# How hard would it for humans to initiate Global Cooling?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-hard-would-it-for-humans-to-initiate-global-cooling/741240
**Category:** Great Debates
**Created:** [December 24, 2015, 5:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-hard-would-it-for-humans-to-initiate-global-cooling/741240 "2015-12-24T05:25:26Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Gozu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gozu)
#### Post date: [December 24, 2015, 5:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-hard-would-it-for-humans-to-initiate-global-cooling/741240/1 "2015-12-24T05:25:26Z")
I’m sure we all agree that having more land surface is good for humanity.
We all agree that greenhouse gases cause global warming which causes ice to melt, water to rise and land surface to shrink.
Do we have a shot at reversing this _without_ resorting to scrubbing CO2 out of the atmosphere the old-fashioned way (as in emit a lot less and sequester a lot of carbon in trees) ?
This sounds extremely inefficient and is probably very costly. Are the any alternatives that are viable with today’s technology?
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### Author:  [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)
#### Post date: [December 24, 2015, 5:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-hard-would-it-for-humans-to-initiate-global-cooling/741240/2 "2015-12-24T05:28:21Z")
Well, there’s always nuclear winter. We could get _that_ ball rolling overnight.
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### Author:  [@phreak9](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/phreak9)
#### Post date: [December 24, 2015, 5:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-hard-would-it-for-humans-to-initiate-global-cooling/741240/3 "2015-12-24T05:42:48Z")
> [@Gozu](#):
>
> I’m sure we all agree that having more land surface is good for humanity.
>
> We all agree that greenhouse gases cause global warming which causes ice to melt, water to rise and land surface to shrink.
>
> Do we have a shot at reversing this _without_ resorting to scrubbing CO2 out of the atmosphere the old-fashioned way (as in emit a lot less and sequester a lot of carbon in trees) ?
>
> This sounds extremely inefficient and is probably very costly. Are the any alternatives that are viable with today’s technology?
I think what will happen is we will increase solar panel usage and electric car usage and try to get co2 levels down to pre 1970 (india, china emergence as polluters) levels and continue from there. Its snowing for xmas!! too bad we have to drive 5 hours north to canada to snowmobile! we used to snowmobile in our backyards and across the whole state of WI!!!
---
### Author:  [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)
#### Post date: [December 24, 2015, 5:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-hard-would-it-for-humans-to-initiate-global-cooling/741240/4 "2015-12-24T05:43:17Z")
Heh. That was my first thought also.
How about just lots and lots and LOTS of particles in the air? Burn the old-fashioned dirty kind of coal?
Any way to trigger a volcano?
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### Author:  [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)
#### Post date: [December 24, 2015, 5:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-hard-would-it-for-humans-to-initiate-global-cooling/741240/5 "2015-12-24T05:45:01Z")
Anyone here seen “Snowpiercer”? I’m one of those people who lasted about 15 minutes, long enough to know why the earth became one giant Popsicle.
A cooling agent was sprayed in the upper atmosphere, and worked a little too well.
If there’s anything people shouldn’t mess around with, it’s weather patterns. Imagine a military being able to do that. :eek:
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### Author:  [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)
#### Post date: [December 24, 2015, 5:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-hard-would-it-for-humans-to-initiate-global-cooling/741240/6 "2015-12-24T05:51:55Z")
> [@nearwildheaven](#):
>
> Anyone here seen “Snowpiercer”? I’m one of those people who lasted about 15 minutes, long enough to know why the earth became one giant Popsicle.
I just saw it recently and I’m willing to look past its basically-ridiculous premise and embrace its basically-ridiculous plot.
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### Author:  [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)
#### Post date: [December 24, 2015, 7:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-hard-would-it-for-humans-to-initiate-global-cooling/741240/7 "2015-12-24T07:38:21Z")
There have been [discussions, some small trials](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_fertilization), and one [studied natural event](http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/seeding-atlantic-ocean-with-volcanic-iron-did-little-to-lower-co2/) regarding the hope that feeding plankton dissolved iron would promote the absorption of CO[sub]2[/sub].
It would appear that tinkering does not provide the necessary results while creating its own negative outcomes. The Law of Unintended Consequences is nearly as inevitable as the Law of Gravity.
