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A Reversible Mid-Stratospheric Architecture To Reduce Insolation: Calculation Details and Data
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New: Click here: Glitter Belt Primer
Glitter Belt is a controlled, reversible and non-invasive system to reflect solar energy back into Space from the upper edge of the atmosphere, preventing that energy from being absorbed as heat in the atmosphere. It uses ultra-light reflective sheets such as Aluminized Mylar or Solar Sail material, held stretched smoothly and positioned at the right attitude and location. Different means are used to hold and move the sheets.
One way to deploy, move and hold reflective sheets is the Flying Leaf UAV shown below. It consists of a solar-powered wing with motors and propellers, supporting a large reflective sheet. The means of holding, and deploying the sheet has been developed through analytical and experimental research and innovation. It was not easy, but it is now proven to work in wind tunnel as well as free flight experiments at small but relevant scale.
Glitter Belt is the subject of US Patent(s) and other pending Patents. The overall Glitter Belt concept and the Flying Leaf shown above are described in US Patent 10,775,586 B2, September 15, 2020.
The vehicle in the picture is a computer-generated image rendering. However, the photo of Earth is real. This is representative (may be the actual image from a balloon, if I recall correctly) of what might see if one is at 120,000 feet above Earth’s surface. The sky looks totally black above: that is Space, where there are few if any molecules to scatter any light. Lower down, you see the sky turning very dark blue, then brighter blue as you go deeper into the atmosphere towards the horizon. That is scattered sunlight. This is taken in daytime. The sunlight falling on the reflective upper surface is reflected back into Space as from a mirror. You see very little of it, because very little is scattered: it is a mirror. Unless you look from the direction along which the light is reflected, and in that case you see the blinding Sun at its full intensity as seen at Earth’s orbit: 1367 Watts per square meter. This is AM0 (Air Mass Zero) intensity. At the bottom of the atmosphere, at midday with the Sun directly above, you see AM1 (sunlight having gone through 1 equivalent atmosphere). The intensity is only 1040 Watts /sq.m. In other words, 24% is already absorbed before it gets to the bottom. When you see the Sun at 45 degrees inclination, the intensity is AM1.41, or 950 W/sq.m. Over 30 percent is absorbed. Those are on a clear day in pure air. Pollution can cut that down to 840 W/sq.m for AM0, 710 for AM1.41. You see why it is much better to reflect the sunlight out from the very edge of the atmosphere.
Papers on the Glitter Belt:
Komerath, N, Deepak, A., Deepak, R.: STEM Opportunities in Flight Testing Sunlight Reflector Ultralights. Proceedings of ISUDEF 2021, Springer 2023.
Komerath, N, Deepak, A., Deepak, R.: Ultralight Platforms to Coordinate First Responders and Communications. Chapter 36-1, International Handbook of Disaster Research, Springer, 2022.
Komerath, N, Deepak, A., Deepak, R.: An Aerospace Approach To Counter Climate Change. Paper ID APEN-MIT-2022-3897, Applied Energy Symposium MIT A + B, July 5-8, 2022. Cambridge, USA. Volume 25: Accelerated Energy Innovations and Emerging Technologies, Energy Proceedings, https://www.energy- proceedings.org/category/mitab2022/page/2/
Komerath, N, Deepak, A., Deepak, R.: Solar-Electric Long Endurance Reflector Craft for Meteorlogy and Climate Simulation. Proceedings of the 2021 International Symposium on Electric Aircraft and Autonomous Systems: ISEAS 2021 Book. Springer Nature, 2022
Komerath, N., Deepak, R., Deepak, A., Initial Flight Testing and Meteorological Data Acquisition Using Flying Leaf Reflectors. 22nd Symposium on Meteorological Observation and Instrumentation, 102nd Annual Meeting, January 23 – 27, 2022, Houston, TX.
Komerath, N., Deepak, R., Deepak, A., Planetary Sensing on Venus and Mars Using Ultralight Platforms. 22nd Symposium on Meteorological Observation and Instrumentation, 102nd Annual Meeting, January 23 – 27, 2022, Houston, TX.
