“This is also important for discussing the risks and opportunities of climate engineering in a scientifically serious manner.”
“This is also important for discussing the risks and opportunities of climate engineering in a scientifically serious manner.”
So where does what you’ve quoted say anything about stratospheric cooling? All it says is that the aerosols concentrate at 20-30 km, not that any cooling occurs at that level as opposed to the troposphere. In fact, the cooling that resulted from both the Pinatubo and Tambora eruptions was felt at ground level. Thus the aerosol effect on climate is for all levels of the atmosphere below the aerosols, not just where they concentrate. What you’ve quoted here makes exactly that point. Thus, nothing here addresses the claim that stratospheric cooling is natural and thus the claim is still wrong.
Ray: did you not read this part?
“The increase in the stratospheric aerosol concentration observed in the past years is caused mainly by sulfur dioxide from a number of volcano eruptions. “Variation of the concentration is mainly due to volcanoes,” Höpfner explains. Devastating volcano eruptions, such as those of the Pinatubo in 1991 and Tambora in 1815, had big a big effect on the climate. The present study also shows that smaller eruptions in the past ten years produced a measurable effect on sulfur dioxide concentration at altitudes between 20 and 30 km. “We can now exclude that anthropogenic sources, e.g. power plants in Asia, make a relevant contribution at this height,” Höpfner says.
Given the fact that your source doesn’t support what you claim in the title of this entry, wouldn’t it be honest and fair to retract your claim?
Can you please show me, in the article you’ve linked to, where it says anything about stratospheric cooling being the result of volcanically-derived SO2 as you’ve claimed? As I see it, the article only addresses the source of high-level SO2 and doesn’t say anything whatsoever about stratospheric cooling. In fact, stratospheric aerosols created by SO2 would cool the entire atmosphere, not just the stratosphere, so what you’re proposing makes no sense.
There’s some plausibility to the idea that changes in glacial mass could increase or decrease pressure on magma and alter volcanic activity. It seems to me that such changes might cause increased activity whether the glaciers are increasing or decreasing, though, so glacial changes would more likely shift volcanic activity than increase it or decrease it. I dunno.
Oh but remember “it’s icebergs melting that causes volcanos”, even at sea level in the tropics. 😉
So we find another natural mechanism that tends to reduce heat on the planet. That makes sense and it also means that models are further out of whack than we already thought they were.
I would expect natural sources of aerosols to vary their output and the level of aerosols to vary year by year or even daily. One of many elements in a system that approaches chaos. Time for 86 and 99 to give us their opinions.