CHAPTER 6:Engineering Ideas for Brighter Clouds

It may be possible to reduce global warming by increasing the reflectivity of marine stratocumulus clouds thereby reducing the amount of solar energy that is absorbed. Quite a small change to the reflectivity could stop further temperature rise or even produce a reversion towards pre-industrial values. This paper gives a brief account of the physics behind the Twomey effect and its application for marine cloud brightening by the release of sub-micron drops of sea water into the marine boundary layer using a fleet of mobile spray vessels. We argue that the mobility of spray vessels and the short life of spray are advantageous by allowing rapid tactical control in response to local conditions. We identify the main engineering problem as spray production, which in turn requires ultra-filtration of plankton-rich seawater. The proposed engineering solutions involving Rayleigh nozzles etched in silicon and piezo-electric excitation are illustrated with drawings. The results of a COMSOL Multiphysics simulation of drop generation are given, with nozzle diameter, drive pressure, excitation frequency and power requirement as functions of drop diameter. The predicted power requirement is higher than initially hoped for and this has led to a modified vessel design with active hydrofoils giving much lower drag than displacement hulls and turbines. The active control of hydrofoil pitch angle can be used for power generation, roll stabilizing and may also reduce hull loading similarly to the suspension systems of road vehicles. The need to identify unwanted side effects of marine cloud brightening has led to a method for using climate models to give an everywhere-to-everywhere transfer function of the effects of spray in each region on weather records at all observing stations. The technique uses individual coded modulation of the concentration of cloud-condensation nuclei separately in each of many spray regions and is based on methods used for small-signal detection in electronic systems. The first use in a climate model shows very accurate measurement of changes to a temperature record and that that marine cloud brightening can affect precipitation in both directions. Replication with other climate models will be necessary. The paper ends with tentative estimates for the cost of mass production spray vessels based on actual quotations for parts of the spray generation hardware and on the cost of Flower-class corvettes used by the Royal Navy in World War II which were built in similar numbers.