To Fight Warming, Brits Plan to Launch a Huge Balloon and Really Long Pipe

Sulphates can damage the soil and aerosols are not good for the atmosphere or ozone. Before this is actually done full scale, I hope a lot High Level Scientist make their opinions known and get involved. Perhaps short term they may cool the air, but in the long term they may kill their farm land and add more pollutions to the atmosphere and add more damage to the ozone.

I surmise that the scaled-down version will lose altitude once they begin to pump water up the hose. The weight of the water and the force of water moving in the opposite direction of lift may prove too much.
The large scale version would need far too large quantities of material for a difference to be observed on the earth's surface... but good luck!

Without having any actual scientific knowledge to back this up, I would guess that what they are planning on spewing out into the atmosphere will be engineered so they it is not going to damage the soil, or damage the already damaged ozone layer.

I would also assume that the engineers have worked out a way to get the test model into the atmosphere full of water. I would also summize that the they have found a way to spray the water without disrupting flight.

Finally, I am also going to assume that if the test flight is successful, they are going to launch either one balloon multiple times, or most likely, multiple balloons multiple times. That way the quantities put out there are sufficient to make a difference.

I know, a lot of assumptions to make. But, only having a degree in nuclear engineering does not give me the knowledge to truly evaluate this plan.

Folks don't think this is a good idea - so much so that they have considered banning it:

http://news.discovery.com/earth/blotting-out-sun-may-soon-be-banned.html#mkcpgn=rssnws1

Come on, stupid humans!

Tetraethyllead was first discovered by a German chemist in 1854. By 1923, leaded gasoline was being sold.

As early as the late 1940s and early 1950s, Clair Patterson accidentally discovered the pollution caused by TEL in the environment while determining the age of the earth. As he attempted to measure lead content of very old rocks, and the time it took uranium to decay into lead, the readings were made inaccurate by lead in the environment that contaminated his samples. He was then forced to work in a clean room to keep his samples uncontaminated by environmental pollution of lead. After coming up with a fairly accurate estimate of the age of the earth, he turned to investigating the lead contamination problem by examining ice cores from countries such as Greenland. He realized that the lead contamination in the environment dated from about the time that TEL became widely used as a fuel additive in gasoline. Being aware of the health dangers posed by lead and suspicious of the pollution caused by TEL, he became one of the earliest and most effective opponents of its use.

In the U.S. in 1972, the EPA launched an initiative to phase out leaded gasoline based on a regulation under the authority of the Clean Air Act Extension of 1970. Ethyl Corp's response was to sue the EPA.
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I just hope highly trained scientist make their opinions known and get involved in this, before 50 years of poison has to be dumped into the enviroment and people become sick.

I say give it a shot. I love crazy ideas like this. It gets the imagination going. Even if it doesn't work. Like the idea about towing an iceberg through the ocean to a drought stricken part of the world. I love how these ideas make me laugh, but there's legitimate scientists who are dead serious about making it work. Perception is reality.

Wow, Blade Runner or the Matrix anyone?

Don't take life to seriously! You'll never get out of it alive.
-Elbert Hubbard

Warming is NOT to be fought. What sort of pseudo-scientists would back such inane plans. Doubtlessly they will further complicate matters by trying to futilely slow the warming of the Earth in it's natural interglacial (warming) period... It does not matter one bit if the Earth is warming, it's supposed to be. How much is irrelevant as it will result in the same end that previous interglacials experienced. To counter humanity polluting the atmosphere with chemicals by polluting the atmosphere with different chemicals is beyond idiotic.

Good idea and a practical one so let's hope it works.

A secondary use might be to exhaust all that hot air in Congress which is making global warming a lot worse--at least here down on the surface!

I know absolutely nothing about geo-engineering or stratospheric particle injection, but this seems like a bad idea. Let the system achieve its own equilibrium.

