HR: 16:25h
AN: U54A-02 INVITED     [Abstracts]
TI: Engineering the earth system
AU: * Keith, D W
EM: keith@ucalgary.ca
AF: University of Calgary, 2500 University Drive NW, Calgary, AB T2N 1N4 Canada
AB: The post-war growth of the earth sciences has been fueled, in part, by a drive to quantify environmental insults in order to support arguments for their reduction, yet paradoxically the knowledge gained is grants us ever greater capability to deliberately engineer environmental processes on a planetary scale. Increased capability can arises though seemingly unconnected scientific advances. Improvements in numerical weather prediction such as the use of adjoint models in analysis/forecast systems, for example, means that weather modification can be accomplished with smaller control inputs. Purely technological constraints on our ability to engineer earth systems arise from our limited ability to measure and predict system responses and from limits on our ability to manage large engineering projects. Trends in all three constraints suggest a rapid growth in our ability to engineer the planet. What are the implications of our growing ability to geoengineer? Will we see a reemergence of proposals to engineer our way out of the climate problem? How can we avoid the moral hazard posed by the knowledge that geoengineering might provide a backstop to climate damages? I will speculate about these issues, and suggest some institutional factors that may provide a stronger constraint on the use of geoengineering than is provided by any purely technological limit.
DE: 1699 General or miscellaneous
DE: 1704 Atmospheric sciences
DE: 6349 General or miscellaneous
SC: Union [U]
MN: Fall Meeting 2005