Month: July 2018

Peer-reviewed Publications

Brent, Kerryn (2018): Solar Radiation Management Geoengineering and Strict Liability for Ultrahazardous Activities

Brent, Kerryn (2018): Solar Radiation Management Geoengineering and Strict Liability for Ultrahazardous Activities. In: Neil Craik, Cameron S. G. Jefferies, Sara L. Seck und Tim Stephens (Hg.): Global Environmental Change and Innovation in International Law: Cambridge University Press, S. 161–179.

“Proposals to develop solar radiation management (SRM) geoengineering call into question the capacity of international law to govern innovative new technologies. Geoengineering is ‘the deliberate large-scale intervention in the Earth’s climate system, in order to moderate global warming’.1 Solar radiation management proposals are intended to offset global temperatures rises resulting from climate change by reflecting a small percentage of incoming solar radiation (sunlight).2 The most prominent proposal, stratospheric aerosol injection (SAI), is to deposit aerosols into the stratosphere to reflect or scatter light away from the Earth, mimicking the cooling effect produced by large volcanic eruptions.3 Stratospheric aerosol injection is promising in that it could rapidly reduce global temperatures for a fraction of the cost of conventional mitigation strategies.4 However, SAI deployment is likely to have detrimental transboundary and global environmental side effects.5 It is therefore important that SAI is governed at an international level, but at present there are no international agreements that specifically address SAI research or deployment.”

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Peer-reviewed Publications

Irvine, Peter J.; et al. (2018): Brief communication. Understanding solar geoengineerings potential to limit sea level rise requires attention from cryosphere experts

Irvine, Peter J.; Keith, David W.; Moore, John (2018): Brief communication. Understanding solar geoengineering’s potential to limit sea level rise requires attention from cryosphere experts. In: The Cryosphere 12 (7), S. 2501–2513. DOI: 10.5194/tc-12-2501-2018.

“Here we review the literature on solar geoengineering and the cryosphere and identify the key uncertainties that research could address. Solar geoengineering may be more effective at reducing surface melt than a reduction in greenhouse forcing that produces the same global-average temperature response. Studies of natural analogues and model simulations support this conclusion.”

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Media

Axios: We asked five experts about engineering the climate

“In the face of rising global temperatures, deploying technologies to change Earth’s climate has gone from thought experiment to reality. We already capture carbon and store it underground. Now some researchers are suggesting we should spray the clouds with particles to reflect sunlight, fertilize the oceans to promote carbon-absorbing plankton growth, or build a gigantic shade that orbits Earth and opens as needed to shield the planet from the sun. Welcome to the Anthropocene — the era of humans engineering the world in unprecedented ways.”

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Media

Red Green and Blue: Six ideas to limit global warming with solar geoengineering (Part 1)

“Scientists agree that cutting global greenhouse emissions as soon as possible will be key to tackling global warming. But, with[nbsp]global emissions still on the rise, some researchers are now[nbsp]calling for[nbsp]more research into measures that could be taken alongside emissions cuts, including –[nbsp]controversially – the use of “solar geoengineering” technologies.”

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Media

The Liquid Grid: Ocean Storage of CO2

“Some ocean scientists are advocating for storing captured CO2[nbsp]emissions in the deep ocean. The reasons why might surprise you.[nbsp] In this post I’ll investigate why some think ocean storage of CO2[nbsp]is[nbsp]a good idea and the potential impacts it could have on the marine environment.”

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Peer-reviewed Publications

Maher, Damien T.; et al. (2018): Beyond burial. Lateral exchange is a significant atmospheric carbon sink in mangrove forests

Maher, Damien T.; Call, Mitchell; Santos, Isaac R.; Sanders, Christian J. (2018): Beyond burial. Lateral exchange is a significant atmospheric carbon sink in mangrove forests. In: Biology letters 14 (7). DOI: 10.1098/rsbl.2018.0200.

“Our results indicate that the export of DIC and alkalinity results in a long-term atmospheric carbon sink and should be incorporated into the blue carbon paradigm when assessing the role of these habitats in sequestering carbon and mitigating climate change.”

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Peer-reviewed Publications

Beck, Silke; et al. (2018): The politics of anticipation. The IPCC and the negative emissions technologies experience

Beck, Silke; Mahony, Martin (2018): The politics of anticipation. The IPCC and the negative emissions technologies experience. In: Glob. Sustain. 1, S. 979. DOI: 10.1017/sus.2018.7.

“In the post-Paris political landscape, the relationship between science and politics is changing. We discuss what this means for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), using recent controversies over negative emissions technologies (NETs) as a window into the fraught politics of producing policy-relevant pathways and scenarios. We suggest that pathways and scenarios have a ‘world-making’ power, potentially shaping the world in their own image and creating new political realities. Assessment bodies like the IPCC need to reflect on this power, and the implications of changing political contexts, in new ways.”

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