The 'GREEN BOAT EFFECT' Part II: Cool Yachts And Global Warming

What if man could create cloud cover that would reflect the sun’s rays back into the universe and thus shade the earth to keep it cool? Sounds far-fetched? Guess what. It’s one of the top innovative ideas of preventing global warming and scientists are working on it to make it a reality! They have come up with a ‘Cool Yacht’ to do the trick. Check it out.

Professors John Latham and Stephen Salter have designed a fleet of that would pump fine particles of sea-water into clouds, thickening them to reflect more of the Sun’s rays.
Calculations show that if there is about 3% increase in the amount of sunlight reflected back into the space, the cooling will balance the global warming caused by increased CO2 in the atmosphere.

The idea of a fleet of "cloudseeders"(cooling yachts), was born from a remark made by Prof. Lathem’s son Mike, decades ago. They were on a mountainside in North Wales, looking west towards Ireland. He asked why clouds were shiny at the top but dark at the bottom. Lathem then explained how clouds were mirrors for incoming sunlight!

In order to deploy this scheme to produce adequate cooling, the fleet would need to spray sea-water droplets continuously over a significant fraction of the world's oceanic surface, at a total rate of around 50 cubic metres per second. Professor Stephen Salter has developed plans for a novel form of spray-droplet production (involving high-velocity propulsion of sea-water droplets), and has designed a wind-powered unmanned vessel which can be remotely guided to regions where cloud seeding is most favorable. Instead of sails, these vessels use a much more efficient technique to power the yacht- Flettner rotors.

These spinning vertical cylinders mounted on the deck are named after their inventor, Anton Flettner. They also house the spraying system which sprays sea-water droplets from the top of the rotors. The power required for spraying, communications and so on comes from electricity generated by turbines dragged along by the vessels. They envisage that about 1,000 such vessels would be required to make the scheme effective.

ADVANTAGE
One advantage of the plan is that it is ecologically benign; the only raw material required being sea-water. The amount of cooling could be controlled, via satellite measurements and a computer model, and if an emergency arose, the system could be switched off, with conditions returning to normal within a few days.
In addition to global temperature stabilization, we also envisage that the technique could be used to remedy more regional problems, such as the dying of the coral reefs as a result of ocean warming.

DISADVANTAGE
There might be serious or harmful meteorological or climatological ramifications (such as reducing rainfall in regions where water is scarce). If so, a solution for them needs to be arrived at.

While it is all very well spraying the clouds, what effect will this have on the world's fragile eco-system, and do we have the right to interfere with the planet's weather conditions in this way? Everything has two faces to it. As long as we arrive at a win-win situation 'The Cool Yacht' will by far be a great achievement.