Komerath, N., Sharma, A., Deepak, R., Deepak, A., Glitter Belt Global Measurement System: Indian Ocean Component Preparation. IEEE ICECCME Conference, Mauritius, October 2021.
This paper described the basic concept with ‘sanity check’ calculations. It reviews prior work and the issues of Climate Change and discusses comparisons with other approaches to alleviate Climate Change.
This was an early tradeoff study of 3 different types of Glitter Belt vehicles.
Can such a method cause undesirable effects on the atmosphere or the oceans?
We are seeking credible analyses. There is no reason to believe that there can be any such effect, but believing is not the same as proving, on something this important.
Unlike other techniques (see below), Glitter Belt is totally reversible, and deployment goes hand in hand with data acquisition and analysis. In fact, with every Glitter Belt swarm equipped with sensors, we will get far more data than is currently practical with today’s sensor resources and networks, all over the globe including over the oceans.
Concerns:
1. If the reflectors were to be concentrated in one region, could this cause a sufficient perturbation to set off a chain of events that destabilizes the weather in some way? A prime concern is the region where the Monsoons start, both in the eastern hemisphere and western hemisphere.
2. Could the Polar Necklace chain of reflectors affect ocean currents near the Antarctic coast in a way that destabilizes melting of the icecap, or the formation of storms, or moves a warm or cold current near a coast?
A NIAC Phase 1 study by Hoffman in the 2001 studied the possibility of perturbing the path of a hurricane to miss a populated area. The premise was that the atmosphere is a chaotic system. The precise levels of perturbation that might be needed, were not given.
The chaotic nature of the weather also implies that the level of perturbation needed to cause any major effect is quite huge and very far beyond anything that the Glitter Belt can cause.
References:
1. Hoffman, Ross N. “Controlling the global weather.” Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society 83.2 (2002): 241-248.
2. Hoffman, Ross N. “Controlling hurricanes.” Scientific American 291.4 (2004): 68-75.
One might also ask how large is the level of perturbation that Glitter Belt deployment can possibly cause, compared to say the California or Amazon wildfires which must certainly add heat and GreenHouse Gases to the vulnerable troposphere. The Glitter Belt reflectors are far above the altitude of these, and far smaller as perturbations. However the favorable effect is absolutely undeniable: Every Joule of sunlight reflected there is a Joule removed from heating the Earth, no two ways about it.
These considerations also emphasize the need for the ‘Summer Follower’ swarms of early Glitter Belt deployment: these are spatially distributed as a “Belt” around the Eastern and Western hemispheres, and scan across latitudes continuously. Thus they cause as uniform an effect on the Earth as possible, while maximizing the efficiency with which it is caused.
Alternative Proposals to Reduce Global Warming and Sea Level Rise
- Grow more trees! This is by far the best long-term solution. Trees are made of hydrocarbon. They not only pull CO2 from the air, they keep the carbon and release the oxygen back into the air. As trees grow, the mass of CO2 removed from the air grows in a non-linear fashion, almost in geometric progression initially. However, it takes many years for each tree to grow: we need time. One drawback of planting forests is wild fire. For example, just the 2020 wildfires in California have spewed more CO2 and carbon particles as well as other carcinogens and other toxins into the atmosphere than about 13 years’ worth of total emissions from all of India! Much of this is attributed by some experts, to the policy of growing forests with very high density: some say that California forests have some 500 to 750 trees per acre equivalent vegetation, compared to 50 to 60 trees per acre in forests elsewhere. While such dangers exist, moderate tree growth is the best and least harmful way to sequester CO2 and clean the atmosphere of pollutants. We have not checked into the amount of water that is also stored in trees, compared to the rise in sea-level, but it appears possible that this percentage is also significant.
