Will Giant Bubble Baths Help Stop Global Warming?

We humans have learned that bubble baths go a long way in soothing frazzled nerves and helping us relax. Now, a scientist from Harvard University in Cambridge , believes that giving our waters the same treatment may have a similar effect on our Planet, and help stop or at least slow down global warming.

Russell Seitz thinks that the ideas on curbing global warming, have all been geared toward 'dimming' our Sun. However, his theory is that since water covers most of our planet, we should be thinking about 'brightening' our waters.

As we all know, bright surfaces reflects light - and while that is already happening to a certain extent by the natural bubbles, it is not enough to cool our planet. Seitz's idea is to accelerate this natural phenomenon, by adding man-made bubbles to the surface of larger sections of our waters. His computer simulations show that pumping enough micro bubbles, which he describes as 'mirrors made of air', could help cool the planet by as much as, 3 degrees Celsius or 34.7 degrees Fahrenheit.

In addition to curbing global warming, this strategy could also help conserve water, by reducing the evaporation of fresh water from our rivers and lakes - a problem that leads to the loss of billions of gallons of water every year, from just the State of California.

While the computer simulations sound good, nobody know whether this will work in practice. Even if it does, the logistics of pumping this many bubbles into our vast oceans and ensuring that they don't dissipate immediately, as they tend to in really clean water, is a hurdle that will have to be crossed, before the concept can be implemented.

However, as one Oceanographer puts it, nobody has ever thought of it from this angle and on paper at least, it certainly sounds plausible! We'll just have to wait and see what the rest of the experts think after they read through the details in Mr. Seitz's paper entitled, 'Bright Water' - but, it's encouraging to think that we may be able to do something to help our planet.

source: slashdot.org