Latest news with #StuartHaszeldine
Daily Mail
01-07-2025
- Science
- Daily Mail
Scientists want to use giant PARACHUTES to stop the Gulf Stream collapsing – in controversial geoengineering experiment to combat global warming
As climate change disrupts the planet, experts are worried that a key ocean current called the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) may collapse. This current is responsible for driving the Gulf Stream and bringing warm water from the tropics northwards to keep Europe temperate. Now, scientists have proposed a radical solution to save these vital systems and prevent Europe from slipping into a new Ice Age. Researchers say tugboats could tow huge underwater parachutes around the ocean to manually power the current. Each parachute would be the size of half a football field and would feature a 12-metre hole in the centre to allow ocean life to pass through. Just 30 to 50 shipping tankers, drones, fishing boats, or wind kites operating 365 days a year could be enough to power the entire Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC). Professor Stuart Haszeldine, of the University of Edinburgh, and David Sevier, founder of water treatment Strengite, presented the idea at the Arctic Repair conference in Cambridge this week. Professor Haszeldine told MailOnline: 'We think that this is a remedy well worth trying - because we want to keep the flows of ocean current similar to what we know works well just now.' The AMOC is the largest ocean current in the world and runs from south to north through the Atlantic Ocean. As warm water travels northwards from the tropics, it hits the sea ice around Greenland and the Nordic countries, cooling and becoming much saltier. As the water cools, it becomes denser, sinking rapidly towards the bottom of the ocean where it flows back southwards before once again warming and rising to the surface. This process of 'deep water formation' is the engine for a vast global conveyor belt which pumps heat and water all around the Atlantic Ocean. However, climate change is now melting the northern sea ice and warming the ocean, sparking fears that the engine driving this current could soon stall. The effects of an AMOC collapse would be devastating, leaving European countries 5-20°C (9-36°F) colder and drastically weakening the Gulf Stream. Professor Haszeldine says: 'Our proposition is made in the realisation that there is a real risk that the AMOC current could decrease and falter in the next 20 or 50 years.' If it does begin to falter, these scientists suggest that existing technology could be adapted to keep the current moving. What is the AMOC? The Gulf Stream is a small part of a much wider system of currents, officially called the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation or AMOC. Described as 'the conveyor belt of the ocean', it transports warm water near the ocean's surface northwards - from the tropics to the northern hemisphere. When the warm water reaches the North Atlantic (Europe and the UK, and the US east coast), it releases the heat and then freezes. As this ice forms, salt is left behind in the ocean water. Due to the large amount of salt in the water, it becomes denser, sinks, and is carried southwards – back towards the tropics – in the depths below. Eventually, the water gets pulled back up towards the surface and warms up in a process called upwelling, completing the cycle. Scientists think AMOC brings enough warmth to the northern hemisphere that without it, large parts of Europe could enter a deep freeze. 'The key point is to use surface shipping, which can tow a specially designed sea anchor behind the shipping, at a controlled depth,' says Professor Haszeldine. Parachutes, similar to current sea anchors used to hold ships in place, would be towed in the direction of the existing AMOC flow. The ships would only need to move just faster than the AMOC itself moves, no more than 2.5 miles per hour (4 kmph) - or about walking speed. Although the AMOC moves vast quantities of heat around the globe, Professor Haszeldine says its overall kinetic energy is relatively small. By selecting areas where the AMOC current is shallow enough to reach with a parachute and concentrated enough for the ships to make an impact, only a handful of ships will be needed. These ships will need to be in motion 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, on rotating shifts. However, Professor Haszeldine says this would be 'a small amount of kinetic movement' to produce a large impact on moving heat. Their research estimates that the required energy would be no more than that produced by a small offshore wind farm each year. If biodiesel is used, this would produce approximately 2.6 million tonnes of CO2 per year, which the researchers say is a 'very low' impact compared to the benefits. However, the proposal has been met with scepticism by leading AMOC researchers. Dr René van Westen, of Utrecht University, told MailOnline: 'The AMOC carries 17 million cubic meters of water per second - for reference, one million cubic meters of water per second is equivalent to the globally combined river discharge. 