- Spray clouds of sulphuric acid into the stratosphere from tanker airplanes. Particles of sulphuric acid or hydrogen sulphate are known to have refractive index properties that scatter sunlight. For instance, after major volcanic eruptions, such clouds are emitted into the stratosphere and stay there for some time before settling down to the ground. They make the clouds appear brighter because they are scattering more light. The clouds over the planet Venus contain high concentrations of sulphuric acid, and are opaque at visible wavelengths. At present there is no way to spray at very high altitudes on even a moderate scale because of the cost of taking liquids to high altitudes. This will have to be done by heavy tanker airplanes powered by fossil fuels, adding CO2 and water vapor at high altitudes. The mass of CO2, and the waste heat emitted into the atmosphere by the carrier aircraft, have to be a considerable fraction of the mass of scattering droplets emitted.
- Such spraying can also be done from ships over the ocean at low altitudes. However, once sprayed, the droplets are carried by the winds. Effects on birds, and on humans and other life, remain to be studied if such spraying is carried on at scales that are enough to cause significant temperature change. Despite these apparent drawbacks, very significant funds are being poured into this method, showing the level of desperation being felt.
- Place wind turbines around the Antarctic coastline. These may be powered by sunlight. They are to pump sea-water back onto the icecap in summer, to increase icecap thickness. Such projects have been funded at the PhD thesis levels in the European Union. The tradeoffs between the energy and waste heat of the manufacturing process, the disturbance to the ice-cap of installation operations, and the sheer cost of putting up enough wind turbines, are perhaps discussed in the PhD theses.
- A new proposal is to spread glass beads on the Arctic icecap to “increase albedo” and reflect more sunlight. This was reported on the famous news site MSN.COM with the title: “How glass may be used to save Arctic ice”. A video there purports to show the rate of disappearance of the northern sea ice over the past 30 years. The proposed solution is to spread hollow glass spheres on the “new” sea ice. The thinking behind this project reinforces what we say about the sea ice being a correct target for protection; however we do not see why spreading huge amounts of this material is superior to floating ultra-thin reflective sheets at the top of the atmosphere. The glass beads are said to float on water and be totally harmless since their main ingredient is Silicon Dioxide, same as sand, of which there is already “2.8 million billion tons” on Earth. Here is a thought experiment: Would you REALLY want your kids to be swimming in an ocean with these beads floating all round their noses and mouths and eyes? Do you believe the following quote as a basis to let our kids ingest glass?
The most-promising material is made from a glass which is mostly silicon dioxide (“silica”). Silica is a compound made of two of the earth’s most abundant materials: silicon and oxygen. The mass of Earth’s crust is 59% silica, the main constituent of more than 95% of the known rocks, and is the major constituent of sand.
This is a safe choice for animals and ecosystems because it has been extensively tested, and we will continue to test it. All life on Earth has co-evolved with it in various forms on land, in our rocks, and dissolved in our oceans.
From https://www.arcticiceproject.org/beads
All life on Earth has co-evolved with it in various forms on land, in our rocks, and dissolved in our oceans. It’s a safe form of the material, large, amorphous and round enough to not cause harm to living creatures or the environment. Most importantly, because we’ve all co-evolved with silica, it does not bioaccumulate (i.e. it doesn’t become concentrated inside the bodies of living things).
From https://www.arcticiceproject.org/beads
- Travel to International Conferences on the Need to Control Climate Change (the one exemplified here was small: only 200 delegates, compared to this one, also in Germany a few weeks later the same summer). A more extensive list of conferences can be found here. The cost, CO2 and waste heat emission of a typical International Climate Conference would be interesting to calculate. Assume 2000 attendees spending the previous 6 months in furious discussions and writing and preparing presentations, all using electric power and heat-generating projectors and coffee machines, then jetting an average of 16,000 kilometers round-trip per attendee, with an additional 8000 km because many attendees will be traveling with family. The conference itself, with a week of heat and CO2 emission. The WhatsApp Forwards and Press Conferences, and TV news and more WhatsApp Forwards. Then the energy consumed and entropy generated in processing Travel Reimbursements.
