Fixing the Sky (46 page)

The following year, Fletcher issued a report on “managing climatic resources” in which he came to the “inescapable conclusion” that due to rising population, greater vulnerabilities, and the irreversible damage being done to the climate system, “purposeful management of global climatic resources and control of the planet's climate would eventually become necessary to prevent undesirable changes.”
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Citing a recent upsurge of research in weather modification and climate control, he thought that humanity had reached a technological threshold at which it was already “within man's engineering capacity” to influence the global system by altering patterns of thermal forcing. He considered it feasible to carry out climate-influencing schemes such as creating large inland seas, deflecting ocean currents, seeding clouds extensively, and (the reverse of today's sentiment) even removing the Arctic pack ice. Then, as now, he left unresolved the huge and complex economic, sociological, legal, and political problems that such intervention would generate.

Fletcher stated, in no uncertain terms, that “an increase in CO
₂
causes global warming” (2). Referring to the work of Guy Stewart Callendar and Gilbert Plass, who attributed the warming of the previous century of approximately 0.5°C (0.9°F) to this cause, he warned that a future warming of three times this amount or even more could be possible by the year 2000 (this did not happen) and could bring about “important changes of global climate during the next few decades” (this might yet happen) (3). Another, longer-term problem that he highlighted, echoing Budyko, was that heat pollution from energy generation could grow to rival the energy provided by the Sun. Still, Fletcher hedged his bets by pointing to the strong negative feedback of increased low-level cloudiness; the assumed enormous capacity of colder ocean water to absorb carbon dioxide; the 30 percent increase in turbidity, or “global dimming,” due to air pollution and aircraft condensation trails; and the overall complexity of the climate system, which renders specific cause-and-effect estimates very uncertain.

After reviewing the complex patterns of past climate change and the workings of the global climate “machine,” Fletcher concluded that the most important outstanding problem was developing a quantitative understanding of the general circulation, especially oceanic heat transport and ocean–atmosphere heat exchange. (Note that computer modeling was still in its infancy in 1969 and the El Niño–Southern Oscillation [ENSO] had not yet been identified, although aspects of the El Niño–La Niña system were known.) Fletcher also discussed feedbacks that acted as “triggers” of climate change and provided the example of
the dramatic warming of the Arctic, identified and measured by 1940, which, had it continued, could have resulted in “a new and stable climatic regime” in which the Arctic Ocean became ice-free.

From climate “triggers,” Fletcher moved on to a discussion of the possibilities of deliberately influencing climate. Here he followed the theoretical lead of Russian scientist M. I. Yudin, who sought to identify critical “instability points” for intervening in the development of cyclones, by changing either their winds or steering currents or their heat budget.
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Using back-of-the-envelope calculations that have become de rigueur among geoengineers, Fletcher estimated that it would take only sixty C-5 aircraft to conduct cloud-seeding operations over the entire Arctic Basin and to exert “enormous thermal leverage” by creating or dissipating clouds, influencing the reflectivity of the Arctic pack ice with soot or carbon black, or even changing the course of ocean currents with macro-engineering projects.

Fletcher again presented his four-stage model of what he called “progress toward climate control”: “We must observe how nature behaves before we can understand why, we must understand before we can predict, and we must be able to predict the outcome before we undertake measures for control.”
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He warned, however, that while modern technology was already capable of influencing the global climate system or “heat engine” by altering patterns of thermal forcing, the consequences of such acts could not be adequately predicted. The situation was pretty much the same then as it is now. Geoengineers tend to argue linearly, in a mythical orderly series from science, to engineering, to a public discussion with other “citizens,” who can then be educated on the wonders of science and the possibilities of engineering. Prefiguring later optimism, Fletcher thought that an improved observational system, combining ground stations and satellite surveillance, paleoclimatic reconstructions, much faster computers, and better models, would resolve the problems and allow simulations to be performed in enough detail “to evaluate the consequences of specific climate modification acts.” He estimated that this capability would be available by 1973, but close to four decades later it is still a desideratum (for some).