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### Author:  [@Lucas\_Jackson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lucas_Jackson)
#### Post date: [December 24, 2015, 8:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-hard-would-it-for-humans-to-initiate-global-cooling/741240/8 "2015-12-24T08:03:23Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#):
>
> I just saw it recently and I’m willing to look past its basically-ridiculous premise and embrace its basically-ridiculous plot.
That movie takes a lot of shit one this board but I allowed myself to overlook the plot holes you could drive a truck through and actually enjoyed it!
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### Author:  [@andros](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/andros)
#### Post date: [December 24, 2015, 2:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-hard-would-it-for-humans-to-initiate-global-cooling/741240/9 "2015-12-24T14:53:36Z")
> [@White SIFL](#):
>
> That movie takes a lot of shit one this board
It…does? What in the blessed name of the Ever-Lovin’ Blue-Eyed Thing is wrong with people? Is this the sort of heresy people get up to in the Cafe Society?
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### Author:  [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)
#### Post date: [December 24, 2015, 3:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-hard-would-it-for-humans-to-initiate-global-cooling/741240/10 "2015-12-24T15:11:43Z")
> [@Gozu](#):
>
> I’m sure we all agree that having more land surface is good for humanity.
>
> We all agree that greenhouse gases cause global warming which causes ice to melt, water to rise and land surface to shrink.
>
> Do we have a shot at reversing this _without_ resorting to scrubbing CO2 out of the atmosphere the old-fashioned way (as in emit a lot less and sequester a lot of carbon in trees) ?
>
> This sounds extremely inefficient and is probably very costly. Are the any alternatives that are viable with today’s technology?
You also have to get it just right. “Global Cooling”, if it cools too much, is just as bad as Global Warming.
---
### Author:  [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)
#### Post date: [December 24, 2015, 3:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-hard-would-it-for-humans-to-initiate-global-cooling/741240/11 "2015-12-24T15:21:36Z")
This is sort of like trying to counter stimulants with depressants so you can take more of both. It never quite balances completely, and the parts that don’t balance can seriously screw you up.
Specifically, the biggest problem with trying to use particulates to counter global warming is the timespans involved. Carbon dioxide stays in the atmosphere much longer than particulates, so to counteract a certain amount of carbon dioxide put into the atmosphere now, you have to add a certain amount of particulates every year. And since the carbon dioxide levels are ever-increasing, the particulates needed each year also increase. Now consider that most of the ways to add the particulates _also_ add a lot of CO2, and it all just sort of snowballs. Or fireballs, whichever. Meanwhile, even if you can keep up with that, an increase in both the greenhouse effect and the parasol effect means that whatever other ways they don’t quite cancel out will be likewise amplified (like, perhaps they don’t affect all geographic locations equally).
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### Author:  [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)
#### Post date: [December 24, 2015, 3:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-hard-would-it-for-humans-to-initiate-global-cooling/741240/12 "2015-12-24T15:22:45Z")
We need to put a cloud of reflective particles into the atmosphere. Something shiny, like mercury.
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### Author:  [@tonyfop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tonyfop)
#### Post date: [December 24, 2015, 3:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-hard-would-it-for-humans-to-initiate-global-cooling/741240/13 "2015-12-24T15:33:12Z")
If we all walked around with tin-foil hats would it reflect enough sunlight back into space to effect cooling? Or maybe we can take a cue from that town in North Carolina, and put up lots of solar panels to suck the energy out of the sun and cause cooling.
And yes, this entire post is sarcastic for the sarcasm impaired.
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### Author:  [@Gozu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gozu)
#### Post date: [December 24, 2015, 3:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-hard-would-it-for-humans-to-initiate-global-cooling/741240/14 "2015-12-24T15:40:48Z")
> [@TriPolar](#):
>
> Something shiny, like mercury.
Hahaha. Between this an nuclear winter, I’m starting to think some of you are not serious 😛
So, particulates to reduce the amount of photons reaching the earth eh? Are there any non-toxic particulates out there that we can breathe with “impunity” ?
What would be the effect of creating a very efficient algae that can spread across the sea, replace other algae, and sequester CO2 on a grand scale?
Could we limit it to the caspian sea to avoid it spreading and replacing the other less efficient tens of thousands of species of algae?
Or would we need a much bigger body of water?
