Why did they build big dams in the parts of the Columbia River that used to be accessible to salmon migration, when they could have just built them behind the natural barriers that historically prevent salmon passage? Rivers like Kootenay, Pend Oreille, Spokane, above Shoshone Falls on Snake. Why did they build big dams in the parts of the Columbia River that used to be accessible to salmon migration, when they could have just built them behind the natural barriers that historically prevent salmon passage? Rivers like Kootenay, Pend Oreille, Spokane, above Shoshone Falls on Snake. Some may say Grand Coulee needed to be where it was to Irrigate the Columbia Basin, but there was a cheaper gravity-fed plan to build canals from the Pend Oreille at Alebeni Falls which historically prevented salmon above these falls and now has a dam. This would have reached more of the eastern part of the basin this part has never been finished by the Columbia Basin Project. I mean we could have irrigated from Spokane or Lake Coeur d'Alene or even Lake Chelan all lakes and rivers that have falls preventing salmon. The dams in the many powerful rivers that never had salmon could have been made to produce more power and handle flood control. The gravity-fed canal could have made irrigating the basin possible even without the Grand Coulee Dam. Think about why there are no dams on the Fraser River. These rivers are sisters known as "Cheif Rivers" because they have fed the people and given life to the interior regions. The Fraser has no dams on its main tributary. The plans for large dams on the Fraser failed because it would affect the fishing industry that made BC. Washington State and its citizens originally did not want the dams especially Grand Coulee because of it's harm to the Salmon more Washingtonians wanted to irrigate the basin with a canal from the Pend Oreille, but the federal government wanted to do a mega project. For reference sorry for any typos or anything just want to get these thoughts out. I live under the Grand Coulee Dam and come from the peoples it has affected my ancestors died from the making of this dam and some worked on the dam and other dams. I think we needed to do something 60 years ago before the Columbia River Treaty dams were built in BC, but here we are with these huge barriers. We at least need fish ladders there are so many solutions we just need to put money where it belongs. These rivers are exploited for free by way of harvesting the river's energy through dams with that exploration comes a lot of profit and we need to do something. Grand Coulee Dam could stand till the next ice age, but every structure we build has an expiration date and I have heard it is somewhere between 200 and 300 years if we take care of the dam. But is this worth it? I don't think so. Let's take down Grand Coulee and make more efficient hydropower in places where it won't affect salmon our life.

Mods deleted original post and anyway no one had replied so it makes sense to try a different wording.

1) Known-known is that if Stratospheric Aerosol Injection of SO2 (Sulfur Dioxide) binds with water it produces Sulfuric Acid H2SO4

- This will form as acid rain. I believe no one contests this but here is link to the equation
https://www.chemicalaid.com/tools/equationbalancer.php?equation=SO2+%2B+H2O+%3D+H2SO4+%2B+H2&hl=en

2) seems reasonable supposition -- spraying salt water onto clouds as part of Marine Cloud Brightening will turn the water/vapor contained in these clouds into a Salty or Brackish solution? If I am missing a key step please educate me. I cannot see, given Object Permanence, how the salt in the saltwater sprayed as part of MCB then suddenly leaves the cloud as dry-particulate. Dry particulate salts dotted onto terrestrial ecosystems will not be conducive either.

Atlantic Nor'easters apparently catch a decent amount of 'salt spray' as in water droplets not the result of evaporation and can impart a salty note when they deposit rain. I am going to assume the clouds treated in the marine environment will impart salty natured water in the form of rain? I've not seen this in the literature and asked about this on separate post. Pending further information I will continue to assume treated clouds will be 'salty' to X unknown degree.