Having spent most of his time on technical speculations, Fletcher turned briefly to what he called “international cooperation” for the management of global climatic resources, basing his comments on his assumption that purposeful climate modification deserved the attention of scientific and government leaders. Repeating the opening lines of Wexler's lecture (could Fletcher have been in the audience in 1962?), he invoked John F. Kennedy's statement to the United Nations regarding “further co-operative efforts between all nations in weather prediction and eventually in weather control” (21). Fletcher also cited a joint congressional resolution of April 1, 1968, to the effect that the United
States would be a full participant in the World Weather Watch, which certainly involved observation and prediction, if not understanding and control, and would take steps to support “the theoretical study and evaluation of inadvertent climate modification and the feasibility of intentional climate modification” (22). While the W W W is still functioning and there have been numerous integrated assessments of climate change, recall that even as Fletcher was writing this piece, Project Popeye and Operation Motorpool were under way in the jungles of Southeast Asia, giving a black eye to schemes for the intentional modification of the environment.

Budyko included a section on climate modification in his book
Climatic Changes
(1974). Noting how difficult it had been to control urban air pollution, he predicted that it would be even more difficult to prevent an increase in the carbon dioxide content of the atmosphere and a growth in waste heat release. Agreeing with Fletcher, he concluded that “in the near future climate modification will become necessary in order to maintain current climatic conditions.”
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Budyko was quite skeptical of plans to remove the polar ice, rehydrate Africa, or redirect ocean currents, commenting that it remained “quite unclear how they may influence climate” (239). He was more favorable, however, toward the possibility of triggering instabilities in large-scale atmospheric flows.

Budyko's preferred technique—one discussed by the National Academy of Sciences in 1992 and still under discussion—involved increasing the aerosol content of the lower stratosphere using aircraft or rocket delivery systems. In a back-of-the-envelope calculation, he estimated that a 2 percent reduction in direct solar radiation and a 0.3 percent decrease in total radiation were needed to cool the Earth by several degrees. This could be accomplished by generating an artificial cloud of 600,000 tons of sulfuric acid, the result, under favorable circumstances and assumptions, of burning some 100,000 tons of sulfur per year. Budyko considered this to be a “negligible” quantity compared with other anthropogenic and natural sources. He wrote that “such amounts [of sulfur] are not at all important in environmental pollution” (240), with the important exceptions of the unfavorable effects of such injections on the ozone layer and on agricultural activity, which required further study. Budyko was aware that current simplified theories were inadequate to specify all the possible changes in weather conditions resulting from modifications of the aerosol layer of the stratosphere. Obviously, he believed then, and it holds true today, that deliberate climate modification would be premature before the consequences could be calculated with confidence.

In 1974 William Kellogg and Stephen Schneider published an article in
Science
titled “Climate Stabilization: For Better or Worse?” One of their major
concerns was food and water shortages ravaging Africa and whether climatologists could do anything to alleviate this situation while simultaneously cooling the planet. Noting that human activities were increasingly pushing on certain “leverage points” that control the heat balance of the system, they admitted that, as yet, there was no comprehensive theory that could explain—much less predict—temperature trends or rainfall patterns. They drove this point home by listing as a “cause” of climate change the behavior of the climate system as described by Edward Lorenz: “An interactive system as complex as the oceans and atmosphere can have long-period self-fluctuations, even with fixed external inputs.”
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According to Lorenz, chaotically forced internal fluctuations with timescales longer than the thirty- to forty-year interval used to define a climatological average might easily be misinterpreted or confused with climatic changes forced by external variations. This fundamental property of complex systems has vexed those seeking to attribute climate change to any one factor.
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Nevertheless, imagining a future in which climate changes could be forecast, Kellogg and Schneider laid out three basic (but not morally equivalent) options: (1) do nothing, (2) alter our patterns of land and sea use in order to lessen the impact of climate change, or (3) anticipate climate change and implement schemes to control it. As they noted, the third option would be extremely contentious and would inevitably generate conflict, for the atmosphere is a highly complex and interactive resource common to all nations. The second option is related to the “middle path.”