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### Author:  [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)
#### Post date: [December 24, 2015, 4:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-hard-would-it-for-humans-to-initiate-global-cooling/741240/15 "2015-12-24T16:21:19Z")
> [@Gozu](#):
>
> I’m sure we all agree that having more land surface is good for humanity.
>
> We all agree that greenhouse gases cause global warming which causes ice to melt, water to rise and land surface to shrink.
>
> Do we have a shot at reversing this _without_ resorting to scrubbing CO2 out of the atmosphere the old-fashioned way (as in emit a lot less and sequester a lot of carbon in trees) ?
>
> This sounds extremely inefficient and is probably very costly. Are the any alternatives that are viable with today’s technology?
Leaving aside the should we do it aspect, could we do it? Certainly. Basically, anything that blocks a percentage of sunlight coming into the atmosphere or reflects it back would do the trick. Global Warming happens because sunlight that penetrates the atmosphere is trapped by GHGs. Block some of that sunlight before it gets to the atmosphere or figure out ways to reflect it (or absorb it) and there you go.
Problem, of course, as others have pointed out, is doing is so that you don’t make a worse problem. I new ice age would be much worse than anything currently being predicted by Global Warming. Whether we get 2 meter sea level rise or 100 meter rise it’s better than miles of ice covering most of the northern hemisphere.
Maybe one day humans will be technologically savvy enough to model and accurately predict mitigation strategies we could use to better regulate the climate. We’d better figure something out at some point if we want to continue living on this rock for a bit longer, as even without our ‘help’ the climate on Earth varying pretty wildly…we are actually in one of the calmer periods of climate today. It would be nice if someday we could smooth out the wilder aspects of the cycle, make the cooling less cool and the heating less hot. But we aren’t even close to being able to do anything about any of this today. Hell, I doubt there are accurate models that predict exactly what will happen to the Earths climate if we DID stop using CO2 today. Would the Earth go back into balance, or would some other factor or forcing come into play that we haven’t even thought about? Perhaps the vast (and I mean vast) pollution cloud that hovers over China, blocking out the sun over large portions of the country and spreading out and being measurable as far away as Canada will come into play…perhaps the effect is being masked by the current global warming due to GHG and taking those away would snap us into some other cycle.
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### Author:  [@andros](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/andros)
#### Post date: [December 24, 2015, 4:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-hard-would-it-for-humans-to-initiate-global-cooling/741240/16 "2015-12-24T16:38:53Z")
Ok, nerds. Thought experiment:
What if we put a giant reflector in orbit? Or a series of them? Maybe solar panels, maybe just fabric, whatever.
How much sunlight would we have to block? How big would our giant artificial parasols need to be?
---
### Author:  [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)
#### Post date: [December 24, 2015, 4:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-hard-would-it-for-humans-to-initiate-global-cooling/741240/17 "2015-12-24T16:57:11Z")
> [@XT](#):
>
> Maybe one day humans will be technologically savvy enough to model and accurately predict mitigation strategies we could use to better regulate the climate. We’d better figure something out at some point if we want to continue living on this rock for a bit longer, as even without our ‘help’ the climate on Earth varying pretty wildly…we are actually in one of the calmer periods of climate today. It would be nice if someday we could smooth out the wilder aspects of the cycle, make the cooling less cool and the heating less hot. But we aren’t even close to being able to do anything about any of this today. Hell, I doubt there are accurate models that predict exactly what will happen to the Earths climate if we DID stop using CO2 today. Would the Earth go back into balance, or would some other factor or forcing come into play that we haven’t even thought about?
Scientists already reported on this, and it is very unlikely that other factors will save us as anyone one of the possible factors did not prevent the earth from warming when it was then natural CO2 the cause of the increase in temperatures in the deep past.