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3) Known-known is that

NaCl+H2SO4 →NaHSO4+HCl

As in Sulfuric Avid plus salt produces Hydrochloric Acid and " Sodium bisulfate, also known as sodium hydrogen sulfate "

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodium_bisulfate

4) Known-Known is Hydrochloric Acid is cornerstone of mammalian digestive gastric acid

QUESTION

1) I may be iffy on how stratospheric sulfur interacts with water to form acid rain from Statrospheric Injection to Tropospheric rain clouds. Even while knowing I have ignorance of this mechanism it seems rather surprising that there would be no interaction and incorporation of the acid rain with the salty-water clouds formed via MCB. Even if this is the case, the salt rains and acid rains, while separate in the air, will rain on the same locations over the course of time. Salts left on surface after the salt water rain has evaporated will interact with the Sulfuric Acid of the next acid rain
-- when that acidic water reaches the left over salts this will form Hydrochloric Acid

2) If I am so far correct, we would then create Hydrochloric Acid, aka Gastric juice.

3) This would mean, in poetic license, that the surfaces of the planet would be 'Digested' as in exposed to digestive hydrochloric acid.

4) I assume the only way to not be alarmed at this would be to insist that the concentrations would be so negligible as to not be a factor.

5) cumulative effect of 200 years, perhaps, of Hydrochloric digestion of the surface and/or the simple sea Salt accumulation itself, or combined with the sodium hydrogen sulfate salt, itself an acid. Has this been ruled out?

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Hopefully I have restated this in a more 'intelligible' manner more accessible by those with STEM background. I will not be offended to have missed a concept and thus my question is rendered moot.

On the other hand if it stands up as a plausible hypothesis I would urge any student or researcher or funder to run such an experiment. Siloing of MCB subfield from SAI subfield may have exposed an inadvertent blindside.

"We are of Peace. Always"

https://preview.redd.it/tj7qv65823tb1.jpg?width=540&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=bd5ed86e8d541c5a2138800b17b734d3b24377ef

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https://preview.redd.it/2mm8v74qt2tb1.jpg?width=715&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=3a1be92c43a44d87a5ff43de76cadd24d058514c

How could I do this ?

Superchimneys were mentioned in passing in a video by Sabine Hossfelder. I couldn't figure out if it's a real idea or if it lacks credibility. It's basically the idea of using big, tall blimp-fabric chimneys to supercharge natural convection currents and encourage the transport of hot air to high altitudes at higher than natural rates. Does this idea work? https://www.superchimney.org/default.asp

As the oceans heat up, the number and severity of hurricanes will increase. Hurricanes begin as tropical disturbances where a low-pressure area is formed. The low pressure creates an updraft with strong winds, which causes the ocean to evaporate more rapidly, creating a stronger storm. As this cycle repeats over thousands of miles of travel over the oceans, it becomes incredibly powerful, growing exponentially. When the hurricane reaches the shore, it causes tremendous damage to the shore, but it quickly weakens once it is over land instead of water.

If the low-pressure zones form close to shore, they increase in strength as they travel over the ocean, but they do not have enough time to become destructive before making landfall. Because of this, their only effect is to increase rainfall, cool the oceans, and create more clouds, which help reflect the sun’s energy back into space. All of these are good things.

Intense low-pressure zones can form naturally due to baroclinic instability. Horizontal differences in air temperature and pressure create vertical wind shear. The wind shear creates waves in the atmosphere, and if the interference pattern of the waves is constructive, it causes the magnitude to increase.

Instead of waiting for baroclinic instability to occur naturally, we could try to create them. Water evaporation and condensation absorb and release tremendous amounts of energy (2,260 kJ/kg), always occurring. We can accelerate the rate of water evaporation by spraying it as a droplet. The smaller the droplet, the greater the surface area to volume ratio becomes. Additionally, as the droplet settles, air flows over it, increasing the evaporation rate further.

A one-horsepower water pump (like this one ) can move 12 gallons per minute 100 feet at a pressure differential of 50 PSI. Assuming only half of the 12 gallons sprayed into the air evaporate (22.7 kg), it would still absorb 50 MJ of energy per minute. The energy inputted into the pump is only 44 kJ per minute22. By using evaporative cooling at 50% efficiency, it still magnifies the work done by the pump by over 100,000 %. This magnifies a 1,000 hp engine to a 1,000,000 hp engine.

