Global Warming’s Silver Lining: Could Water Vapor Cool the Planet?

WASHINGTON — Evaporation might be a cool answer to global warming. That, or it could put the earth in even hotter water. Ron Ace, a Maryland inventor, says he has an idea that could clear up the fog surrounding solutions to climate change by creating more of it.

Ace has designed “a colossal refrigeration system with a 100,000-fold performance multiplier.” He told the Seattle Times that “the Earth has a giant air-conditioning problem.”

“I’m proposing to put a thermostat on the planet,” Ace said. He is seeking a patent for the proposition to spray gigatons of water into the atmostphere in order to cool it down. He would avoid the tropics, releasing most of the moisture into the Northern Hemisphere, he explains. Among other effects, the water would turn into vapor, absorbing thermal energy and lowering the planet’s temperature.

But critics see danger in the making. “In the case of the computer models that are used for global warming, I know that the hydrological cycle is a critical component of those models, and the hydrological cycle is not well understood,” says Douglas Davis, an atmospheric chemist at Georgia Tech University.

Others experts believe that geoengineering is not a healthy approach to solving an impending climate crisis. Instead, they suggest paying more attention to human behavior and resource consumption.

Read more here.

Source: The Seattle Times