I just had a thought; this seems like a band-aid solution, without really facing the cause of the problem. Won't the cause of the problem continue and in the fight to push it back with chemicals, just add more chemicals to the environment.

Why not just slow down global warming and lower all the pollution?

@BubbaGump:

You seem to be confusing "aerosols", with the propellants formerly used in aerosol sprays. It is the latter that's bad for the ozone layer. Look up the meaning of "aerosol".

That said -- yes, this sounds like a very bad idea indeed.

Pixurman: Global Warming has changed as often as GLOBAL COOLING. Studies have proven that the Earth's axis is actually a SLOW wobble over thousands of years, but occasionally more often than that. It WOBBLES us into an ice-age with glaciers as far South as Chicago, and then it retreats again, and has done so at least four times. It IS a cycle of sorts, but what happens when we artificially change the climate, and then the cycle repeats itself during THIS new change??? Artificially alter the wobble also ??? Oh yeah, it's getting crazy here...

If they did it on the right day, in terms of weather conditions like humidity, temperature, pressure, they would have a much easier time pumping the water up in the air without causing the balloon to crash under the weight of the water

H-F compounds caused the hole in the ozone...

The huge balloon is filled with nitrous and the pipe is for the hasish (smile)!

Should we ever decide to cool the atmosphere, this might prove to be a competent way. However, for fairness, the consensus to cool the atmosphere should be garnered in the dead of winter around the globe.

Our arrogance should be tempered by remembering that in the 70s we were talking about global cooling and proposing ideas such as coating the ice caps with black tar in order to increase the global temperatures. Contemplate that disaster!

@tundrasea, Thank you for any clarification. As a human, I do not believe it’s good to breath any one of those things, let alone what it does to the atmosphere or ozone.

I've had a strange idea for several years.

We have all of this brain power. We are using it to figure out how to overcome the damage we are doing now with our current methods of energy production. How about we use it to figure out a better way to produce usable energy?

I have to believe that we are smart enough to find something better than smoke-belching, inefficient conversion of fossil fuels and petrochemicals. Even if, as is possible, some amount of petroleum may be primordial, why burn something that could be used for other things?

Screw the energy companies and their cash-carrying lobbyists. Fund science that will move us beyond their cash cow.

@QIII, Sir, I have this observation of humans and it will not bring you much peace I am sorry. Much humans smoke cigarettes. They do this because they can not perceive any immediate harm and so just continue on as all other opinions is just fools complaining and just enjoy the cigarette.

The ongoing poising of the earth is the same. The earth can die in hundreds of years or thousands and the mind of the human cannot feel this; it is just to distant and so does not give empathy for it.

You must fall back to your faith, your religion and be a good person each day and love and adore as many as you can in life. Loving GOD and loving others is the only satisfaction that will bring meaning and promise!

"But seriously, spewing chemical particulates into our atmosphere in an attempt to artificially mimic one of mother nature’s most destructive and far-reaching devices--what could possibly go wrong?" Like the last 100 years or so spewing toxic wastes into the atmosphere, what could possibly go wrong with that? To deny we have no impact on the planet is stupidity and ignorance at it's best.

This idea was heavily discussed in the book Superfreakonomics. There are a lot of very intelligent people who think this could work. Check out the company called Intellectual Ventures.

Don’t forget the while your at it strategy to save the glaciers and ice caps. While the plane is over with GPS accuracy it puts sulfur in the fuel line; to cover and protect the ice triggered by a simple network. This will reflect solar rays off of the ice caps, and glaciers with a small economical modification to some existing aircraft. Commercial jets fly just a bit higher then this balloon does.

I doubt they can make a 12 mile long pipe that would be strong enough to not break under its own weight. Or how about lifting some sort of liquid or gas 12 miles without a lot of large heavy pumps in the system.

Instead of reflecting the sun energy back to the space. we should take it and used here.