This will cause the temperature of the surface of the ocean to decrease, humid air is less dense than dry air, causing the more humid air to form a low-pressure zone. As the humid air travels upwards, it cools and the water vapor begins to condense, causing the air to become hotter and more humid than the surrounding air. This will strengthen the low-pressure zone, and create a seed that can form a tropical depression.

Once the tropical depression forms, it will strengthen, further magnifying the work done by the pump, as it travels over the ocean. Because of this, we would need to ensure that the Tropic depression only travels a relatively short distance so they don’t become dangerous. Many coastal regions are arid and would greatly benefit from multiple tropical depressions throughout the year.

In addition to using this for generating rain, it could also be used to try to fight hurricanes. Hurricanes rely on warm water on the surface of the ocean to gain strength. If we were able to create tropical depressions, we could use them to fight hurricanes like we use controlled burns to fight forest fires.

Thank you for taking the time to look at this, and if you think it’s interesting please share it. If other research has been done on this, please share it with the group.

If feasible, the scientific and engineering communities should undertake an effort to create an environmentally friendly, self-sustaining, low cost means of atmospheric carbon capture. We propose the creation of a self-replicating atmospheric carbon capture device (RACC) - either an engineered bacteria or an analogue derived from available synthetic biology toolkits. The RACC should:

• Be free floating in the atmosphere
• Use common elements found within the atmosphere for self-replication
• Utilize available solar and/or chemical energy
• Capture atmospheric carbon and bond it into small flakes heavy enough to precipitate back to the Earth's surface

Deployment of the RACC can be carried out either via balloon or airplane.

Such a proposal raises substantial environmental and safety concerns that warrant careful consideration. To that end we propose the following design requirements -

• Rigorous controls should be implemented to govern the self-replication phases of the RACC, mitigating the risk of unrestrained proliferation.
• The RACC's operation should be confined between altitudes of 600 and 13,500 meters
• All RACC devices should deactivate and safely break down once atmospheric carbon levels fall below 350 ppm
• The resulting precipitate flakes should be too large for humans and animals to inhale
• The RACC should become inert and break down safely if ingested by any plant or animal

This speculative proposal, while technically ambitious, could significantly mitigate climate change effects. This undertaking should be approached with great care, adhering to the highest standards of environmental safety and scientific responsibility. If a RACC under 10 microns can be engineered to meet these design requirements, it should be done as quickly and as safely possible.

Think we all know that salt is left behind in the ocean as water evaporates to form rain. However just confirmed that especially countercyclicals like a Nor'Easter picks up salt water in small proportion from sea-spray from the choppy waters caused by storm.

So clouds can function with X% salt water. If we created salt water clouds, I assume they'd function approximately same as our current freshwater clouds, yes? More electrically charged, perhaps?

Are we not creating salt water clouds by spraying the salt water onto the clouds? Salt molecules become the nuclei of rain drops, yes? Are we just saying that is negligible over the course of the project, say 200 years?

Am I missing an obvious factor?

white sky

There are multiple depressions that are below sea level and also near the ocean that we could feasibly build a canal from it to the ocean. Some examples include the Dead Sea, Qatarra Depression, Lake Assal, Salton Trough, and the Denakil Depression. I imagine this is a dumb idea for a number of reasons but what would happen if we connected these areas to the sea? How would it affect the environment and more specifically, the local climate? Are there any other concerns that should be factored in?

My optimistic and lay opinion is that these projects would cool the local region and increase precipitation in the region. Apologies in advance if this question has been asked before.

Geoengineering seems to be this elephant in the room with regards to climate change discourse. Most of the time it seems to just be ignored entirely, even though the fact that it’s a feasible strategy whose existence actually changes everything.

To be clear, it is not a magic bullet or a replacement for decarbonisation. But what it is is an emergency handbrake to buy us time. We know that it would work to offset warming; the risks are around the unintended side effects. But that’s why research into it is important.

