLISHED?



• Data

• Experiment / Theory

Models


• Data


Models

Svante Arrhenius

Philosophical Magazine, 1896

Model of CO2 controlling ice ages and interglacials.

Geometric decline in CO2 causes a linear decrease in temperature.

Industrial emissions not yet of concern to him.

His climate model is often cited, but it is not continuous with modern results or concerns.

Eclipse of the CO2 theory of climate change. 1900-1950

Guy Stewart Callendar

The Callendar Effect -- Climatic change brought about by anthropogenic increases in the concentration of atmospheric carbon dioxide, primarily through the processes of combustion. AGW in 1938!

Rising temperaturesRising fossil fuel consumptionRising CO2 concentrations Detailed understanding of IR

Rising temperatures ca. 1858-1939

Rising CO2 Levels (1958)

IR Spectrum (1941)


ESTABLISHED?



• Data


• Models

Technology


• Data


• Models

Technology

Bumper V-2 Cape Canaveral24 July 1950


ESTABLISHED?



• Data


• Models

• Technology

Consensus


• Data


• Models

• Technology

Consensus

Roger Revelle

Report of The Environmental Pollution Panel, President’s Science Advisory Committee, 1965 – Appendix Y.

By the year 2000 there will be about 25% more CO2 in our atmosphere than at present. This will modify the heat balance of the atmosphere to such an extent that marked changes in climate, not controllable through local or even national efforts, could occur.

Jule Charney

National Academy of Sciences,Carbon Dioxide and Climate:

A Scientific Assessment (1979)

The consensus has been that increasing carbon dioxide will

lead to a warmer earth with a different distribution of

climatic regimes.

Doubling CO2 in models results in 1.5 to 4.5 C warming.

Positive feedbacks will increase the warming.

Establishing the IPCC

1979 First World Climate Conference, WMO.

1985 Assessment of the Role of Carbon Dioxide and of Other Greenhouse Gases in Climate Variations and Associated Impacts (UNEP, WMO, ICSU).

1988 IPCC established by WMO and UNEP.

Original IPCC Charge (1988)

1. Science of climate and climatic change

2. Social and economic impacts

3. Possible response strategies

4. International legal instruments

5. International convention on climate

Our understanding of climate is based on authority, prestige, data, experiments, theory, modeling, technology, and consensus…

Our understanding of climate is based on authority, prestige, data, experiments, theory, modeling, technology, and consensus…

WHAT ROLE FOR HISTORY?

WHAT ROLE FOR HISTORY?

Students of climate dynamics would be well-served to study science dynamics (history).

History matters – it shapes identity and behavior; it is not just a celebratory record of inevitable progress.

Our species emerged during an ice age, and all of history has occurred in an interglacial era.

In facing unprecedented challenges, it is good to seek historical precedents.

Clarity of communication (for dreamers)

Appropriate interventions and inscriptions (for doers)

Here’s a reason to be nice to historians

“God cannot alter the past, but historians can”

— Dr. Samuel Johnson (18th C)

Managing Solar Radiation

A critique of climate engineerin

gThe Climate Engineers: Playing God to Save the Planet

http://www.colby.edu/sts/climateengineers.pdf



Columbia University Press, 2010

http://cup.columbia.edu/book/978-0-231-14412-4/fixing-the-sky



“Give me a lever long enough and a place to stand, and I will move the world” —Archimedes

— but where will it roll?

Leverage

“It occurred to me at once that this was the lever by which the meteorologist was to move the world!” – James Espy, The Philosophy of Storms, 1841.

Eliza Leslie James Espy

Wexler and V.A. Bugaev in Geneva, 19 Mar 1962

Wexler 1962: prevent all O3 from forming

Starfish PrimeAurora “Tropicalis”

and Rainbow Bomb Parties

“But how do you know destroying the inner Van Allen belts will create havoc until you try it?”

– New Yorker, 1962

A male hand, god-like in scale, is on the thermostatThermostat is “nowhere,” but perhaps in outer spaceTemperature is 73 F but is being turned back to 54 F or 5 degrees cooler than its long-term averageThe thermostat dial is centered on Roswell, NM

Phaeton, from the series The Four Disgracers (1588) by Hendrick Goltzius (Netherlandish, 1558-1617).

WHAT CAN I KNOW?

WHAT SHOULD I DO?

WHAT MAY I HOPE?

—Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason

Climate Change is Simple

References

Historical Perspectives on Climate Change.

The Callendar Effect.

Climate Change and Anthropogenic Greenhouse Warming: A Selection of Key Articles, 1824-1995, with Interpretive Essays “nsdl climate”

Fixing the Sky: The checkered history of weather and climate control.

Documents

Volcanologists report only 3-4 kt (0.003-0.004 Mt) of SO2 from the Eyjafjallajökull volcanic eruption in Iceland as compared to 5 Mt from Katmai in 1912