What if one nation developed the skills to predict climate? This would dramatically change international economic market strategies and might lead to pressure for climate control. What if, after purposeful manipulation, climatic cause-and-effect linkages could be traced? Accusations would abound, and nations might use perceived damages as an excuse for hostility. Given the immense costs of miscalculation (or perception of miscalculation), who then would decide and who would implement climate modification and control schemes? Kellogg and Schneider noted with some irony, but prophetically, “We have the impression that more schemes will be proposed for climate control than for control of the climate controllers.”
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They ended their article by calling for interdisciplinary studies of climate change and its consequences for society. These sorts of studies have subsequently been pursued by the IPCC, but so far with little attention given to geoengineering fantasies.

In 1977 Cesare Marchetti used the term “geoengineering” to refer to the capture and injection of carbon dioxide into the ocean in down-welling currents.
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He identified the Mediterranean undercurrent at Gibraltar as a likely candidate, with the capacity to sequester all the carbon dioxide emissions of Europe. Today,
geoengineers discuss carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) and solar radiation management techniques at their meetings. Also in 1977, the National Academy of Sciences looked at a variety of ideas to reduce global warming, should it ever become dangerous, and concluded that investing in renewable energy was more practical than climate engineering.
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That same year, Freeman Dyson estimated the scale and cost of an emergency program to plant fast-growing trees to control the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere from fossil fuel burning. He later suggested transporting and dispersing sulfates into the stratosphere using smokestack emissions from burning high-sulfur coal in power plants. Recently, he proposed dumping snow in Antarctica to reduce sea levels.
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These wild ideas, not taken seriously, were intended as illustrations of how to buy time for society to switch to non-carbon-based energy sources.

In a 1983 report for the National Research Council on “changing climate,” Thomas Schelling wrote that “technologies for global cooling, perhaps by injecting the right particles into the stratosphere, perhaps by subtler means, [might] become economical during coming decades.”
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Economics however, was not the most important dimension. Echoing von Neumann's 1955 warning, Schelling wrote that climate control, like nuclear weapons, could become “more a source of international conflict than a relief ” (470) if several nations possessed the technology and if they disagreed on the optimum climatic balance. He cited the possibility that one nation might view landfalling hurricanes as disasters, while another might see them as providing necessary water for crops. Concerning interventions that might last for decades or centuries, Schelling predicted that future environmental agendas might well change, as they had in the past and that “CO
₂
may not ... dominate discussion of anthropogenic climate change as it does now” (470). “It is difficult to know what will still look alarming 75 years from now” (482)—that is, after 2050. Also, in 1983 the idea of nuclear winter emerged. A major nuclear war would certainly inject smoke and dust into the stratosphere, yet no one in his right mind would consider such a holocaust an offset to global warming.
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Growing concern about anthropogenic global warming led Stanford Solomon Penner, director of the Center for Energy and Combustion Research at the University of California–San Diego, and his associates to suggest in 1984 that the heating from a doubling of CO
₂
could be offset if commercial airlines would fly at an altitude of 8 to 20 miles for a ten-year period and tune their engines to emit more particulates to increase the Earth's albedo. A major problem with this suggestion, beyond polluting the stratosphere (which concerned Wexler in 1962), was that commercial aircraft rarely fly at or above 8 miles (although military aircraft do).
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About this time, studies by cloud physicists indicated that an
increase in the amount or brightness of marine stratocumulus clouds in the lower atmosphere might provide significant offsets to global warming. One possible mechanism would be through adding cloud condensation nuclei from emissions of sulfur dioxide; several hundred coal-fired power plants might do the job.