The idea behind the marine cloud-brightening (MCB) geoengineering technique is that seeding marine stratocumulus clouds with copious quantities of roughly monodisperse sub-micrometre sea water particles might significantly enhance the cloud droplet number concentration, and thereby the cloud albedo and possibly longevity. This would produce a cooling, which general circulation model (GCM) computations suggest could—subject to satisfactory resolution of technical and scientific problems identified herein—have the capacity to balance global warming up to the carbon dioxide-doubling point. We describe herein an account of our recent research on a number of critical issues associated with MCB. This involves (i) GCM studies, which are our primary tools for evaluating globally the effectiveness of MCB, and assessing its climate impacts on rainfall amounts and distribution, and also polar sea-ice cover and thickness; (ii) high-resolution modelling of the effects of seeding on marine stratocumulus, which are required to understand the complex array of interacting processes involved in cloud brightening; (iii) microphysical modelling sensitivity studies, examining the influence of seeding amount, seed-particle salt-mass, air-mass characteristics, updraught speed and other parameters on cloud–albedo change; (iv) sea water spray-production techniques; (v) computational fluid dynamics studies of possible large-scale periodicities in Flettner rotors; and (vi) the planning of a three-stage limited-area field research experiment, with the primary objectives of technology testing and determining to what extent, if any, cloud albedo might be enhanced by seeding marine stratocumulus clouds on a spatial scale of around 100×100 km. We stress that there would be no justification for deployment of MCB unless it was clearly established that no significant adverse consequences would result. There would also need to be an international agreement firmly in favour of such action.

A theoretical model for the thermal lens and birefringent effects induced in a continuously pumped Nd:YAG rod is developed. Experimental measurements of these effects using a 6328-Å probe are described and compared to theory. Excellent agreement between the two types of measurements and theory is obtained. The thermally birefringent and bifocusing phenomena are suggested as causes of reductions in the polarized and fundamental TEM00 powers from a high-power multimode Nd:YAG laser. Typical results are described using a laser which operates in the 200−300-W range of average powers.

We review the bootstrap method for constructing six-and seven-particle amplitudes in planar N = 4 super Yang-Mills theory, by exploiting their analytic structure. We focus on two recently discovered properties which greatly simplify this construction at symbol and function level, respectively: the extended Steinmann relations, or equivalently cluster adjacency, and the coaction principle. We then demonstrate their power in determining the six-particle amplitude through six and seven loops in the NMHV and MHV sectors respectively, as well as the symbol of the NMHV seven-particle amplitude to four loops.

We address the appearance of algebraic singularities in the symbol alphabet of scattering amplitudes in the context of planar N = 4 super Yang-Mills theory. We argue that connections between cluster algebras and tropical geometry provide a natural language for postulating a finite alphabet for scattering amplitudes beyond six and seven points where the corresponding Grassmannian cluster algebras are finite. As well as generating natural finite sets of letters, the tropical fans we discuss provide letters containing square roots. Remarkably, the minimal fan we consider provides all the square root letters recently discovered in an explicit two-loop eightpoint NMHV calculation.

The large-scale production of vast numbers of suitable salt nuclei and their upward launch is one of the main technological barriers to the experimental testing of marine cloud brightening (MCB). Very promising, though not definitive, results have been obtained using an adapted version of effervescent spray atomization. The process is simple, robust and inexpensive. This form of effervescent spraying uses only pressurized water and air sprayed from small nozzles to obtain very fine distributions. While it is far from optimized, and may not be the best method if full deployment is ever desired, we believe that even in its present form the process would lend itself well to preliminary field test investigations of MCB. Measurements obtained using standard aerosol instrumentation show approximately lognormal distributions of salt nuclei with median diameters of approximately 65 nm and geometric standard deviations slightly less than 2. However, these measurements are not in agreement with those based on scanning electron microscopy imaging of collected particles, an observation that has not yet been explained. Assuming the above distribution, 1015 particles per second could be made with 21 kW of spray power, using approximately 200 nozzles. It is envisioned that existing snow making equipment can be adapted to launch the nuclei 60–100 m into the air, requiring approximately 20 kW of additional power.