A period of reflection

I've been doing a lot of thinking about geoengineering, not all of it completely coherent, over the last month. Some of this was prompted by an interesting article published in GRL, looking at the impacts of tropical volcanism on climate...

Vernier, J.-P., et al. (2011), Major influence of tropical volcanic eruptions on the stratospheric aerosol layer during the last decade, Geophys. Res. Lett., 38, L12807, doi:10.1029/2011GL047563.

This is exceptionally relevant for SPICE, particularly the modellers, as it is an observation of the aerosols being transported by Brewer-Dobson circulation. The bottom line of the article is that the recent increase in stratospheric aerosol loadings, otherwise postulated to be sourced from industry in SE Asia, is in at least part in due to the eruptions of Soufriere Hills, Manan and Reventador.

Global events too play on my mind. Events in Norway strongly underscore the fact that extremism, in any form, is abhorrent.