Summary of Research Areas That Should be Funded

1. Global and mesoscale (regional) modeling of the impact of the GAEP by LLNL and Altostratus, Inc., possibly using conditions in previous LLNL published studies for comparison. The impact of incremental vs. instantaneous coverage would be studied. Similarly, global and mesoscale modeling by LBNL and Altostratus of the application of the GAEP to land surrounding urban heat islands for the 100 largest cities and for selected urban areas in the U.S. for which the GAEP may be applicable, comparing this with the albedo enhancement of pavement and roof tops.

2. Modeling of the effect of changing the albedo of the southwestern Sahara on the formation of Cape Verde hurricanes.

3. Development and evaluations of emergency mitigation plans to address massive methane release from sediments.

4. Development and evaluations of mitigation plans in event of partial or complete shutdown of North Atlantic arm of the oceanic thermohaline circulation system with emphasis on examination of atmospheric particulate injection to speed its recovery.

5. Investigation of plans to alter hurricane steering currents and create wind shear to destroy hurricanes using atmospheric particulate injection.