(Press-News.org) Reflecting sunlight from the Earth by geoengineering would undoubtedly cool the climate, but would different countries agree on how much to reflect? Research by climate scientists at the University of Bristol shows that the impact of geoengineering would be felt in very different ways across the world.
Previous studies of geoengineering approaches, aimed at averting dangerous climate change, have shown that although the average global temperature could be restored to 'normal' levels, some regions would remain too warm, whereas others would 'overshoot' and cool to much. In addition, average rainfall would be reduced.
This new study looked at the impacts of different strengths of geoengineering, from full strength (sufficient to return global average temperatures back to normal), through to no geoengineering.
Reporting in Geophysical Research Letters, the researchers looked at how the impacts caused by these different strengths of geoengineering differed from region to region, using a comprehensive climate model developed by the UK Met Office, which replicates all the important aspects of the climate system, including the atmospheric, ocean and land processes, and their interactions.
Their analysis revealed that with increasing geoengineering strength, most regions become drier while others buck the trend and become increasingly wet. For example, the USA became drier with increasing geoengineering, and returned to normal conditions under half-strength geoengineering, whereas Australia became wetter, returning to normal conditions only for full strength geoengineering
Pete Irvine, lead author on the paper, points out there are likely to be disagreements over any future geoengineering schemes: "If there is a large amount of global warming in the future there would be no strength of geoengineering that would be best for everyone: some may be better off without any geoengineering while others may do better with a large amount."
The team suggest that global average figures are too simple a measure to assess the impacts of geoengineering, and that decision makers of the future need to consider a variety of impacts, such as on regional precipitation, sea-level response, global crop yield before deciding whether embarking on geoengineering would be the right choice.
However, the work does offer some way forward. Co-author Dan Lunt added: "Our simulations indicate that it might be possible to identify a strength of geoengineering capable of meeting multiple targets, such as maintaining a stable mass balance of the Greenland ice sheet and cooling global climate, but without reducing global precipitation below normal amounts or exposing significant fractions of the Earth to unusual climate conditions."
INFORMATION:Paper:
The paper, "Assessing the Regional Disparities in Geoengineering Impacts", is now available on the AGU Papers in Press site: http://www.agu.org/journals/gl/papersinpress.shtml#id2010GL044447
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PITTSBURGH, Sept. 20 – A structural molecule and the cellular pump that regulates its levels influence the severity of pneumonia and could provide new ways of treating the lung infection, which is a leading cause of hospitalization and death, according to scientists at the University of Pittsburgh and the University of Iowa. Their findings are available online in Nature Medicine.
Despite decades of research, there has been little new information on what biological mechanisms make bacterial pneumonia get worse, said senior author Rama K. Mallampalli, M.D., a professor ...
(Washington) In a policy paper released today the American College of Physicians reaffirmed its support for increased health care transparency. Healthcare Transparency—Focus on Price and Clinical Performance Information, the first paper in a series of policy papers about transparency, is an introduction and overview of the issues and challenges faced with increased health care transparency.
"We believe that increasing transparency in the health care system can be beneficial to both patients and physicians," said J. Fred Raslton, Jr., MD, FACP, president of ACP. "However, ...
Irvine, Calif., Sept. 20, 2010 — American and Italian researchers have found that a novel drug allows anandamide – a marijuana-like chemical in the body – to effectively control pain at the site of an injury.
Led by Daniele Piomelli, the Louise Turner Arnold Chair in Neurosciences and director of the Center for Drug Discovery at UC Irvine, the study suggests that such compounds could form the basis of pain medications that don't produce sedation, addiction or other central nervous system side effects common with existing painkillers, such as opiates.
"These findings ...
New research led by St. Jude Children's Research Hospital investigators adds to evidence that the Six3 gene functions like a doorman in the developing brain and visual system, safeguarding the future retina by keeping the region where the eye is forming free of a signaling protein capable of disrupting the process.
The findings underscore the pivotal role Six3 plays in the developing nervous system as a key regulator of the Wnt family of signaling proteins and expands on earlier work from the laboratory of Guillermo Oliver, Ph.D., member of the St. Jude Department of ...
DURHAM, N.C.—Two-thirds of Americans with voice problems don't seek medical care either because they don't know treatment is available or because they think the problem will just go away, according to a new study conducted at the Duke Voice Care Center.
That's concerning, says Seth Cohen, MD, an otolaryngologist at Duke. "Voice disorders aren't benign nuisances that just go away. They are symptoms of a range of medical conditions from allergies to cancer. When caught early, the right treatment can make a big difference. Left untreated, they can become chronic problems ...
St. Jude Children's Research Hospital scientists have identified a new pathway that helps control the immune balance through reciprocal regulation of specialized T lymphocytes, which play very different inflammatory roles.
Investigators also determined that two drugs working in different ways to dampen the inflammatory response in patients with multiple sclerosis or following organ transplantation target this new mechanism. Further research into the pathway might lead to new medications to block other autoimmune disorders or to new anti-rejection drugs, researchers said. ...
University of Southern California computer scientists have found a way to combine smartphone resources with a novel application that allows the phones' users to help monitor air quality.
The application, provisionally titled "Visibility," is available for download at http://robotics.usc.edu/~mobilesensing/Projects/AirVisibilityMonitoring
The researchers, from the USC Viterbi School of Engineering, hope that as many users as possible download and try it in order to improve the software. Currently, the download works for smartphones running the Android system and soon ...
ROCHESTER, Minn. -- Individuals with disrupting mutations in the BRCA1 gene are known to be at substantially increased risk of breast cancer throughout their lives. Now, discoveries from an international research team led by Mayo Clinic researchers show that some of those persons may possess additional genetic variants that modify their risk. These new findings enhancing individualized medicine appear in the current Nature Genetics.
"These findings should be useful in helping determine individual risk for breast cancer in BRCA1 carriers," says Fergus Couch, Ph.D., Mayo ...
ROCHESTER, Minn. -- A consortium of cancer researchers has identified four chromosome locations with genetic changes that are likely to alter a woman's risk of developing ovarian cancer. The findings appear in Nature Genetics in an article authored by a Mayo Clinic researcher.
Researchers say that while more needs to be learned about the function of the specific chromosomal regions involved in susceptibility, the discoveries move them a major step closer to individualized risk assessments for ovarian cancer. In the future, women at greatest risk due to these and other ...
Radio transmitters that can withstand temperatures of up to 900 oC could soon be dropped into the depths of the earth to provide early warning of a volcanic eruption.
The state-of-the-art technology being pioneered by experts at Newcastle University uses Silicon Carbide electronics that can withstand temperatures equal to the inside of a jet engine.
Measuring subtle changes in the levels of key volcanic gases such as carbon dioxide and sulphur dioxide, the wireless sensor would feed back real-time data to the surface, providing vital information about volcanic activity ...
