Sax didn’t find this an elegant solution to the problem. He much preferred his single-phase model, striking directly toward the eventual goal. It meant they had always been a bit short on heat, but Sax judged that disadvantage worth it. And he had done his best to find replacements for the heat that CO2 would have added, as for instance the moholes. Unfortunately Borazjani’s estimate of the heat released by the moholes was fairly low; altogether they had added perhaps 5°K to the mean temperature. Well, there was no getting around it, Sax thought as he tapped notes into his lectern— the only good source of heat was the sun. Thus his aggressive introduction of the orbiting mirrors, which had been growing yearly as sunsailers came out from Luna, where a very efficient production process made them from lunar aluminum. These fleets, Borazjani said, had grown large enough to have added some 5°K to the mean temperature.
The reduced albedo, an effort which had never been very vigorously pursued, had added some 2 degrees. The two hundred or so nuclear reactors scattered around the planet had added another 1.5 degrees.
Then Borazjani came to the cocktail of greenhouse gases; but instead of using the 12°K figure from Simmon’s poster, he estimated it was 14°K, and cited a twenty-year-old paper by J. Watkins to support his assertion. Sax had spotted Berkina sitting in the back row near him, and now he sidled over and leaned down until his mouth was by Berkina’s ear, and whispered, “Why isn’t he using Simmon’s work?”
Berkina grinned and whispered back, “A few years ago Simmon published a paper in which he had taken a very complex figure of the UV-halocarbon interaction from Borazjani. He modified it slightly, and that first time he attributed it to Borazjani, but after that when he used it he only cited his own earlier paper. It’s made Borazjani furious, and he thinks Simmon’s papers on this subject are derivative of Watkins anyway, so whenever he talks about warming he goes back to the Watkins work, and pretends Simmon’s stuff doesn’t exist.”
“Ah,” Sax said. He straightened up, smiling despite himself at Borazjani’s subtle but telling little payback. And in fact Simmon was there across the room, frowning heavily.From BorazjaniBorazjani had not even included the windmill heaters, so on his lectern Sax did. Altogether it came to 37.55°K, a very respectable step, Sax thought, toward their goal of 53°+. They had only been going at it for sixty years, and already most summer days were reaching temperatures above freezing, allowing arctic and alpine plant life to flourish, as he had seen in the Arena Glacier area. And all this before the introduction of the soletta, which was raising insolation by twenty percent.
By now Borazjani had moved on to the warming effects of the water vapor and CO2 that had been released into the atmosphere, which he estimated together as adding another 10°K. “Some of this might be called a synergistic effect,” he said, “as the desorption of CO2 is mainly a result of other warming. But other than that I don’t think we can say that synergy has been much of a factor. The sum of the warming created by all the individual methods matches pretty closely the temperatures reported by weather reports from around the planet.”
The video screen displayed his final table, and Sax made a simplified copy of it into his lectern:
From Borazjani 2 February 14, 2102:
Halocarbons: 14
H2O and CO2: 10
Moholes: 5
Pre-Soletta Mirrors: 5
Reduced Albedo: 2
Nuclear Reactors: 1.5
Borazjani had not even included the windmill heaters, so on his lectern Sax did. Altogether it came to 37.55°K, a very respectable step, Sax thought, toward their goal of 53°+. They had only been going at it for sixty years, and already most summer days were reaching temperatures above freezing, allowing arctic and alpine plant life to flourish, as he had seen in the Arena Glacier area. And all this before the introduction of the soletta, which was raising insolation by twenty percent.
The question period had begun, and someone brought up the soletta, asking Borazjani if he thought it was necessary, given the progress being made with the other methods.
Borazjani shrugged in just the way Sax would have. “What does necessary mean?” he replied. “It depends how warm you want it. According to the standard model as initiated by Russell at Echus Overlook, it is important to keep CO2 levels as low as possible. If we do this, then other warming methods are going to have to be applied to compensate for the loss of the heat that CO2 would have contributed. The soletta might be thought of as compensating for the eventual reduction of CO2 to breathable levels.”
Sax was nodding despite himself.