Volcanologists report only 3 4 kt 0 003

Volcanologists report only 3 -4 kt (0. 003 -0. 004 Mt) of SO 2 from the Eyjafjallajökull volcanic eruption in Iceland as compared to 5 Mt from Katmai in 1912 and 20 Mt from Pinatubo. Furthermore, it only went into the troposphere, with a lifetime of a week or so. So expect absolutely no climatic effect based on emissions so far. In other words, a much larger injection for a period of years (essentially geoengineering implementation scenario) would be needed to detect a climate response.

Climate – Change – Intervention -- Inscription Some highlights Jim Fleming STS Program Colby College

Recent a-historical statements, Asilomar 2010 “We Don’t have a history of geoengineering to fall back on…” Yes we do. “Things are moving quickly, so we don’t have the luxury of looking at history. ” We must take the time. “It is time to make a first impression on an uninformed public. ” This is like whitewashing an old fence. “We are the first generation to think about these things. ” History says otherwise.

“Apprehending” Climate Change Awareness and Understanding Fix not too rashly upon your first apprehensions —Richard Baxter (1670) Anticipation and Dread — Fear The bare fears of such things and apprehensions of their approach —Robert Sanderson (1648) Intervention and Control A warrant for his apprehension, was obtained. —Chambers Edinburgh Journal (1881)

WHEN DID HUMANS FIRST BECOME CONCERNED ABOUT CLIMATE CHANGE?

The Pleistocene!

HOW ARE PRIVILEGED POSITIONS ESTABLISHED? Ø Authority / Prestige

Theophrastus on climate change If… the winters are more severe, and more snow falls than formerly…. It follows that the monsoon has greater duration. Is it possible for humans to change the climate? Yes! through deforestation and irrigation.

Abbé Du Bos (1719) Genius is not born in every climate

HOW ARE PRIVILEGED POSITIONS ESTABLISHED? • Authority / Prestige Ø Data

Thomas Jefferson Emphasized data collection Climate could be “improved” "We want. . . [an index of climate] for all the States, and the work should be repeated once or twice in a century, to show the effect of clearing and culture towards the changes of climate. "

HOW ARE PRIVILEGED POSITIONS ESTABLISHED? • Authority / Prestige • Data Ø Experiment / Theory

John Tyndall (1859) IR absorption by trace gases is “a perfectly unexplored field of inquiry” “Elementary gases, ” oxygen, nitrogen, and hydrogen, are almost transparent to radiant heat, More complex molecules, such as H 2 O, CO 2, O 3 and hydrocarbons, even in very small quantities, absorb much more strongly than the atmosphere itself.

HOW ARE PRIVILEGED POSITIONS ESTABLISHED? • Authority / Prestige • Data • Experiment / Theory Ø Models

Svante Arrhenius Philosophical Magazine, 1896 Model of CO 2 controlling ice ages and interglacials. Geometric decline in CO 2 causes a linear decrease in temperature. Industrial emissions not yet of concern to him. His climate model is often cited, but it is not continuous with modern results or concerns.

Eclipse of the CO 2 theory of climate change. 1900 -1950

Guy Stewart Callendar Rising temperatures Rising fossil fuel consumption Rising CO 2 concentrations Detailed understanding of IR The Callendar Effect -- Climatic change brought about by anthropogenic increases in the concentration of atmospheric carbon dioxide, primarily through the processes of combustion. AGW in 1938!

Rising temperatures ca. 1858 -1939

Rising CO 2 Levels (1958)

IR Spectrum (1941)

HOW ARE PRIVILEGED POSITIONS ESTABLISHED? • Authority / Prestige • Data • Experiment / Theory • Models Ø Technology

Bumper V-2 Cape Canaveral 24 July 1950

HOW ARE PRIVILEGED POSITIONS ESTABLISHED? • Authority / Prestige • Data • Experiment / Theory • Models • Technology Ø Consensus

Roger Revelle Report of The Environmental Pollution Panel, President’s Science Advisory Committee, 1965 – Appendix Y. By the year 2000 there will be about 25% more CO 2 in our atmosphere than at present. This will modify the heat balance of the atmosphere to such an extent that marked changes in climate, not controllable through local or even national efforts, could occur.

Jule Charney National Academy of Sciences, Carbon Dioxide and Climate: A Scientific Assessment (1979) The consensus has been that increasing carbon dioxide will lead to a warmer earth with a different distribution of climatic regimes. Doubling CO 2 in models results in 1. 5 to 4. 5 C warming. Positive feedbacks will increase the warming.

Establishing the IPCC 1979 First World Climate Conference, WMO. 1985 Assessment of the Role of Carbon Dioxide and of Other Greenhouse Gases in Climate Variations and Associated Impacts (UNEP, WMO, ICSU). 1988 IPCC established by WMO and UNEP.

Original IPCC Charge (1988) 1. Science of climate and climatic change 2. Social and economic impacts 3. Possible response strategies 4. International legal instruments 5. International convention on climate

Our understanding of climate is based on authority, prestige, data, experiments, theory, modeling, technology, and consensus…

WHAT ROLE FOR HISTORY?

Students of climate dynamics would be well-served to study science dynamics (history). History matters – it shapes identity and behavior; it is not just a celebratory record of inevitable progress. Our species emerged during an ice age, and all of history has occurred in an interglacial era. In facing unprecedented challenges, it is good to seek historical precedents. Clarity of communication (for dreamers) Appropriate interventions and inscriptions (for doers)

Here’s a reason to be nice to historians “God cannot alter the past, but historians can” — Dr. Samuel Johnson (18 th C)

Managing Solar Radiation

A critique of climate engineering The Climate Engineers: Playing God to Save the Planet http: //www. colby. edu/sts/ climateengineers. pdf

Columbia University Press, 2010 http: //cup. columbia. edu/book/97 8 -0 -231 -14412 -4/fixing-the-sky

“Give me a lever long enough and a place to stand, and I will move the world” —Archimedes — but where will it roll?

Leverage “It occurred to me at once that this was the lever by which the meteorologist was to move the world!” – James Espy, The Philosophy of Storms, 1841.

Eliza Leslie James Espy

Wexler and V. A. Bugaev in Geneva, 19 Mar 1962

Wexler 1962: prevent all O 3 from forming

Starfish Prime Aurora “Tropicalis” and Rainbow Bomb Parties

“But how do you know destroying the inner Van Allen belts will create havoc until you try it? ” – New Yorker, 1962

A male hand, god-like in scale, is on thermostat Thermostat is “nowhere, ” but perhaps in outer space Temperature is 73 F but is being turned back to 54 F or 5 degrees cooler than its long-term average The thermostat dial is centered on Roswell, NM

Phaeton, from the series The Four Disgracers (1588) by Hendrick Goltzius (Netherlandish, 1558 -1617).

WHAT CAN I KNOW? WHAT SHOULD I DO? WHAT MAY I HOPE? —Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason

Climate Change is Simple

References Historical Perspectives on Climate Change. The Callendar Effect. Climate Change and Anthropogenic Greenhouse Warming: A Selection of Key Articles, 1824 -1995, with Interpretive Essays “nsdl climate” Fixing the Sky: The checkered history of weather and climate control.