Geoengineering

     Geo-engineering is the intentional large scale manipulation of the atmosphere to counter global warming. Although the idea of Geo engineering itself might seem like a relatively new concept it has been around for a while. David W. Keith states that people have been talking about Geo engineering as long as they have been worrying about global warming[11]. However it has been in recent years that the topic of Geo Engineering has started to become heavily debated[11]. This topic is hugely supported by some scientists and politicians and greatly disputed by environmentalist, scientists and developing countries. This debate will be further discussed under the concerns tab.

below is a drawing of Geo engineered ideas

The ideas although fascinating don't seem plausible at this point because enough research hasn't been done to get a full understanding of the benefits and risks of each project or we just don't have the technology for certain projects yet. I have found very few primary articles showing models or supporting facts and evidence that these projects will even work. Most of the proposed Geo engineering projects at this point are just suggestions to combat worsened climate conditions in the future. In my opinion, we should all first try to reduce the amount of greenhouse gases that we release into the atmosphere. However knowing that even if we stop all carbon emission right now all of the emissions already released into the atmosphere would remain and its likely that temperatures and sea levels would continue to rise[5,6,14]. So along with reducing greenhouse gas emissions geo-engineering might be necessary for stabilizing climate conditions. The more precarious projects are being more heavily looked into so we can know if they can be used in a beneficial way, while some of the less risky projects have already been attempted.

A few proposals being looked into or that have been tried are...

Covering Greenland with a blanket: 

Does it work?

This idea has been tested and it does work! Initially, in a much smaller scale than that being suggested for Greenland, these blankets were made to stop Alpine glaciers from melting in the summer to preserve ski resort infrastructures. 

 Why do it?

 White surfaces on the earth reflect sunlight and dark surfaces absorb it[17]. With glaciers melting we have less surfaces that reflect the solar radiation thus warming the earth even further and also raising sea levels[17]. Dr Jason Box suggested covering Greenland in reflective blankets to reflect more sunlight while also protecting the ice below the blanket from melting. Polypropylene blankets were used for this exact reason, they reflect much more sunlight than normal and are good at insulating the ice, so they trap heat within themselves keeping the ice cool[17].

How was it tested and what were the results?

 Dr. Jason Box and his team set up the blankets near Kangerlussuaq, Greenland and they hoped to conserve ice about 2 meters deep. After setting up these blankets, Box went back to see the results 6 weeks later and they had worked! The ice that was under the blanket remained intact while the ice that wasn't covered had melted.

 What still needs to be looked into?

 Although this idea does work, it seems very expensive to cover all glaciers with polypropylene blankets. At this point in time cost seems to be the biggest obstacle for this specific project.

More information!

-There is a documentary about this on the discovery channel

-More about Dr. Jason Box and Greenland- http://bprc.osu.edu/wiki/Jason_Box_Homepage 

Artificial Trees:  

 What does it do?

 They mimic the photosynthetic capturing of carbon illustrated by real trees. This idea proposed by Klaus Lackner has the basic concept to take carbon out of the air and store it underground.

How does it work?

The round portion of the fake trees (lower right picture) contains adsorbing agents like alkaline resin which takes up carbon dioxide[8]. So when air passes through these filters the carbon dioxide is adsorbed, subsequently the air that is release back has less CO2. When the resin becomes saturated with CO2 the filter goes down into the vacuum chamber and water is added to release the carbon dioxide so it can be captured and stored [8]. Then once the carbon is stored the resin is dried again and reused.

Why do it?

Carbon levels have reached such a high level that we need a faster way to do what real trees do. Lackner states that the amount of real trees that we would need to plant to absorb the current amount of carbon would mean that there would be no fertile land left for any other uses.

 Has it been tested?

Its in the testing process now.

What still needs to be looked into?

The technology is still being worked on. At first the "trees" were made to look like goal posts (left) but now they have changed the design to look more like the picture on the right.

“Our goal is to take a process that takes 100,000 years and compress it into 30 minutes,” Klaus Lackner.

Cloud seeding:

This video explains exactly what the thought process is for creating clouds to stop global warming. Some issues that still need to be worked though is that the ships require a lot of energy and we would need a large quantity of these ships to stop temperatures from rising  and it would cost close to 7 billion dollars!