For global warming; we have the space shuttle, why not shade the sun to cool the earth.?

Question

A sun screen between the earth and sun could cool the earth and the oceans to prevent hurricanes.

Answer 1

The consequences of such a shade could be seriously devestatin. Even if we can build a shade and find a way to remain and the correct location in space, we'd have to consider what would happen to the Earth with the adjustment to our sunlight. It could be very harmful to plants and animals, not to mention humans.
Suprisingly enough, scientists are actually considering this as an option to prevent catastrophic global warming.

Answer 2

Read "Ringworld" by Larry Niven. He's got the whole sun-shade thing figured out.

The shade doesn't need to be so big if it's closer to the sun. Kind of like the moon eclipses the earth, and it's not as big - go a lot farther with that idea.

And who said you needed to shade the whole earth at once? If global warming is a gradual process of very small percentage changes, just float a shade out there that cuts only 1/1000 of the solar energy. Something with an orbit where it's only "shading" the earth a few times per year a couple of hours or minutes at a time, so slightly you just notice the sun is slightly less intense for that time. Might be such a small thing you can't even see it - because you'd have to look into the sun to see it and even then, need filters and a telescope to pick up the "shade".

It's not so crazy as it might sound, if you're picturing a beach umbrella the size of the earth orbiting the earth right over the top of it. Think farther away, smaller umbrella.

Did any of you see the Nova special on global cooling? There's cooling effects from pollution going on right now. The guy doing the research had been looking for evidence for years, but couldn't ever get a before/after kind of comparison thing going on. Guess when he got his grand experiment? September 12, 13, 14, 2001. Why these days? Because those were the days all flights in the U.S. were grounded. In just that little bit of time, the cloud cover changed significantly, and the temperatures were noticeably different (enough to be explained by the change in cloud cover). And he had over 5000 weather stations in the U.S. reporting the data more or less continuously for that time - the effect was consistent and widespread - a life's work worth of data in 3 days. Pretty scary - that global warming will be worse if we don't fly as much. So the current anti-pollution hubub in Europe about airline flight has it so, so wrong - we need the planes to make the contrails that form the clouds that keep us from heating up so fast...

Answer 3

Actually the planet IS dimming (Global Dimming) from aircraft. (this reflects sun from hitting the earth) however it also keeps heat from inside the earth from escaping!

1. Can not stop global warming (Its a natural process, thanks that humankind evolved in such nice time period)

2. Yes, we are causing it to happen NOW and much faster then it should have.

3. Even if we stop all CO2 emissions today still the planet will warm up 1-3C in 100 years

4. Yes we should try to help to reduce Co2 and other global warming emissions as this could rise to 3-9C (many factors are involved)

5. 6C + may cause many rich ecommies to be come poor. (NOT GOOD)

6. Regardless thanks to new technologies made and being developed its NOT the END of the world (We are at the best time in human history to cope with this)

7. Changing crops locations and GM crops resistant to droughts are already feeding people that should have died today. (this will get better)

8. This year already plants are now are growing with little or no help that 10-20 years ago people said couldn't grow in the UK. Also UK now has a wine industry!! But with the UK's success unfortunately some islands in the pacific are being flooded, while others are being artificially raised.

Answer 4

The problem with global warming is not just the sun. It has mostly to do with the release of carbon gases into the atmosphere. They build up in the atmosphere and trap the suns heat. Therefore shading the sun would only solve half of the problem. Also there is no way to know what kind of diverse effects shading the sun will have on the environment's of the world. Shading the sun may cause an even more dangerous environment on our planet than currently exists.

Answer 5

The shield wouldn't have to be that large, just closer to the sun than the Earth. If we cut down the amount of sunlight to the planet, over time there could be devastating effects. Most life on Earth depends on a certain amount of sunlight to prosper. Let's just shoot off some type of rocket with some high tech "stuff" into the Sun and just blow up the Sun?! We won't have to worry about "Global Warming" then.. just "Global Cooling" like I was told when I was younger (back in the 80's)!!!

Answer 6

1. Who do you propose pay for that? 2. Who decides for the world what risks to take? 3. The Space Shuttles are retired. 4. It would further decrease the difference between day and night temperatures. 5. It would not decrease ocean acidification. The cost to build a space shuttle would be at least $2 Billion. To launch it would cost at least $500 million per mission. Your definition of the word "practically" differs from my definition. You should be careful of what you call "stupidity". You seem woefully out of touch with political realities. Your whole premise - that there are people who don't want a government-funded solution because then there would be no fear mongering in an attempt to get a solution - is nonsensical.

Answer 7

There already is a problem with Global Dimming.

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Global Diming
Global Diming (AKA Global Dumping) is a process that works in the opposite direction to Global Warming. Basically, the global diming makes our planet colder instead of warmer (such as the Global warming), but it also decrease the difference in the temperature from day to night, it makes the nights warmer and the days colder.

In the deeper theory, Global Diming is made by particles that we pollute the earth with. Light particles that can step claim up in the air and pollute the clouds. When they are up there, they prevent rain to fall by capturing light water drops so they can't collide with other water drops to create big water drops that can fall as rain.

Did that sound complicated? Think of a big white cloud, it is basically a bunch of small water drops. They are not falling down since they are too small. They must first reach a sufficient size before they finally can fall down to the ground. This means that they have to collide with other water drops first. The problem is that they don't collide with other water drops but instead collide with a particle. The particle can store a lot of drops in his pocket before it will fall down since the particle is often both big and very light.

Those particles will not fall down for a long time in other words. This means that we store big clouds for a longer time before they will rain off. This creates dry periods in the summer, especially in Africa but also in Australia, America, Southern Europe and Asia.

The lack of rain is not the only effect that we can see from this. They are also creating big mirrors (white clouds reflect the sunshine) in our atmosphere. Which leads to a several side effects such as those mentioned above.

We create it mostly buy Jet planes such as Boing 747 and Airbus but we are also creating a little bit of that from our industries and transportation such as(and especially as) diesel-cars.

It reduces the global warming, so these two climate movements are struggling against each other. Right now it seems like Global Warming leads the game by creating a 1 degree warmer climate the latest century. But how much would the Global warming be able to create without the Global diming?

The answer would be incorrect if we answer today, since we know too little about it, but a wild guess is: 4 degrees.

Answer 8

Think of it this way.... during a solar eclipse, the moon "shades" much much less than 1 % of the earth..This has such a small effect as to only locally cool the area. Think of it like dropping 1 ice cube in a bathtub of boiling water...yeah it will cool it down a little...but why not just turn of the heat? to see a picture of an eclipse on the earths surface follow the link.

Answer 9

A sun shade has indeed been proposed. But that will not stop hurricanes.

And by the way, global warming is not going to make more or stronger hurricanes. I have not seen any convincing evidence that says there should be a connection between global warming and hurricanes. Just saying hurricanes are caused by warm water and that there will be more warm water due to global warming is stupid. It isn't as simple as that. If it were that simple, then we could forecast hurricanes much better than we do now.

Answer 10

I'm pretty sure Mr. Burns tried something like that on an episode of the Simpsons, and it didn't work out so well. Although they don't go into scientific detail on the show (for obvious reasons) I can assure you that blocking the sun would have entirely more negative effects than positive ones.