Symposium Blog - CE-Project

Geographical: Engineering the climate: the controversial science that could cool our atmosphere

"Katie Burton explores the practicalities and ethics of geoengineering, the controversial science that could quickly cool the atmosphere. Is it the last ditch climate solution that nobody wants? Or are appetites for geoengineering solutions growing with our warming climate?" LINK

Lockley, A.; et al. (2020): An Update on Engineering Issues Concerning Stratospheric Aerosol Injection for Geoengineering

Lockley, A.; MacMartin, D.; Hunt, H. (2020): An Update on Engineering Issues Concerning Stratospheric Aerosol Injection for Geoengineering. In Environmental Research Communications 2 (8). https://doi.org/10.1088/2515-7620/aba944. ‌"Stratospheric aerosol injection (SAI) is one proposed method, reliant on lofting material into the stratosphere. Engineering reviews related to this technology approach have been sparse, with most major primary analyses now at least five years old. We attempt to bridge this gap—with a short, qualitative review of recent developments in various fields of engineering that have potential applicability to SAI." LINK

Podcast: ABC: Whatever happened to the idea of geoengineering the planet?

"Guests Hugh Hunt – Acting Director, Centre for Climate Repair, Cambridge University Alan Robock – Distinguished Professor, department of Environmental Sciences, Rutgers University Steve Pacala – Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Princeton University David Mead – Executive Director of Strategy and Development at the Australian Institute of Marine Science (AIMS)" LINK

Taylor, L. L.; et al. (2020): Increased carbon capture by a silicate-treated forested watershed affected by acid deposition

Taylor, L. L.; Driscoll, C. T.; Groffman, P. M.; Rau, G. H.; Blum, J. D.; Beerling, D. J. (2020): Increased carbon capture by a silicate-treated forested watershed affected by acid deposition. In Biogeosciences Discuss 2020, pp. 1–29. DOI: 10.5194/bg-2020-288. "Here we show that a low 3.44 t ha−1 wollastonite treatment in an 11.8-ha acid-rain-impacted forested watershed in New Hampshire, USA led to cumulative carbon capture by carbonic acid weathering of 0.025–0.13 t CO2 ha−1 over 15 years." LINK

13.07.2015 10:03

The Symposium on the Web

To broaden the discussions during the symposium, we announced the conference on Twitter and Facebook as well starting this blog. We had no idea what the response would be like. We established the hashtag #CERSYM2015 and tweets started arriving before the people did.

Day 3 - Are we comparing apples with apples? And who likes "them apples"?

The third and final full day of the symposium again included two sessions of talks. The first, entitled "A Comparative View of Climate Engineering Options and Metrics," was aimed at taking a good look at the concepts and terms we use to evaluate and assess different types of CE technologies to establish if researchers from different fields, countries and disciplines are assessing the technologies in a comparable way.

09.07.2015 08:14

Day 2 - Can we find out what we don't know about CE? And once we find out, who has the right and the means to make the big decisions?

The second day of the symposium included two separate sessions with seven presentations each. The first session of the day, entitled "Climate Engineering Uncertainties" aimed to help us understand exactly where the blind spots in our scientific and technical knowledge of CE lie, and to explore whether these uncertainties can be reduced.

07.07.2015 22:42

Day 1 - Could we?

This week's symposium aims to deal with a wide spectrum of Climate Engineering related questions, but today's session focused on what is arguably one of the most fundamental of them all: Could we do it? Entitled "Scientific Feasibility of Climate Engineering Ideas," the first session of the week included talks by seven natural scientists and engineers who addressed the "Could we?" question from different perspectives.

Welcome to the Climate Engineering Research Symposium!

Next week from Tuesday the 7^th to Friday the 10^th of July the Climate Engineering Research Symposium will be held in Berlin. We look forward to accompanying you as you participate in this exiting international event, which will not only welcome over 130 participants from thirteen countries around the world, but will also be open to the public on Thursday 9^th to encourage what we hope will be inclusive and productive discussions.

Geographical: Engineering the climate: the controversial science that could cool our atmosphere

Lockley, A.; et al. (2020): An Update on Engineering Issues Concerning Stratospheric Aerosol Injection for Geoengineering

Podcast: ABC: Whatever happened to the idea of geoengineering the planet?

Taylor, L. L.; et al. (2020): Increased carbon capture by a silicate-treated forested watershed affected by acid deposition