Giant balloon to be launched in the UK to test climate fix hope

Leila Battison BBC News 15 Sep 11;

A huge helium-filled balloon attached to a 1km length of hosepipe is to be launched next month to help investigate the feasibility of climate engineering.

One method involves pumping particles into the stratosphere, to mimic the short-term cooling effects of volcanic eruptions.

The balloon test next month will investigate the engineering challenges posed by such a project.

Representatives discussed the project at the Science Festival in Bradford.

Scientists from universities across the country, and Marshall Aerospace are working together on the SPICE project (Stratospheric Particle Injection for Climate Engineering), which will research this particular type of geo-engineering.

They are investigating the best kind of particle that can be put in the atmosphere, the best way to deliver it, and the potential effects this will have on the Earth's climate.

The launch next month will be the first of its kind in the UK, and by raising a balloon to a height of 1km, will test the feasibility of a much larger-scale project with particles being released at a height of 20km.
October Launch

Tackling climate change with atmospheric particles, or aerosols, is a method inspired by large volcanic eruptions, like the 1991 eruption of Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines.

The eruption ejected at least five cubic kilometres of ash and gas, which rapidly spread around the globe and, in the two years following the eruption, decreased the average global temperature by 0.5 degree Celsius.

This was because the aerosols released by the volcano reflected back the Sun's radiation and heat before it reached the atmosphere, keeping the planet cooler.

A global geo-engineering project would see reflective particles artificially released into the atmosphere to create this cooling effect.

The SPICE project has received £1.6 million to investigate all aspects of such a technique, and their field test next month is the first of several proposed launches to directly observe the high-altitude delivery mechanism of reflective particles.

The 20m-long balloon will be released from an abandoned airfield in Sculthorpe in northern Norfolk during October when weather conditions are suitable.

It will be tethered to the ground with an 800m length of reinforced hosepipe which will stretch to allow the balloon to rise to an altitude of 1km.

A domestic pressure washer will provide enough force to pump water from the ground to the top of the hosepipe, and spray it out at a rate of around 100 litres per hour.

With this set-up, the researchers hope to observe how the balloon and the pipe react to high winds, the practicalities of its launch and retrieval, and much more.

In particular, they will be collecting information that can be scaled up to model the 20km altitude that would be needed to eject particles into higher layers of the atmosphere, and predict the reactions of the balloon setup in such a scenario.

Dr Matt Watson of the University of Bristol stressed that we are "decades away" from launching a functional 20km balloon. He said that, given that the trials prove that this kind of geo-engineering is possible, "just because we can do it doesn't mean we have the right to".
'Stimulate Public Debate'

The method of injecting aerosols is just one of many potential geo-engineering techniques that have been proposed as a way of countering global warming.

But the SPICE team point out that this kind of intervention will not change the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere; just reduce the warming caused by the greenhouse gases.

They predict that 10 or 20 giant balloons at 20km altitude could release enough particles into the atmosphere to reduce the global temperature by around 2 degrees.

This temperature decrease would not be uniform across the globe; equatorial regions would see a more pronounced temperature drop, while the poles would be relatively unaffected.

Reasons for this regional variation are still not fully understood, and the difficulties in predicting the reaction of the climate to geo-engineering have bred concerns for some.

Public forums carried out by Cardiff University and the Natural Environment Research Council (Nerc) have highlighted that very few people were unconditionally positive about the concept of artificially engineering Earth's climate.

The SPICE project, in particular, has prompted climate pressure group ETC to write an open letter to the UK government, requesting them to halt this latest field test.

"There has been no decision to go forward with 'solar radiation management' and therefore there is no need to test the hardware designed to implement it." said Pat Mooney, executive director of ETC Group.

Dr Matt Watson said however, that "a belief in research does not mean advocacy", and that he hopes the research carried out as part of the three-year SPICE project will "constrain the uncertainty surrounding the methods, and stimulate public debate".

Hosepipe And Balloon: Think Of It As A Volcano
Nina Chestney PlanetArk 14 Sep 11;

There will be an unexpected sight high in the skies over the British county of Norfolk next month: a huge balloon attached to the ground by a giant hosepipe.

It isn't obvious, but it is the first small step in an experiment which aims to re-create the cooling effect of erupting volcanoes on the earth's atmosphere.

Scientists and engineers from the universities of Bristol, Cambridge and Oxford are behind the three-year 1.6 million pound

($2.5 million) project called Stratospheric Particle Injection for Climate Engineering (SPICE).

The scheme will assess the feasibility of so-called solar radiation management (SRM) by mimicking volcanoes when they erupt. Eruptions can both warm and cool the Earth's climate, depending on how sunlight interacts with volcanic material.

SRM works on the assumption that some eruptions expel particles into the upper atmosphere, bouncing some of the sun's energy back into space and thereby cooling the earth.

"In 1991, a large eruption at Mount Pinatubo injected around 18 million tonnes of SO2 (sulphur oxide) to a 30-km altitude," project leader Matt Watson told reporters.

"That had the effect of cooling the global climate by around half a degree over two years."

KILOMETRES OF HOSEPIPE

Next month's experiment, to be held at a disused airfield in Sculthorpe in north Norfolk, will pump water through a 1-km hosepipe into an air balloon to test the engineering design and the effects of wind.

If there are no hiccups, the team aims to do more 1-km tests next year. It will also work on calculating and designing a potential full-scale balloon project, which would pump sulphates and aerosol particles instead of water.

That would require a 20-km pipe strong enough to pump sulphates to a balloon the size of Wembley football stadium -- at twice the height of a commercial aircraft flight.

However, the size of the balloon and strength of the pipe required are serious engineering challenges.

