“What kind of experiment is that?”
She exhaled. “The largest one of all time.”
My gaze narrowed.
“CN-46 is really a tightly-wound package of modified chemicals in aerosol form.”
I recalled what Beverly had told me about the disc-shaped particles. “Let me guess. Each CN-46 compound has a layer of aluminum on one side and a layer of barium titanate on the other one.”
Her eyes widened. “How’d you know?”
“Lucky guess.”
She gave me a curious look. “After delivery, a disc’s lighter aluminum side flips upward. Sunlight strikes the shiny surface and two things happen as a result. First, a process — I think it’s called photophoresis — causes the disc to basically levitate in the upper atmosphere. Second, it reflects sunlight away from Earth. With enough CN-46, Simona can actually cause a global dimming effect. Sort of like what happens during a massive volcanic eruption.”
“She’s trying to duplicate the effects of an eruption?” I asked incredulously. “Why?”
“Simona is conducting a massive geoengineering project.” She paused. “In other words, she’s manipulating the climate on a planetary scale.”
Chapter 46
“Geoengineering?” My mind twisted in disbelief. “But why would Simona want to change the climate?”
“I think she believes the experts are right. Namely, that climate change is real and presents a danger to humanity.” Carrie took a breath. “There are three ways to deal with climate change. First, we mitigate it. That is, we limit its magnitude and range by reducing greenhouse gas emissions or by building out carbon sinks to remove carbon dioxide from the air. Second, we adapt to it. We accept climate change is a foregone conclusion and work on limiting its negative effects. Or third, we shield ourselves from it. That’s what experts call geoengineering.”
“How can a bunch of chemicals shield us from climate change?”
“It’s called solar radiation management. Like I said, CN-46 reflects sunrays back into space. Less sunlight means less warming.”
“And that really works?”
“The theory is sound. Most geoengineering experts advocate depositing sulfur-based particles into the stratosphere. In that layer, the particles react with water, which causes them to block sunlight. But CN-46 is an extremely advanced piece of technology. It allows Simona to shield much more sunlight with far fewer particles.” Carrie shrugged. “Even so, it’s more of a bandage than a fix. It wouldn’t do anything to reduce greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. So, things like ocean acidification would remain an issue.”
Geoengineering.
I mulled over the revelation. It answered some of my questions, but not all of them. For instance, why had Simona sought out the reliquary? And why had Eco-Trek kidnapped homeless people from Saipan?
Something clicked inside my brain. “Have you ever heard of the ‘Year Without a Summer’?”
She shook her head.
History was a passion of mine. But not the usual history taught in school. No, I preferred its mysterious, dark corners. I liked to explore taboo subjects, to question so-called truths. And a little digging revealed much of what modern society believed was patently false. The Wild West really wasn’t all that wild. The Federal Reserve, widely respected as an upstanding institution, had been established in a real-life conspiracy. And the atomic bombs, often viewed as the last shots of World War II, were more accurately described as the first shots of the Cold War.
“In 1815, Mount Tambora erupted in Indonesia,” I said. “It was the largest eruption in recorded history and spewed tons of volcanic ash and sulfur into the stratosphere. The sun’s rays were reflected back to space and global temperatures dropped by an average of about one degree Fahrenheit.”
She nodded. “That’s exactly what Simona is trying to do, only through artificial means.”
“And unfortunately, with similar side-effects. Do you know what happened during the ‘Year Without a Summer’?”
Carrie shook her head.
“In 1816, Crops failed and a massive famine took hold over parts of the world. Food shortages led to riots and even a typhus epidemic in Ireland. At the same time, giant storms occurred. Flooding increased.” I frowned. “There were cultural effects, too. Spectacular sunsets became commonplace. Thousands of people, wiped out by crop losses in New England, headed west in search of better growing conditions. That included Joseph Smith, who ended up in the middle of the ‘Second Great Awakening’ and later went on to found Mormonism. I could go on and on. Hell, even Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, or The Modern Prometheus and John Polidori’s The Vampyre can be traced to the phenomenon.”
She looked surprised. “All that from just one degree of temperature change?”
“One average degree of temperature change. Some places were impacted more than others. Regardless, even a little less sunlight can cause a lot of damage.”
“Wait.” A look of horror crossed her visage. “Are you trying to tell me Simona might be behind all of the strange global weather phenomena? The droughts? The deluges?”
“It looks like it. She might be fighting climate change, but she’s causing a lot of damage in the process.”
Carrie tipped her head back and stared at the ceiling. “Why’d it take so long?” she said after a moment.
“What are you talking about?”
“You said the eruption took place in 1815. But the side effects weren’t felt until 1816.”
“The climate is a complex system. It takes time for things to unwind. Plus, I don’t think the stratosphere gets a lot of rain. Anything that gets into it can stay there for a long time.”
“So, today’s droughts and floods were set in stone months ago.” Her face twisted in thought. “Is winning the war on climate change worth all this collateral damage?”
“Not to me.” I paused. “So, how does Simona do it? I get the theory, but how does she put it into practice?”
“With hard science,” Carrie replied. “She created a program called Eco-Trek PKGCM to model the global climate now and into the future. PKGCM stands for Predictive Knowledge Global Climate Model. It receives constant data feeds from all over the world. It uses that data to constantly update itself as well as its projections on how the climate will change going forward. In other words, it’s a process of constant refinement and perfection. At any given time, the model can predict how CN-46 aerosols, deposited anywhere above Earth, will impact future climate factors. This allows Simona’s experts to choose the optimal locations for dispersals.”
“So, the model is built on data? Isn’t that just data mining?”
“Yes, but I think Simona considers the lack of theory to be an advantage. I can’t say I blame her. The climate isn’t full of simple, cause-and-effect relationships. Rather, variables interact with each other in dynamic ways. They’re probably impossible to understand from a theory-based approach. But a data-based approach? Well, that opens up lots of new opportunities.”
I frowned.
“Simona’s model filters out the noise from thousands of data streams and establishes relationships between them. And since those connections are dynamic, it continuously updates and refines itself with new data streams, taking great care not to over fit the data. The end result is a dynamic optimal complex model. It may not be able to explain the climate in ways we would understand, but it can still mimic and predict it.”
“But data mining has drawbacks. Connections might be coincidental, rather than causal.”
“Maybe you’re right.” She shrugged. “I’m not an expert. Everything I know comes from documents I stole off of Eco-Trek’s servers.”