As for going back on balance:
> **[What would happen to the climate if we stopped emitting greenhouse gases today?](https://theconversation.com/what-would-happen-to-the-climate-if-we-stopped-emitting-greenhouse-gases-today-35011)**
>
> Earth’s climate is changing rapidly. We know this from billions of observations, documented in thousands of journal papers and texts and summarized every few years by the United Nations’ Intergovernmental…
> [@](#):
>
> What would happen to the climate if we were to stop emitting carbon dioxide today, right now? Would we return to the climate of our elders? The simple answer is no. Once we release the carbon dioxide stored in the fossil fuels we burn, it accumulates in and moves amongst the atmosphere, the oceans, the land, and the plants and animals of the biosphere. The released carbon dioxide will remain in the atmosphere for thousands of years. Only after many millennia will it return to rocks, for example, through the formation of calcium carbonate – limestone – as marine organisms’ shells settle to the bottom of the ocean. But on time spans relevant to humans, once released the carbon dioxide is in our environment essentially forever. It does not go away, unless we, ourselves, remove it.
>
> If we stop emitting today, it’s not the end of the story for global warming. There’s a delay in temperature increase as the climate catches up with all the carbon that’s in the atmosphere. After maybe 40 more years, the climate will stabilize at a temperature higher than what was normal for previous generations.
>
> This decades-long lag between cause and effect is due to the long time it takes to heat the the ocean’s huge mass. The energy that is held at the Earth by the increased carbon dioxide does more than heat the air. It melts ice; it heats the ocean. Compared to air, it’s harder to raise the temperature of water – it takes time, decades. However, once the ocean temperature is elevated, it adds to the warming of the Earth’s surface.
>
> So even if carbon emissions stopped completely right now, as the oceans catch up with the atmosphere, the Earth’s temperature would rise about another 1.1F (0.6C). Scientists refer to this as committed warming. Ice, also responding to increasing heat in the ocean, will continue to melt. There’s already convincing evidence that significant glaciers in the West Antarctic ice sheets are lost. Ice, water, and air – the extra heat held on the Earth by carbon dioxide affects them all. That which has melted will stay melted – and more will melt.
> [@XT](#):
>
> Perhaps the vast (and I mean vast) pollution cloud that hovers over China, blocking out the sun over large portions of the country and spreading out and being measurable as far away as Canada will come into play…perhaps the effect is being masked by the current global warming due to GHG and taking those away would snap us into some other cycle.
I have seen reports that the dimming of the sun caused by that kind of pollution could had been one factor in hiding the warming of the surface temperatures, the important lesson to get here is that warming continued and that there was no pause, the warming only was delayed just a bit and now it is showing up in the surface temperature just as it was still going on in the oceans.
One has to point here that climate scientists are not using just computer models, they rely on physics and paleo climate; computer models are better than before but the sad thing is that many of the ones out there that have maligned the use of them in science are blissfully ignoring that to do any geoenginering right the contrarians to any control of emissions **will** have to rely on the very science that are refusing to believe.
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### Author:  [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)
#### Post date: [December 24, 2015, 5:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-hard-would-it-for-humans-to-initiate-global-cooling/741240/18 "2015-12-24T17:20:42Z")
> [@andros](#):
>
> Ok, nerds. Thought experiment:
>
> What if we put a giant reflector in orbit? Or a series of them? Maybe solar panels, maybe just fabric, whatever.
>
> How much sunlight would we have to block? How big would our giant artificial parasols need to be?
The nerds at Futurama pointed at one flaw, when an asteroid crashed into the mirror and the mirror turns wildly and burns many on the audience listening to the rival of Professor Farnsworth. Ogden Wernstrom. 🙂
But I do think this idea is interesting, but as I pointed many times before we will have to pay a lot for it and for other solutions, we have to also factor the costs to deal with the effects that are coming.
We need to start making sure that we will be ready so the most at fault industry should start paying for research and development of solutions with emissions or fossil fuel taxes. Taxes that also will tell all about the real price of using our atmosphere as a sewer.
---
### Author:  [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)
#### Post date: [December 24, 2015, 5:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-hard-would-it-for-humans-to-initiate-global-cooling/741240/19 "2015-12-24T17:21:31Z")
[QUOTE=GIGObuster]
Scientists already reported on this, and it is very unlikely that other factors will save us as anyone one of the possible factors did not prevent the earth from warming when it was then natural CO2 the cause of the increase in temperatures in the deep past.
[/QUOTE]
You misunderstand my point. I’m not saying save us from global warming, I’m saying that if we stop using CO2 there is no real prediction of what effect that might have. This isn’t to say we shouldn’t do it, but we are no better climate engineers knowing the effects of stopping the use of CO2 or other GHG than we were using the damned stuff in the first place.