"Even manufacturing a hose 1 km in length is a challenge, but we are talking about a hose stronger than any built before," said Chris Walton, SPICE project trials advisor.

Some countries are exploring geo-engineering solutions as a way to control climate change by cutting the amount of sunlight hitting the earth or by capturing greenhouse gases.

Potential schemes include using artificial trees to soak up carbon dioxide, using mirrors in space to cut the amount of sunlight reaching the earth or capturing CO2 from power stations and burying it under ground.

Supporters say such solutions could be a relatively fast way to control the climate if there was an abrupt change, such as the sudden loss of Arctic ice.

Detractors say the impact of mimicking or manipulating nature on a large scale is not yet fully known and such projects might deflect resources and attention from proven technologies.

Most of these solutions are still far from being established at large scale.

"With strong government support and in an emergency situation...the fastest we could deploy this system is two decades," Watson told Reuters, adding that a minimum 10 to 20 balloons globally would be needed to reduce atmospheric temperature by 2 degrees.

U.K. Researchers to Test "Artificial Volcano" for Geoengineering the Climate
An experiment starting next month in the U.K. will pump water one kilometer into the air to test a new climate-cooling method that eventually could deliver sunlight-reflective sulfate particles into the stratosphere
Sarah Fecht Scientific American 14 Sep 11;

Next month, researchers in the U.K. will start to pump water nearly a kilometer up into the atmosphere, by way of a suspended hose.

The experiment is the first major test of a piping system that could one day spew sulfate particles into the stratosphere at an altitude of 20 kilometers, supported by a stadium-size hydrogen balloon. The goal is geoengineering, or the "deliberate, large-scale manipulation of the planetary environment" in the words of the Royal Society of London, which provides scientific advice to policymakers. In this case, researchers are attempting to re-create the effects of volcanic eruptions to artificially cool Earth.

The $30,000 test, part of a project called Stratospheric Particle Injection for Climate Engineering (SPICE), is inspired by the 1991 eruption of Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines. That volcano spewed 20 million tons of sulfate particles into the atmosphere, cooling Earth by 0.5 degree Celsius for 18 months. If the British feasibility tests are successful, the balloon-and-hose contraption could be used to inject additional particles into the stratosphere, thereby reflecting more of the sun's energy back into space, and hopefully curbing some of the effects of global warming.

"This is one of the first times that people have taken geoengineering out of the lab and into the field," lead scientist Matthew Watson said Tuesday during a press conference in London. "We are still decades away—and I do mean decades—from doing real geoengineering." Watson said his team still needs to determine which substances would work best at reflecting light, how much is needed to have an effect, and the possible unintended consequences of injecting the particles into the atmosphere, such as acid rain, ozone depletion or weather pattern disruption.

October's tests will mainly focus on whether the balloon-and-hose design could be an effective method to deliver the sunlight-reflecting particles. At an airfield in Norfolk, England, that is no longer in use, a helium blimp will hoist a regular pressure-washer hose one kilometer off the ground. An off-the-shelf pressure washer will pump up 1.8 liters of tap water per minute, to a maximum of 190 liters, says Hunt, which will evaporate or fall down to the ground locally. The researchers will monitor the performance of the system, and use the data to design the larger 20-kilometer-high setup.

In the past scientists have proposed similar atmospheric delivery methods using guns, airplanes, rockets and chimneys. In 2009 Russian scientists even tested airplane delivery on a small scale. But Hugh Hunt, a SPICE engineer at the University of Cambridge, said the balloon-and-hose design appears to be the most cost-effective option. Even when scaled up, the team expects the simple design to cost around $5 billion, in comparison with the $100 billion needed to launch thousands of high-altitude aircraft.

The water tests are expected to be harmless, but several environmental groups have criticized the plan—and geoengineering in general. Last year, the United Nation's Convention on Biological Diversity issued a statement forbidding geoengineering research that may impact biodiversity. The U.K. accepted that statement, but the SPICE experiment does not violate any international agreements due to its small scale, says Jason Blackstock, a physicist at Canada's Center for International Governance Innovation.

Nevertheless, the Canada-based Action Group on Erosion, Technology and Concentration (ETC) is calling the tests internationally irresponsible. In a written statement, they called on the British government to shut down the project, adding: "This experiment is only phase one of a much bigger plan that could have devastating consequences, including large changes in weather patterns such as deadly droughts."

Alan Robock, a Rutgers University meteorologist, shares some of those concerns. He has created computer simulations indicating that sulfate clouds could potentially weaken the Asian and African summer monsoons, reducing rain that irrigates the food crops of billions of people. It is premature to conduct such field experiments, Robock says. More computer modeling should be done first, he adds, to determine how injected particles might interact with the ozone layer and the hydrologic cycle.

Whereas Hunt agrees that such research is lacking, he said that the team needs real measurements in order to see if the tethered balloon design is viable. "If not now, then when would you start?" he asks. "This year, next year? Or maybe wait until a large block of ice falls off of Greenland? My choice is to have all the tools carefully thought through, so that we don't have to rush into anything."

To avoid dangerous climate change, some scientists estimate that global CO2 emissions must be cut by at least 80 percent by the end of the century. Geoengineering will not help achieve that long-term target, but the cooling effects of large sulfate clouds are nearly instantaneous, making geoengineering potentially valuable in the event of acute climate crises such as the melting of Arctic sea ice, which could further accelerate global warming over the decades.

The researchers made it clear in Tuesday's press conference that they do not advocate using geoengineering as an excuse for humanity to continue recklessly emitting carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. "[Geoengineering] should be considered as an emergency remediation while we wean ourselves off carbon," Watson said. "The question you have to ask is, is it worse without mitigation or with it? And that answer isn't obvious yet."