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APOD: Ship Tracks over the Pacific Ocean (2022 Jun 08)
Posted: Wed Jun 08, 2022 4:05 am
by APOD Robot
Ship Tracks over the Pacific Ocean
Explanation: What are those unusual streaks? Some images of
planet Earth show clear bright streaks that follow the paths of ships. Known as
ship tracks, these low and narrow bands are caused by the
ship's engine exhaust.
Water vapor condenses around small bits of exhaust known as
aerosols, which soon grow into floating water drops that efficiently
reflect sunlight. Ship tracks were
first discovered in 1965 in
Earth images taken by NASA's
TIROS satellites. Multiple
ship tracks are visible across the
featured image that was captured in 2009 over the
Pacific Ocean by the
MODIS instrument on NASA's
Terra satellite. Inspired by ship-tracks, some
scientists have suggested deploying a network of floating
buoys in the
worlds' oceans that spray
salt-aerosol containing sea-water into the air so that, with the help of the wind, streams of
sunlight-reflecting clouds would also form.
Why do this? These human-made clouds could
reflect so much sunlight they might help fight
global warming.
Re: APOD: Ship Tracks over the Pacific Ocean (2022 Jun 08)
Posted: Wed Jun 08, 2022 5:17 am
by Ann
One wonders what ships have been plying the seas of Europa?
Ann
Re: APOD: Ship Tracks over the Pacific Ocean (2022 Jun 08)
Posted: Wed Jun 08, 2022 9:56 am
by Ironwood
What a great idea! I just remote started my SUV to assist in combatting global warming. I'll let it warm up then go drive around making cooling clouds.
Re: APOD: Ship Tracks over the Pacific Ocean (2022 Jun 08)
Posted: Wed Jun 08, 2022 11:30 am
by Starlightasru
Perhaps modify the ship's systems to create the clouds.
Re: APOD: Ship Tracks over the Pacific Ocean (2022 Jun 08)
Posted: Wed Jun 08, 2022 11:36 am
by rstevenson
Would the reflectivity of the clouds fully offset the CO2 released by the ships' diesel engines? Is this just another example of perpetual motion-like wishful thinking?
Rob
Re: APOD: Ship Tracks over the Pacific Ocean (2022 Jun 08)
Posted: Wed Jun 08, 2022 1:11 pm
by Chris Peterson
Starlightasru wrote: ↑Wed Jun 08, 2022 11:30 am
Perhaps modify the ship's systems to create the clouds.
The clouds produced by a ship don't significantly offset the CO
2 produced by the ship. The proposed geoengineering solutions produce the clouds but don't add to atmospheric CO
2. Also, the aerosols produced by the ships that seed the clouds are harmful in their own right, unlike the geoengineering approach that simply uses salt.
Re: APOD: Ship Tracks over the Pacific Ocean (2022 Jun 08)
Posted: Wed Jun 08, 2022 1:13 pm
by Chris Peterson
rstevenson wrote: ↑Wed Jun 08, 2022 11:36 am
Would the reflectivity of the clouds fully offset the CO2 released by the ships' diesel engines? Is this just another example of perpetual motion-like wishful thinking?
The geoengineering proposal, of course, doesn't use technology that releases CO
2 or dangerous aerosols.
Re: APOD: Ship Tracks over the Pacific Ocean (2022 Jun 08)
Posted: Wed Jun 08, 2022 3:02 pm
by heehaw
ESPOD is very good today.
Re: APOD: Ship Tracks over the Pacific Ocean (2022 Jun 08)
Posted: Wed Jun 08, 2022 3:08 pm
by orin stepanek
Maybe someday; man will be able to control the weather!? Maybe;
remember I said maybe; or maybe the weather will wipe us out first!
I wish it were 1950 again, when I was a boy and not wonder what the
future will bring! Que sierra sierra !
Re: APOD: Ship Tracks over the Pacific Ocean (2022 Jun 08)
Posted: Wed Jun 08, 2022 3:20 pm
by guest again
Ann wrote: ↑Wed Jun 08, 2022 5:17 am
One wonders what ships have been plying the seas of Europa?
Ann
Ice breakers?
Re: APOD: Ship Tracks over the Pacific Ocean (2022 Jun 08)
Posted: Wed Jun 08, 2022 7:14 pm
by Sa Ji Tario
When the tragedy of the US Twin Towers suspended flights for three days, a temperature difference of three degrees was found caused by the lack of aerosols left by high-altitude aircraft that returned much of the solar infrared rays to space.
Re: APOD: Ship Tracks over the Pacific Ocean (2022 Jun 08)
Posted: Wed Jun 08, 2022 7:22 pm
by Chris Peterson
Sa Ji Tario wrote: ↑Wed Jun 08, 2022 7:14 pm
When the tragedy of the US Twin Towers suspended flights for three days, a temperature difference of three degrees was found caused by the lack of aerosols left by high-altitude aircraft that returned much of the solar infrared rays to space.
Not globally, though. This was a regional effect.
Re: APOD: Ship Tracks over the Pacific Ocean (2022 Jun 08)
Posted: Thu Jun 09, 2022 4:18 am
by Sa Ji Tario
Right Chris, I forgot to mention it.
Re: APOD: Ship Tracks over the Pacific Ocean (2022 Jun 08)
Posted: Thu Jun 09, 2022 5:03 pm
by florid_snow
A key phrase here is "aerosol susceptibility" because broadly speaking, there is a large contrast from land to ocean for the amount of particulate matter floating in the air - aka the aerosol concentration is much higher over land than over the ocean. So running your SUV does not cause this effect over land, it is only over the ocean where the atmosphere is typically susceptible to aerosol injection for cloud brightening. And this only really works a few days per month in different small sections of the ocean where there is the particular thermodynamic situation where a cloud might condense but does not due to a relative lack of particles.
This continues to be an active area of research, I wish this APOD had linked to a few more relevant articles, like this recent article in Science which basically claims the total susceptibility of the atmosphere is too small for this to really be a viable method to counter-act CO2 climate change.
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abd3980
Re: APOD: Ship Tracks over the Pacific Ocean (2022 Jun 08)
Posted: Thu Jun 09, 2022 8:18 pm
by Astronymus
So this is how the microplastic ends up on Mount Everest and Antarctica.
Re: APOD: Ship Tracks over the Pacific Ocean (2022 Jun 08)
Posted: Thu Jun 09, 2022 10:50 pm
by Chris Peterson
florid_snow wrote: ↑Thu Jun 09, 2022 5:03 pm
A key phrase here is "aerosol susceptibility" because broadly speaking, there is a large contrast from land to ocean for the amount of particulate matter floating in the air - aka the aerosol concentration is much higher over land than over the ocean. So running your SUV does not cause this effect over land, it is only over the ocean where the atmosphere is typically susceptible to aerosol injection for cloud brightening. And this only really works a few days per month in different small sections of the ocean where there is the particular thermodynamic situation where a cloud might condense but does not due to a relative lack of particles.
This continues to be an active area of research, I wish this APOD had linked to a few more relevant articles, like this recent article in Science which basically claims the total susceptibility of the atmosphere is too small for this to really be a viable method to counter-act CO2 climate change.
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abd3980
That's not what I read in that paper. It appears to say only that ship track data are a poor model for understanding the cloud response of anthropogenic aerosols. Not that clouds produced by aerosols don't have the potential to create a degree of cooling (which is not the same as counteracting climate change).