While I was in the shower, I thought of a brilliant idea! Let’s trigger several smaller volcanic eruptions that release a semi-controlled amount of volcanic ash into other atmosphere. That will cool down the atmosphere, which should buy us some time to fix our carbon emissions.
Then I realized, that doing so would block visible light. Plants need the light to grow, and we need the plants to breathe and eat. Obviously, this is not going to be a long term solution. Oh, and how do you even make sure the volcanic eruption doesn’t spiral out of control and suddenly spew out 50 times the ash we were aiming for. Oh, and volcanoes also spew CO2 and even nastier gases, so… It sounded so good while I was still in the shower. The more I think about it, the worse it gets.
This is called Geoengineering, and we don’t need volcanoes for that. Current approaches mostly consider injecting sulfates or other reflective aerosols directly into the atmosphere to influence how much solar radiation reaches the Earth. The principle is the same as behind volcanoes. This method is in fact already being employed and has been used in the past, albeit only for regional climate engineering.
Why don’t we do this to stop climate change? As you yourself kinda noticed, the consequences could be very unpredictable and dangerous because the effects are difficult to model. However, maybe after everything else has failed Geoengineering could be a viable option.
If we could selectively reflect only IR, but not visible light, then I might be more convinced.
But the aerosols would also amplify the green house effect right?
This brings up an important point. Greenhouse effect is not the only factor in global temperature changes. There’s also solar input rate which varies enormously with cloud cover.
This guy thinks we can control volcanoes.
Happy campers are poopin their Pampers
Upvote for you, dear PUSA fan!
You get some paper machet, you get some altroids, you drop in some diet coke, and BOOM! You got a 4th grade science teacher failing you because you did the project wrong, and (airquotes) “didn’t pay attention”.
…what were we talking about.
Quality shower thought. Once you leave the shower, and give it some more thought, you can also flush the idea down the drain.
At least the “how” should be easy: drop Tsar Bomba down Old Faithful, and set off the Yellowstone caldera.
What could go wrong. Literally nothing. It’s scientifically impossible for any part of this plan to cause any problems at all.
Watch Snowpiercer
Have you read the Mistborn novels, by any chance? That’s more or less what would happen, only without the cool metal magic
It happened again. I get a great idea, and later find out that, not only someone else thought of it first, but they also made it into a product many years ago.
Isn’t this what happened in the Matrix?
It’s exactly what happened in the Matrix. Cypher turned on that volcano, and it solved global warming. Good job Cypher.
Ignorance is bliss
ONCE AND FOR ALL.
This could cause a lot of acid rain
Yeah… Among all the other disasters it could cause. Probably not the safest idea, now that I think of it.
Lord Ruler, is that you?
Ha that’s a shower thought!
Should have also posted this in LinkedIn. Some of those aphorism are actually dumber than my idea, so it should fit right in.