Methane: quick fix for global warming

Even in 1999 the Clinton/Gore administration did not even put forth any regulation of ghg for a vote, so what chance do you think it would have had of passing in 1990. The mechanisms for further SO2 reduction are there. Removal of the grandfathering of plants and lowering of caps. The first is not happening, but there are lawsuits of modifications of plants, the second is happening and the epa can easily speed it up.

Geoengineering is very different than allowing point sources of polution in the lower atmosphere and is quite controversial. Remember most of the research was done by the military to come up with weather weapons.

Sure it has nothing to do with the polution in the city? Where did that load of bs come from.

 

I know where it came from! but at the moment having a hard time latching on to the publication.

The trail leads from a New York times article to the Journal of Geophysical Research. The latter appears to have found that 25% of aerosols (just a part of the air quality picture) over LA, during some period of time, could be sourced to China.

If I get a chance to read the JGR paper, and if is says anything more lurid, I'll report back. But for now I'd suggest that LA's oxides of nitrogen and ozone are much more local. For SO2, I'll not make a claim now.

 

Thanks the idea just did not smell right, and after finding the NYT piece with your help it at least points to part of the bad smell. The bulk of LAs polution does indeed come from LA, but during some times winds can blow in extra polution. Being 1/3 all the time does not make any sense, as other coastal areas of CA would then have much higher levels of pollutants. A couple of things the story does lead to, we can not just get rid of our polution by moving the manufacturing that produces it, some of it will come back. Korea and Japan being closer are getting more of China's polution, and we can suspect in the last century china got some of Europe's and America's polution.

It doesn't really make any difference to this discussion. Though the high levels of SO2 from point sources in China and Korea should allow someone to see how they are affecting methane production. I am sure any of the benefits of the lower methane are outweighed by the damages of the SO2. Even adding sulfur to fertilizer may have sever negative consequences in its run off, and these should be tested before a large scale project is tried.

I am curious how much of far away point sources of dangerous polution travel especially the high sulfur coal power plants in china and the destruction from japan. Though if you find out anything valuable it probably should go on its own thread.

 

Yes and I thought it was quite badly written. One part was more acid rain to stop production of methane from crops like rice and natural production in wetlands. That is the point I'm dismissing.

There is the other theory of high altitude aerosol spraying which can not be dismissed as just plain wrong like the idea that I was complaining about. It does deserve more research but I am pessimistic about that. In fact I think a mirror or balloon blocking the sun like mr. burns did on the Simpsons is a more plausible idea. Here are a couple of takes on the issue.

Why Superfreakonomics' authors are wrong on geo-engineering | Environment | guardian.co.uk

RealClimate: A biased economic analysis of geoengineering

Then for a little more ballance

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/03/hacktheplanet-qa/

And for those against it because we shouldn't screw with nature, we are already doing it
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/03/geoengineering-gallery/

well that is one thing we can agree on. My comments on this thread were mainly about the lack of consequences of some of their ideas, and this is most clear in the reduction of methane. I did not mean to dismiss the idea of geoengineering outright, but the effects need to be analyzed. Current modeling is not good enough to show all the consequence of these techniques, but we do know the severe negative consequences of some of them.

 

There are actually quite a few articles in JGR recently dealing with this type of 'exports' from China. They are over my head, but the general picture seems to be a few % source peaking at 20-30% in the spring. Spring both because of favorable wind patterns then over the pacific, and because the LA basin is locally better ventilated then. This improved ventilation reduces the concentration of locally emitted material.

I'm pretty sure there would be unambiguous chemical signals in rainwater from combustion of different coals. Somebody at the University of Rhode Island worked all that out, some time ago. All we need to find is someplace on te US pacific coast that gets rain in the spring (probably further north) and set up the ultraclean buckets.

One thing I learned in JGR reading yesterday is that at least some of these new coal plants in China are being built with sulfur scrubbers. This was certainly not the case 20-30 years ago! Beijing etc. are still pretty much off the charts in terms of local air pollution. There are web sites where you can observe the 'breathtaking' daily values.

This is one advantage to hanging out here in southwestern China. A high proportion of 'blue sky' days like today. Puffy little cumulus clouds...nice atmospheric stability...hey I'm a travel ad!

The monsoonal moisture is trying to push in from the south, but not quite happening yet. Now the east coastal areas...that is what might be called the tailpipe of China. Most of it gets rained out over the Pacific though.

I said, most.

 

Oh yeah, one problem with adding sulfur of any sort to the rice rooting zone is acidification. This increases the the availability of arsenic, and rice has a nasty habit of accumulating arsenic. Which we then eat of course.

So if somebody gets too excited about sulfurizing rice, we can write a letter to the editor of the journal about the arsenic. A slap upside the head to consider all facets of the latest new fixit scheme.