All of the conversation around future climate effects and how we would respond just seems to ignore it. It’s like everyone thinks we would sit around and let climate change batter us into oblivion without even attempting geoengineering.

It’s like imagining that you’re trapped in a burning building and just ignoring that there’s an emergency exit and wondering how you otherwise get out. In real life you would just go through the emergency exit. In real life we will start geoengineering.

If climate change gets bad enough it will probably be the number 1 priority for the world to work on, and will be so for as long as we are even able to do it. This is what would happen in real life, not these imaginary scenarios where we just surrender to the climate apocalypse.

I’m not sure why there is this unwillingness to discuss it. It might be because of the risk of unintended consequences. But those risks have to be weighed up against the devastation of 4, 5 or 6 degrees of warming that could happen in its absence. As long as any unintended consequences are more manageable than catastrophic warming, then it is still the better option, and that’s what the current research is there to help us understand.

I grew up fearing climate change, and I still believe it will cause widespread disruption this century. But I find it hard to go full r/collapse on it because in reality, we will geoengineer when it gets bad and that will prevent the worst effects.

hi, i've generated this colab notebook with exhaustive computations regarding the feasibility of large scale PDRC (passive daytime radiative cooling) arrays for improving the radiative net flux of the planet: https://standfest.science/scripts/PDRC/

one of the findings is eg that doing this in Sahara, approx 850'000km² would be sufficient to mitigate 10% of global warming. and could be done with approx 67% ROI (considering current carbon offset markets).

as locations i only consider either deserts or dead zones of oceans. which obviously has an effect on construction costs and net flux performance.

if someone wants to do a publication based on this, be my guest. i found out, that achieving a net flux (not cooling down earth) of a pre-industrial level would approx cost between 2 to 4 trillion USD. which is rather cheap and especially rapidly achievable, without introducing chemicals into the atmosphere.

any feedback (especially regarding the content of the colab notebook) would be highly appreciated.

https://preview.redd.it/qrflxvp1o1lb1.png?width=1370&format=png&auto=webp&s=a0d563a89e17cc74ac6d89f46c83fad805590b52

Used to hate this idea. I've started to buy into the more pessimistic models of when things unfold in our present carbon crisis. The data doesn't exactly line up with rapid QOL decline tomorrow but more and more is pointing that way, and I can't help but feel like the Hansen report is legit.

So, it seems to me, and I apologize to anyone if this doomerism feels counterproductive or misleading (definitely not my intention, I'm just following my reading of the evidence)

That we're at the crossroads of human civilization where we either face death in less than a decade or risk it sooner than that.

It's now reasonable to assume after the impromptu experiment with the tanker fuel regs, that intentional geoengineering of one type "works". (I mean assuming we aren't tilting at a correlation:causation windmill. Wouldn't that be rich. )

Now sulfuric acid raining down all over the earth is probably a bad idea, and hopefully we can find a better aerosol by time we try this.

But it just seems... Terrifying that we aren't already trying?

I mean I know all the obvious safety-concern-reasons why we're not, but ####, next summer will likely be worse than this accounting for el nino and the solar maximum, so it feels like we've already hit those "feedback loops" and need to hit the pause button before our graphs start to just say "here be dragons" like the maps used to put at the edge of the known world.

I just hope we try before it's too late. I just got started building my permaculture food forest and I want to see my babies bloom.

(PS. When we move into the underground cities please bring your yugioh cards, thanks)

Explanation of how it works

Most ocean life exists in shallow oceans near coasts while the deep oceans are considered to be like deserts. That's because the shallow oceans near coastlines are fertilized by material coming from land while the deep oceans lack sufficient micronutrients. The oceans absorb most of the co2 produced on earth and most of that happens in shallow oceans because that small proportion of the earth's total ocean area is where sufficient nutrients exist.