I'll go along with Idiotic! Counter warming by adding pollution. What is important is to reduce pollution. CO2 is acidifying the oceans and killing off life. Global warming is not the most important issue, pollution is. The earth has been much warmer at least twice in the last 12 thousand years, for during 10k years ago and 8k5 years ago and 3k years ago and 2k years ago. Maybe we are making the world warmer, but we are DEFINITELY polluting the environment.

How about two hoses. One for hot gas in, and one for cold gas out? Helium chamber could keep it aloft and the very cold temperatures at 40K ft would chill the air. The Soccer size balloon itself would reflect the sun back into space. The upper atmosphere is like the beach at the sea shore. We've been so damn busy getting into low and high earth orbits for political reasons and communications and spying; without doing our homework on the 100K Ft regions and above. It is just like being an explorer whose never seen the ocean,,,,and rushes outward in a row boat 10 miles to sea to research the ocean and its vast contents. The smart area to research is the beach and shallow water. Same thing with space. It is in this zone that we lose our shuttles and other space craft.on re-entry. This region also plays an important place in the formation of weather, like lightning. A Balloon tethered in three places on the ground would be essentially geostationary at upper "near space" regions. Even the vast temperature gradient and higher sunlight levels would or could serve as places from which we could generate electricity from the temperature differentials and unshielded solar levels. This region of the earths atmosphere also has a gradient of micro-gravity where research into building large stadium size structures at low weight/low gravity ratio's; could house all sorts of experiments beneficial to those returning from long zero g exposures (like a year on the Space Station), not to mention be a area where weak heart patients could find relief from the effects of full 1 g levels. America's first satellite in space was a balloon (Echo 1)so I'm certain that 50 years later,,,,with advancements in materials, we could build a dirigible/research station at 150K ft. The U.S. Air Force had plans like this (post "Project Man High") but they all got scrapped in our rush to beat the Soviet Union to the moon. Even NASA has looked into a tower or space elevator to put researchers aloft without the big bang of rockets and they're accompanying tons of CO2 gases emmitted with every launch. If two MIT students can put a camera and balloon up to 92 thousand feet with a budget of under $300 U.S.D. then I'm sure real scientists with proper funding could fill in the potential blank questions we have about "near space".
What we have now is a case of looking for Science, in all the wrong places.

Alex Ingram

If the're going to make a balloon large enough to lift a long pipe and the weight of the chemicals they expect to pump up it, that size of balloon could support a large photovoltaic array ( solar panels ) and the cable to relay it's output to the ground instead. Most of the time, during daytime, above 6 miles there is continuous sunlight, so provided the array can be kept facing the sun a large amount of electrical power could be generated. This would be easier if the skin of the balloon was transparent and the array of cells mounted on a platform that could turn about two axis was inside.The biggest problem would be the large amount of aerodynamic drag on the cable going to ground, and the earthing of any passing thunderstorm

Two Words:

UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES

I have absolutely no idea if this is a great idea. I am absolutely confident that NOBODY else does either. We don't even know for sure that there IS a problem.

Critics started calling Anthropgenic (human caused) Global Warming "AGW." Didja notice that just as that was catching on, around the time of "Climategate" the term was quietly changed to "Climate Change."

We can't even model WEATHER out a few days, and some very big ego's want you to believe that it is possible to model CLIMATE on a long-term scale.

There is NO one model. There are MANY models. They all show slightly different results. One model had a huge Y2K error, that wasn't discovered for over 5 years.

Ask any programmer about how common it is to find major errors in code, and how hard it is to find them - especially when it is something impossible to test in the real world, or if the subject is entirely theoretical.

Weather changes. Always has, always will. Politicians and other hucksters however, never change. They are always looking for a way to scare you so that you'll give them more money and/or power. Rent "The Music Man" sometime for a perfect example... especially if you enjoy "Glee."

