HuffPost: Julian Assange Faces Federal Charges. But Let's Not Forget What We've Learned From WikiLeaks.

[jim bell]

 On Tuesday, November 27, 2018, 12:46:40 PM PST, Kurt Buff <kurt.buff at gmail.com> wrote:
 
 
 On Tue, Nov 27, 2018 at 11:33 AM jim bell <jdb10987 at yahoo.com> wrote:

>> (Full disclosure:  I have a Bachelor's degree in Chemistry from MIT, Class of 1980).
>>
>> While I am not sufficently convinced that, quantitatively, "global warming" ("climate change"), or more specifically AGW (Anthropogenic Global Warning) is a genuine problem,  I'd say it would be irresponsible to not prepare for the possibility that this sulfur-injection protocol will be necessary, or at least useful.  It should be quite cheap. Further, there are likely to be various (positive) feedback-loops associated with global warming, such as the thawing of permafrost, whose magnitude aren't well-understood.
>>
>> I suspect that the main opposition to this idea comes from people who see "climate change" as simply an opportunity to increase government control over the world.  They think that they've found themselves one hell of a problem, but a problem which would be threatened,  like garlic or a silver bullet, or a gold cross, to a vampire.


>So, the solution to warming is smog? Really? Perhaps if injected at a
high enough altitude it won't affect lungs, but it seems like SO2
isn't something we want to pump into the atmosphere...
Kurt

Ironically, that solution will likely be correct.  But to understand why, it helps to know that circulation between the lower-levels of the atmosphere (say, under 10,000 AGL (above ground level)) and the upper levels, say around 60,000 feet AGL is quite slow.  SO2 injected at low levels of the atmosphere will wash out in weeks or months due to rain.   SO2 injected at, say, 60,000  feet AGL will probably last for years.  That SO2 will eventually diffuse downward and be lost due to rain as well, but far less SO2 will need to be added at 60,000 feet than is currently being added from ground-level sources.
China's coal-fired power plants currently emit huge amounts of ground-level SO2, which could be scrubbed just like America's plants.  http://www.pnas.org/content/115/27/7004      And, presumably, should be scrubbed.  But only a far smaller amount of SO2, than could be scrubbed from China's coal-fired power plants would need to be released at 60,000 feet AGL, each on a per-year basis, to accomplish the cooling effect required.  I looked it up, maybe a year ago, and I think the comparison was 32 million tons/year v. 1 million tons/year.  I hope I'm remembering it correctly.  

                     Jim Bell  
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