'I can't imagine that one can displace that amount of water with parachutes.' Even if parachutes could be effective, Dr van Westen says that they would only strengthen the upper wind-blown portion of the AMOC current. This section extends between 100 and 500 metres beneath the surface but only affects a small part of the ocean current's overall movement. Deeper currents are primarily driven by the sinking of colder water due to density differences across the Atlantic Ocean. It is this part of the current which is most at risk of collapsing due to climate change's impact on the Arctic. Dr van Westen says: 'The sinking is a crucial part of the AMOC, and you do not change this with the surface winds. Likewise, Professor Meric Srokosz, of the National Oceanography Centre in Southampton, told MailOnline: 'The physics just doesn't work.' Professor Srokosz says: 'In rather simplistic terms, think about pushing water along with your hand in the bath, it won't sink but rather flow round the sides of your hand. 'Even if you could move the water along, you still need to make it sink.' ATLANTIC OCEAN CIRCULATION PLAYS A KEY ROLE IN REGULATING THE GLOBAL CLIMATE When it comes to regulating global climate, the circulation of the Atlantic Ocean plays a key role. This is due to a constantly moving system of deep-water circulation often referred to as the Global Ocean Conveyor Belt which sends warm, salty Gulf Stream water to the North Atlantic where it releases heat to the atmosphere and warms Western Europe. The cooler water then sinks to great depths and travels all the way to Antarctica and eventually circulates back up to the Gulf Stream. This motion is fuelled by thermohaline currents – a combination of temperature and salt. It takes thousands of years for water to complete a continuous journey around the world. Researchers believe that as the North Atlantic began to warm near the end of the Little Ice Age, freshwater disrupted the system, called the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC). Arctic sea ice, and ice sheets and glaciers surrounding the Arctic began to melt, forming a huge natural tap of fresh water that gushed into the North Atlantic. This huge influx of freshwater diluted the surface seawater, making it lighter and less able to sink deep, slowing down the AMOC system.
Metro
08-05-2025
- Science
- Metro
UK plans to 'dim the sun' gets £57,000,000 funding - but what's the point
The process of 'dimming the sun' sounds like something from a dystopian film but this could be reality soon. A government backed body called the Advanced Research and Innovation Agency (ARIA) is funding £57million for it. But what is dimming the sun and what is the point of it? We take a look below. Dimming the sun, is known in scientific terms as Solar Radiation Modification (SRM), and is the process of reflecting the sun back into the atmosphere. Some scientists hope this will temporarily limit rising temperatures on Earth. One potential way of doing this is spraying a fine mist of natural sea water into the atmosphere from a coastal location in the UK. This they hope would brighten existing cloud and increase the reflectivity. Another technique would be to take sulfate aerosols into a weather balloon, release them into the stratosphere, which then scatter sunlight back into space. Professor Stuart Haszeldine, Professor of Carbon Capture and Storage at the University of Edinburgh, has welcomed the research. He said: 'Humans are losing the battle against climate change. Engineering cooling is necessary because in spite of measurements and meetings and international treaties during the past 70 years, the annual emissions of greenhouse gases have continued to increase. 'The world is heading towards heating greater than any time in our civilisation. 'Many natural processes are reaching a tipping point, where the earth may jump into a different pattern of behaviour.' The whole point of something like this is the fact that are world is getting hotter. In 2024, global average temperatures were running at 1.6°C above pre-industrial levels. By the end of the 2030s, this picture only gets worse, with current trajectories showing the world passing 1.5°C of long-term warming. But critics are worried about the impact this will have on human health and on our weather systems, such as the warming of polar regions and increased rainfall. More Trending The ARIA has said that 'before any outdoor experiment takes place there will be a full and transparent public consultation with necessary environmental assessments taken place'. And any outdoor experimentation 'will only occur after robust oversight measures which won't include the release of any toxic materials'. One of those worried is Raymond Pierrehumbert, Professor of Planetary Physics at Oxford University, who said: 'People want a Plan B if we don't reduce global emissions. But there really is no Plan B, it just kicks the can down the road because [solar geo-engineering] doesn't take away the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. 