AGW is NOT about the health of our planet. It is about the ego of geeky politicians like AlGore(tm) who want to have a bigger and bigger legacy, separate from whether or not that legacy is tied to something good and correct. See also his investment in a carbon trading exchange that could have made him $Billions had the world bought into his bull.

OK I have theory to stop global warming.
everybody knows that the magnetic field around the earth keeps out a lot of particles and heat so imagine if we cud make that field larger and stronger. well its not impossible, all we hav to do is increase the mass of the earth. now your saying how do we do that. one option is to take small amounts of mass from mars or other parts of the solar system the problem is i don't know how to do that all i know is if we increase the mass of the earth, the magnetic field protecting us will become stronger, even we have to do it not even 100lbs at a time we can do it.

This is an idea that needs to be reconsidered. I expect the process will work, but there are some very serious questions that need to be answered before they start pumping aerosols or sulfates into the atmosphere. What will happen as the sulfates start drifting back down to the earth? What impact will any aerosols used have on the ozone layer? How much will be required to have any meaningful effect. How would you counter any negative or unforseen effects that occur once the process is underway?
Have any meaningful kinds of studies been conducted to determine the hazards of such an approach.

This strikes me as an attempt to produce a short cut solution that ignores the underlaying problem.

WHAT COULD POSSIBLY GO WRONG? ARE YOU KIDDING? WOULD IF THEY GET IT RIGHT AND IT WORKS GREAT -- THEN NATURE DECIDES SHE WANTS A HAND AT THE JOB HERSELF. NOW IMAGINE VOLCANOES GOING OFF ALL OVER THE PLACE FOR NO APPARENT REASON. !!!!! SUPER ICE AGE ANYONE!!!!! NO GOING BACK?!?!

holy cat this is a lot to think about

Well, as all the posters have noted, this is pre-planning for the space elevator under optimal conditions ( gas compression that makes for more accurate measurements) is a idea fraught with hubris.

Well, pressure differential will provide vacuum effect where all they do is limit it when desired, and once that is is established, once every so often you could send up gas for the balloon, right up the pipe. That pressure differential would take weight off the lifting of the pipe as well...

Chemical Balancing works in Chemical Theory thought in Physics class...it's not how the real world works...especially with Combustion and Heat Distribution in Earth's Ecosystem
Putting a giant cloud umbrella up won't stop the heat coming out from plate Techtonics
In fact the cooler sky with a heat upwelling might provoke a major storm if not a hurricane or tornado (Not "Harping" on how such things works with weather manipulation..just saying)

I have been blaiming Global Change on the likes of Earth Tipping and Chem Trails. I do realize and consider other things such as pollution but until the powers that be get a handle on whats really happening we are on the road to hell in a hand basket.

In the days before high altitude aviation some forces of our planet matured at known old fashion altitudes (clouds) and the other continued out into space producing dark matter creating universal expansion.

Whats become known, as chem trails in the sky is the maturity of earths escaping forces caused by a reaction producing large air or atmospheric cells.

We see the results of these large cells in leaky condo, whale beaching, dead water, big rain drops, soft ball size hail, a new one Sars and all lung related disease. Come on guys pay attention were having dead frogs, birds, fish and you have all these people running around with hoses hanging out of their nose.

What really concerns me though is that these tippings (sun radiation changes) also affects all of earths life. We as humans can cope but wild life are on their own. The bear was radiationly programmed to hibernate in July and had it's spring wake up call in Sept.

In no way at all is this remotely a good idea. Not only is it going to be significantly more difficult than this article makes it out to be (i.e.. Think about the energy required to pump gas into the stratosphere, now we have to pump enough to cause a significant change in climate, PLUS, how are they going to keep the gaseous material from freezing in this extremely depleted pressure system?) and even if it was logical to attempt, it is a HORRIBLE idea. The first thing to do when you find yourself in a hole is to stop digging, not get a bunch more people digging away at it. This is a horrible idea, and for the sake of everyone on this planet I hope they stop this project before it can do too much damage.