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The Biggest Science Story of the Week

2023-08-04 · explainer · Hank · 6:26 · watch on YouTube

Topic: Science & nature · mode: News analysis · tags: timely hook, self promotion

Hank argues that the overlooked science story of the week is that a 2020 rule forcing ships to burn low-sulfur fuel cut cloud-seeding ship tracks and largely explains record North Atlantic warming: bad news that warming is worse than thought, but a priceless geoengineering experiment showing we should geoengineer intentionally and carefully rather than accidentally.

What is said

The parts of the video and what is said in each (★ — how much it matters to the video).

00:00:00 — Hook: the week's most overlooked science story and the record North Atlantic surface temperature graph

  • ★★★ Hank says a science story has been missed this busy week, perhaps the biggest of all: we may now understand what caused this year's (2023) record North Atlantic surface temperatures. (hedged) — 00:00:00
  • ★ Hank suggests the story may be bigger than room-temperature superconductors or a powerful new solid tumor cancer treatment. (hedged) — 00:00:00

00:00:29 — Thanks to John for his Esther Day video; geoengineering defined as intentionally changing the climate

  • ★★ Hank thanks John for his lovely Esther Day video and tells him he loves him too. — 00:00:29 · John Green, Esther Day
  • ★★ Hank says it has been quite a year, though he is happy with the current trajectory. — 00:00:29 · John Green

  • ★★ Hank defines geoengineering as the controversial idea of intentionally changing the planet's climate, unlike the accidental change of the last hundred years. — 00:00:29

    “geoengineering is this fairly controversial idea that you could intentionally change the climate of the planet”

  • ★★ Hank predicts the geoengineering conversation will become a bigger and bigger deal over the next few decades as we face hard decisions about climate impacts. — 00:00:29

00:00:58 — Accidental geoengineering: carbon dioxide, sulfur dioxide seeding clouds, volcanoes, dirty ship fuel

  • ★★ Hank says humans have been doing reckless, accidental geoengineering for a hundred years, mostly by emitting carbon dioxide, which keeps heat from radiating to space and warms the planet. — 00:00:58 · climate change
  • ★★ Hank says burning dirty fuels like coal and fuel oil releases sulfur dioxide, which briefly cools an area by seeding more and fluffier clouds through sulfuric acid droplets. — 00:01:27
  • ★★ Hank says this is a known effect: erupting volcanoes release dust and sulfur dioxide that can cool the planet. — 00:01:56
  • ★★ Hank says big container ships are a major sulfur dioxide source because they burn the cheapest, worst leftover oil, high in sulfur. — 00:01:56

00:02:26 — Ship tracks, the 2020 IMO low-sulfur rule, and models attributing North Atlantic warming to fewer ship tracks

  • ★★ Hank says the clouds seeded by ships' sulfur dioxide, called ship tracks, are visible from space. — 00:02:26
  • ★★★ Hank says that because sulfur dioxide harms people, animals and the earth, the UN's International Maritime Organization required big ships to burn low-sulfur fuel from 2020, and there have since been significantly fewer ship tracks. — 00:02:26
  • ★★★ Hank says scientists' models show almost all of the new North Atlantic surface warming comes from extra sunlight reaching the sea, mostly because of fewer ship tracks. — 00:02:55
  • ★ Hank adds that part of the extra light came from less Saharan dust this year (2023), for what he thinks are unrelated reasons. (hedged) — 00:02:55

00:03:22 — Bad news (warming worse than thought) and good news (a priceless, otherwise impossible geoengineering experiment)

  • ★★★ Hank says this is bad news: global warming is worse than we thought, and other pollution has been shielding us from some of its effects. — 00:03:22 · climate change
  • ★★★ Hank says it is also, in the long run, good news: a priceless experiment that would have been too expensive and politically impossible to run deliberately, since geoengineering is a hot-button issue. — 00:03:22

00:04:11 — Seawater cloud seeding, the moral-hazard objection, coming heat deaths, and the three things we must do at once

  • ★★ Hank says clouds can be seeded without sulfur dioxide's acid rain and asthma, e.g. by misting seawater into the air so the salt crystals left behind seed clouds and fall back into the ocean. — 00:04:11
  • ★★ Hank rejects the argument that geoengineering can't be discussed because it would excuse continued fossil fuel burning; he doesn't think anyone will see it that way in 10 or 20 years. — 00:04:11
  • ★★★ Hank predicts that within 10 or 20 years it will be hot enough to cause many marine extinctions and many human deaths, including heat deaths in the US. — 00:04:40 · United States
  • ★★★ Hank says we must do three things at once: stop emitting new carbon dioxide, start removing old CO2, and deal with the unavoidable impacts of current warming. — 00:04:40
  • ★★ Hank says we are entering the overlap period, when the problem is too big to ignore but can still be solved, so a decades-long natural experiment like this is priceless. — 00:05:09 · climate change
  • ★★★ Hank says we are already geoengineering, so the question is not whether to start but whether to do it intentionally and carefully instead of accidentally and recklessly. — 00:05:09

00:05:34 — Closing: geoengineer intentionally and carefully, not recklessly; sign-off and Awesome Coffee Club plug

  • ★★ Hank says the Awesome Coffee Club is also intentional and careful: rather than relying on certifications, they visit the coffee's makers, and the coffee is cared for from the tree in Colombia to their Missoula warehouse. — 00:05:34 · Awesome Coffee Club, Missoula, Montana

In the description and comments

  • ★ The description recommends a Science article on how changing clouds became an unforeseen geoengineering test, and lists primary sources. — video description

Threads in this video

Where the stories that moved here went next

Mentioned

Central: Atlantic Ocean · climate change · Climate engineering · Ship tracks · Sulfur dioxide

Also: Projects: Awesome Coffee Club

Organizations: International Maritime Organization · United Nations

Rituals: Esther Day

Concepts: acid rain · Asthma · carbon dioxide · Carbon dioxide removal · Climate change adaptation · climate model · cloud · coal · energy transition · extinction · fossil fuel · Marine cloud brightening · sulfuric acid

Places: Colombia · Missoula, Montana · Sahara · United States

Also centred on Climate engineering: A Messy and Unhinged Introduction to Geoengineering

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