> [@](#):
>
> I have seen reports that the dimming of the sun caused by that kind of pollution could had been one factor in hiding the warming of the surface temperatures, the important lesson to get here is that warming continued and that there was no pause, the warming only was delayed just a bit and now it is showing up in the surface temperature just as it was still going on in the oceans.
Again, you have been arguing with climate deniers too long…that’s not the point I’m making.
> [@](#):
>
> One has to point here that climate scientists are not using just computer models, they rely on physics and paleo climate; computer models are better than before but the sad thing is that many of the ones out there that have maligned the use of them in science are blissfully ignoring that to do any geoenginering right the contrarians to any control of emissions will have to rely on the very science that are refusing to believe.
_sigh_
---
### Author:  [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)
#### Post date: [December 24, 2015, 5:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-hard-would-it-for-humans-to-initiate-global-cooling/741240/20 "2015-12-24T17:23:10Z")
> [@andros](#):
>
> Ok, nerds. Thought experiment:
>
> What if we put a giant reflector in orbit? Or a series of them? Maybe solar panels, maybe just fabric, whatever.
>
> How much sunlight would we have to block? How big would our giant artificial parasols need to be?
It would be something like [this](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_sunshade).
> [@](#):
>
> A space sunshade or sunshield is a parasol that diverts or otherwise reduces some of a star’s rays, preventing them from hitting a planet and thereby reducing its insolation, which results in less heating of the planet.
>
> A sunshade is of particular interest towards mitigating global warming through solar radiation management. Such shades could also be used to produce space solar power, acting as solar power satellites. Proposed shade designs include a single-piece shade and a shade made by a great number of small objects. Most such proposals contemplate a blocking element at the Sun-Earth L1 Lagrangian point.
> [@](#):
>
> Cloud of small spacecraft
>
> One proposed such sunshade for use towards that effect would be composed of 16 trillion small disks at the Sun-Earth L1 Lagrangian point, 1.5 million kilometers above Earth. Each disk is proposed to have a 0.6-meter diameter and a thickness of about 5 micrometers. The weight of each disk would be about a gram, adding up to a total weight of almost 20 million tonnes.[1] Such a group of small sunshades that blocks 2% of the sunlight, reflecting it off into space, would be enough to halt global warming, giving us ample time to cut our emissions back on earth.[2]
>
> The individual autonomous flyers building up the cloud of sunshades are proposed to not reflect the sunlight but be transparent lenses, deflecting the light slightly so it does not hit earth. This minimizes the effect of solar radiation pressure on the units, requiring less effort to be put into holding them in place at the L1 point. An optical prototype has been constructed by Roger Angel with funding from NIAC.[3]
>
> The remaining solar pressure and the fact that the L1 point is an unstable position easily disturbed by the wobble of the earth due to gravitational effects from the moon, requires the small autonomous flyers to be capable of maneuvering themselves to keep their position. A suggested solution to this problem is the placement of mirrors capable of rotation on the surface of the flyers. By using the solar radiation pressure on the mirrors and tilting them in the right direction, the flyer will be capable of altering its speed and direction to keep in position.[4]
>
> Such a group of sunshades would need to occupy an area of about 3.8 million square kilometers if placed at the L1 point.[4] The deployment of the flyers is an issue that requires new technology. It has been proposed that this would be accomplished most easily with large railguns or coilguns firing a capsule containing a million shades into space every 5 minutes for 10 years using 20 separate launch sites. The estimated total cost of such an operation is $5 trillion, with a believed lifetime of 50 years.[5]
>
> Even so, it would still take years to launch enough of the disks into orbit before they have any effect. Thus, if using this technology should become essential, enough time would be needed to implement it. Roger Angel of the University of Arizona[6] presented the idea for the Sunshade at the U.S. National Academy of Sciences in April 2006 and won a NASA Institute for Advanced Concepts grant for further research in July 2006.
>
> Creating this sunshade in space was estimated to cost in excess of US$5 trillion, thus leading Professor Angel to conclude that “[t]he sunshade is no substitute for developing renewable energy, the only permanent solution. A similar massive level of technological innovation and financial investment could ensure that. But if the planet gets into an abrupt climate crisis that can only be fixed by cooling, it would be good to be ready with some shading solutions that have been worked out.”[4][7]
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