I thought I'd try this for the blog, courtesy of wordle - not sure what to make of it really.

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.

Another mention of SPICE in the media...

http://www.marklynas.org/2011/06/geoengineering-why-all-the-fuss/#more-545

An interesting take on things, although I think the 'hush-hush' thing is nonsense. Interesting that, in the same paragraph, it was linked to a popular website? How can that be hush-hush?

Ecotopia - a new moral hazard?

Although I fully accept that the moral hazards is alive and well, and it is vital we worry about (and prevent) any action undermining efforts to reduce carbon use, the argument used against geoengineering that relies on casting the Earth as some sort of precious, pristine system to be ruined by 'mad scientists' is a fallacy. Precious it is, pristine it ain't.

More than that however, is that this idea leads us towards the moral hazard. If the Earth in 2011 is so in danger of being ruined by geoengineering, why change the status quo?  Where's the need for environmental change if Ecotopia is where we are now?

I do genuinely sympathise with the deep greens, it must be odd drifting towards being allies with the climate sceptics.

Newsnight (16/06/2011)

As with the Guardian article, I felt that the report (from Susan Watts) was pretty even handed and accurate. Both Ken Caldiera (on IPCC steering group, advocate into research (at least)) and Doug Parr (Chief Scientist, Greenpeace, sceptic) came across very well and rationally, despite having very different views. 

Stagegate review

I'll most likely do this in several stages, as it was a long, exhaustive and exhausting process. The short answer is that the stagegate was passed, pending some further effort to (1) broaden and map out our stakeholder engagement, (2) adapt and improve our plans to communicate the efforts of the project, particularly to facilitate a transition from a dispersive to interactive (two way) process and (3) further (and more completely) investigate the broader contexts of our research.

Overall, my feelings, shared by others were that...

i. I was happy that the extraordinary amount of effort from the stagegate team was acknowledged and commended 

ii. It was felt that the process was very fair. I felt, personally, that the panel were very even handed and, although it was a very rigorous examination, it was done politely and kindly.

iii. We've got more to do and we are going to need help, maybe we should have asked for it earlier...?

The first rule of geonegineering...

is do not talk about geoengineering

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/jun/15/geo-engineering-climate-consideration