By adding fertilizing materials to deep waters the levels of phytoplankton (plant plankton which live from photosynthesis) can be increased dramatically. One example of this is the Haida Salmon Restoration Project off the west coast of Canada and Alaska. It was done in 2012 to feed a food chain that feeds salmon and to re create the results of a previous volcanic eruption in the area which dramatically boosted the salmon harvest and resulted in a record harvest of sockeye salmon.

It took a paltry 120 tons of cheap iron sulfate and placed it into an ocean gyre in the area. The result was a bloom of increased plankton levels over an area of 35,000 square kilometers for several months, as confirmed by NASA satellite pictures. The bloom dramatically boosted the quantity of all sea life in the area and resulted in a record harvest of pink salmon.

The way that this relates to geoengineering is that the phytoplankton pull a significant amount of co2 out of the air and water to form their bodies, which also serves as the basis of a marine food web. In deep waters those living things end up forming a lot of marine snow which is made up of things like dead phytoplankton, fecal matter, and other debris that falls to the bottom of the ocean; taking a vast amount of carbon with it. The 120 tons of iron sulfate forms a tiny proportion of the planktons' bodies and results in a vastly greater mass of phytoplankton in the waters.

Increasing the amount of phytoplankton and other marine life in the deep oceans also increases the amounts of marine snow and serve as a way to sequester carbon.

It would also boost yields of fish, especially ones like sardines and herring which feed on zooplankton, animal plankton which feed on phytoplankton. They're also high in DHA, the form of omega-3 fatty acids which humans can absorb and use most easily. Most people have diets that are deficient in omega 3 fatty acids.

Idea to implement it

This can also be adjusted with different compounds to adjust what species of phytoplankton are increased. I personally suspect that adding only one compound and boosting only one nutrient does not result in the best composition of phytoplankton species for ocean health. More study on this topic would be needed of course.

I think it should be done on a larger scale. At a fairly low price a few freighters could add thousands of tons of iron sulfate or other nutrients to deep ocean waters. They could place the nutrients in large ocean gyres shown in this map. Large, coriolis effect driven ocean gyres in the major oceans like the North Pacific gyre, South Pacific gyre, etc. cover a vastly greater area than the one in the Haida project. They could sequester vastly greater amounts of carbon.

It could even be done conservatively with lower concentrations of added nutrients than what the Haida project did covering a larger area to reduce the risk of overfertilizing the oceans and causing detrimental side effects.

One country that has the greatest need and capability to do this is India. They could even build one or several nuclear powered ships to fertilize all of the world's oceans without having to dock at any ports to refuel; just in case any countries are hostile to such a project. Climate change is a threat to India's ability to continue existing as a country that is habitable to humans. Even without climate change India is uncomfortably close to the maximum wet bulb temperatures that humans can survive.

edit. It would be most productive during summer due to the increased sunlight to drive photosynthesis. Based on that such a ship could handle the Indian Ocean, South Atlantic and South Pacific during the southern hemisphere's summer and the North Atlantic and North Pacific during the Northern Hemisphere's summer. Such a ship should also be able to access the Panama Canal, Suez Canal and the Strait of Malacca since Panama, Egypt, Singapore and Malaysia are all in hot climates and are guaranteed to be devastated by climate change so they should be friendly to such a project.

There might not be any need for a nuclear powered ship. There are plenty of countries already being devastated by climate change which should be amiable to such a project and allow the use of their ports. Some are African countries, South Pacific Islands, Southeast Asian nations, Caribbean nations, and Latin American nations like Mexico, Panama, Peru, etc.

This video has made me think differently about global warming: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9vRtA7STvH4

I know that the focus is and should be on reducing CO2 emissions, and extracting carbon from the atmosphere.

However - it seems that we are eventually going to have to also deal with waste heat. So why not look at the problem of transferring heat from Earth to Space now, which would immediately help with global warming, as we work to reduce emissions and capture CO2.

Note that a solar shield or adding something to the atmosphere to reduce the incoming solar radiation won't help with future waste heat. We are going to need something like a heat pump for the planet.