Can Cloud Seeding Prevent Global Warming?

Global warming is accellerating at a frightening pace – fast enough that many scientists say it’s too late to solve this massive problem with emissions cuts alone. Geoengineering is being brought up as a possible solution – but is tinkering with the climate really a good idea?

Last week, President Obama suggested that cooling the air might be a last-resort option to deal with global warming. Some think it’s an inspired idea, others think it’s insane – but as Obama’s science adviser John Holdren said, we can’t afford to rule any approach off the table.

NEXT 100 is exploring our options, and one of them is particularly intriguing – the idea of ‘cloud seeding’. Cloud seeding is the process of making ordinary clouds brighter so they reflect more sunlight, using wind and seawater. It’s a relatively inexpensive option, with a price tag that’s just a smal fraction of what the U.S. government has recently spent on bailouts and rescue packages.

From NEXT 100:

That’s the promise of a cloud seeding proposal by John Latham, senior research associate at the National Center for Atmospheric Research and former head of the Atmospheric Physics Research Group at the University of Manchester. His idea, first broached in 1990, has been gaining traction in peer-reviewed scientific articles, TV documentaries for BBC and the Discovery Channel, and two papers last year in the prestigious journal, The Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society.

In a nutshell, Latham and a couple of colleagues propose seeding ocean clouds with tiny droplets of saltwater. In theory, the clouds should reflect more sunlight, possibly offsetting greenhouse warming for up to 100 years. In effect, the scientists propose speeding up the natural process of cloud formation over water much as cloud seeders do over land.

The team proposes ingeniously to do the job with a fleet of 1500 300-ton ships powered by vertical spinning wind turbines called Flettner rotors. The rotors would both propel the ships and spray seawater into the atmosphere to promote cloud formation around salt nuclei. (A ship powered by Anton Flettner’s rotors actually crossed the Atlantic in 1926. A German wind turbine manufacturer, Enercon, has plans to finish building a state-of-the-art ship based on similar technology this year.)

To most of us, geoengineering is a little scary – especially those who feel that it’s never wise to mess with the natural order of things. But the thing is, we already have. Our modern presence on the earth, with all of our pollution-spewing factories and motor vehicles, has caused serious harm to Mother Nature.

Can we really fix it? We’ve got to hope so. And while curbs on greenhouse gases need to be our first line of defense, ideas like Latham’s could very well help us make up for lost time.

Link [NEXT100]

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