Climate engineering (geoengineering) research gets green light (by American Meteorological Society)

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http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn17490-climate-engineering-research-gets-green-light.html

Climate engineering research gets green light

18:39 20 July 2009 by Catherine Brahic

Hacking the planet to rein in humanity's effect on the climate has been given a scientific stamp of approval.

The umbrella body for meteorological scientists in the US is about to endorse research into http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20126973.600-hacking-the-planet-the-only-climate-solution-left.html">geoengineering as part of a three-pronged approach to coping with climate change, alongside national policies to reduce emissions.

New Scientist has seen the final draft of the http://www.ametsoc.org/">American Meteorological Society's carefully worded position paper on geoengineering. The AMS is the first major scientific body to officially endorse research into geoengineering.

The document states that "deliberately manipulating physical, chemical, or biological aspects of the Earth system" should be explored alongside the more conventional approaches to climate change. Conventional approaches means reducing emissions – "mitigation" in policy-speak – and adjusting to the unavoidable effect of climate change – known as "adaptation".

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1. Geoengineering the Climate System—A Policy Statement of the American Meteorological Society

http://www.ametsoc.org/policy/2009geoengineeringclimate_amsstatement.html

Geoengineering the Climate System

A Policy Statement of the American Meteorological Society
(Adopted by the AMS Council on 20 July 2009)

http://www.ametsoc.org/policy/2009geoengineeringclimate_amsstatement.pdf">PDF Version

Human responsibility for most of the well-documented increase in global average temperatures over the last half century is well established. Further greenhouse gas emissions, particularly of carbon dioxide from the burning of fossil fuels, will almost certainly contribute to additional widespread climate changes that can be expected to cause major negative consequences for most nations¹.

Three proactive strategies could reduce the risks of climate change: 1) mitigation: reducing emissions; 2) adaptation: moderating climate impacts by increasing our capacity to cope with them; and 3) geoengineering: deliberately manipulating physical, chemical, or biological aspects of the Earth system². This policy statement focuses on large-scale efforts to geoengineer the climate system to counteract the consequences of increasing greenhouse gas emissions.

Geoengineering could lower greenhouse gas concentrations, provide options for reducing specific climate impacts, or offer strategies of last resort if abrupt, catastrophic, or otherwise unacceptable climate-change impacts become unavoidable by other means. However, research to date has not determined whether there are large-scale geoengineering approaches that would produce significant benefits, or whether those benefits would substantially outweigh the detriments. Indeed, geoengineering must be viewed with caution because manipulating the Earth system has considerable potential to trigger adverse and unpredictable consequences.

Geoengineering proposals fall into at least three broad categories: 1) reducing the levels of atmospheric greenhouse gases through large-scale manipulations (e.g., ocean fertilization or afforestation using non-native species); 2) exerting a cooling influence on Earth by reflecting sunlight (e.g., putting reflective particles into the atmosphere, putting mirrors in space, increasing surface reflectivity, or altering the amount or characteristics of clouds); and 3) other large-scale manipulations designed to diminish climate change or its impacts (e.g., constructing vertical pipes in the ocean that would increase downward heat transport).

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