'Now the UK is pouring nearly £70 million into this and opening the door to outside experimentation, then that's just going to open the floodgates to other countries that may have fewer controls.' Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@ For more stories like this, check our news page. MORE: Could the conflict between India and Pakistan lead to nuclear war? MORE: Met Office gives verdict on bank holiday weather after record warm start to May MORE: Enjoy the warmth while you can – it's fizzling out just in time for the bank holiday
The National
25-04-2025
- Science
- The National
How Abu Dhabi's salt domes could help the UAE reach its net-zero targets
Natural geological structures called salt domes in Abu Dhabi could play a leading role in the UAE's energy transition, new research suggests. These structures of sedimentary rocks, formed where a large mass of salt has been forced upwards, often forming traps for oil or natural gas, are of interest to engineers who are concerned with the storage of hydrogen generated by renewable energy. In a new study, to be presented at a conference in Vienna at the end of April, scientists said that UAE authorities are 'actively exploring the use' of salt domes for large-scale hydrogen and hydrocarbon storage. This, they said, is being carried out in line with the country's aim of a 'clean energy transition and decarbonisation'. The scientists from Khalifa University of Science and Technology in Abu Dhabi and oil company Adnoc, said that the Jebel Al Dhanna salt dome stretches up to 2.8 kilometres east to west and 4.2km north to south. It was analysed using three-dimensional seismic techniques and four boreholes to assess its capacity for salt caverns, which are created within the domes by using liquid to dissolve the salt to leave a cavity that can be used for storage. 'You engineer the salt caverns by pumping water underground and gradually dissolving over a year or three years,' said Stuart Haszeldine, a geologist and professor of carbon capture and storage at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland. While the size of salt caverns depends on the size of the structure in which they are being created, Prof Haszeldine said they typically stretch 20 to 30 metres vertically or 30 to 50 metres horizontally, although they can be much larger. The demand for hydrogen is growing and an advantage is that it can be stored underground until needed. At times of greater energy demand, the hydrogen can be extracted and used to power fuel cells that generate energy, or burned to produce heat. Hydrogen is ideally stored underground, said Kevin Taylor, a professor in energy geoscience at the University of Manchester in England, because the gas's low density means that it is not economical to build large-scale storage above the ground. The use of salt caverns to store hydrogen is still at an experimental stage. However, the European Union is currently supporting a project called HyPSTER (Hydrogen Pilot Storage for large Ecosystem Replication) which is a large-scale salt cavern in Etrez in eastern France for hydrogen storage. The project team announced in late 2024 that the first hydrogen molecules had been injected into a salt cavern. Prof Haszeldine said that in the Gulf states, salt caverns could be used to store hydrogen for either export or domestic use. They are already, he said, 'well proven' for the storage of methane. In separate research published last year, Chinese scientists looked at the potential for salt caverns to be used for the storage of carbon dioxide. With carbon capture and storage, where CO2 released by industrial plants is collected, and direct air capture, where CO2 is sucked out of the air, the carbon dioxide is typically stored deep underground. Ideally, it is dissolved and mineralised, creating a permanent storage so that the carbon no longer contributes to global warming. However, producing salt caverns to store CO2 permanently in this way may not be realistic, given the costs of creating the cavern, while another drawback is that the gas will not become mineralised. 'You could use salt caverns for CO2 storage, but you would probably make more money injecting hydrogen or methane in and out,' Prof Haszeldine said. ' … If you're going to mine a cavern as a business, you will probably mine a cavern for the storage of hydrogen.' While salt caverns may not be ideal for permanent CO2 storage, the researchers from China indicated in the journal Engineering they could be used for non-permanent CO2 storage and so could help to 'promote the important transformation of carbon as a waste to [an] industrial resource'.
