Currently, scientists appear to be primarily looking at reducing the greenhouse effect of carbon dioxide in order to control the amount of atmospheric heating the earth is experiencing.

While this approach tackles the problem head on, perhaps we should also be looking at ways of limiting the amount of atmospheric heating we are presently receiving from the sun.

While clouds act much like a greenhouse, limiting the amount of heat the earth radiates back into space, they also reflect about ninety percent of the insolation striking their upper surface back into space. So even taking the green house effect in to account a layer of the atmosphere consistently lying under a cloud mass tends to experience an overall temperature drop.

Consequently I believe that global warming might partly be reduced by creating large layers of artificially produced clouds. Now I know the reader is immediately concluding that this is some sort of rainmaker’s pipe dream. You are right; it is a pipe dream, only it is a dream with a difference!

The largest untapped reserve of energy in the world is the heat we have in our oceans. Unlike petroleum or even uranium the supply of this heat energy is not only unlimited, it is being daily renewed.

Hurricanes, tornadoes and ocean currents are vivid examples of its potential.

Every gram of water vapor escaping from our oceans carries with it over 1700 calories of heat. This energy can be harvested. Not only can it be harvested, but at the same time the process is being used to transform the oceans heat energy into electricity, it will also produce large areas of cloud. And as the process will work most effectively in the equatorial regions; the clouds will be produced where they will have the greatest effect on global temperatures.

Imagine a tropical bay in close proximity to a 1500+ meter mountain perhaps in the Baha, Venezuela, Indonesia, Borneo, Clebes or New Guinea . By constructing a gigantic (500+ Ha.) greenhouse-like, floating saturated air-catchment structure, warm, moist energy ladened, unstable air can be produced and collected. This supersaturated air can then be drawn from the greenhouse into a penstock like pipe constructed up the side of the nearby mountain. The air would initially be pulled upward through the inverted penstock by a powered turbine located near the top. The turbine at the top would draw the air upward commencing the circulatory (tornado-like) motion needed to trigger the unstable air mass into releasing its heat energy.

I hypothesize that once the rising action is commenced, the lower pressure in the pipe created by the expanding, circulating, rising air may even produce temperature drops sufficient to initiate, condensation. Regardless the heat released by the condensing water droplets would cause the unstable air to further expand and rise. The upward motion of this unstable air would then be used to drive the turbine and produce electricity. The resulting action in the pipe would be very similar if not almost identical to the process observed in a tornado.

If the air supply being drawn in at the bottom is supersaturated, the tornado-like process in the inverted penstock might even produce precipitation and fresh water. At a minimum it would produce an upward wind needed to drive the turbine to produce electricity similar to that done on present day wind farms. And further, this unstable air would continue to rise higher into atmosphere producing a layer of cloud. One can only imagine the leavening effect that 50 or so of these projects each producing a large band of cloud reflecting the sun’s insolation back into space might have on the temperature of the tropical area in which they are located.

I am confident this idea is more than just a pipe dream.  What is needed now is an analysis of the thermodynamics, meteorology/climatology, cost/benefit aspects of the concept. Hopefully, Master of Engineering student somewhere can be encouraged to carry out investigations in the various aspects of the process to either affirm or disprove the idea’s feasibility.

Author: Jack Perry, Campbell River, BC, Canada