Scientists say we don t know enough about the potential of using geoengineering to fight climate change
Solar geoengineering is an unproven technique that could cool down the Earth by blocking out the sun, but there are huge unknowns and potential risks, say scientists.
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Posted: Apr 23, 2021 5:17 PM ET | Last Updated: April 23
Solar geoengineering would involve injecting particles into the stratosphere to reflect sunlight back out into space, much like what happens naturally when volcanoes erupt.(SASTRAWAN GINTING/AFP via Getty Images)
Quirks and Quarks17:19Understanding geoengineering - why we need to investigate last resort to tackle climate change
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As the consequences of global warming become more dire, a research team led by Stony Brook University Professor Jessica Gurevitch is examining the ecological impacts of using a form of geoengineering to mitigate the effects of global warming.
Geoengineering, also known as climate intervention, is a set of proposed methods and technologies designed to alleviate the impacts of environmental change caused by global warming while society works to reduce emissions. One theoretical approach of geoengineering is called stratospheric aerosol intervention (SAI) which involves injecting gaseous precursors of reflective sulfate aerosols into the stratosphere in an attempt to reflect some of the sunlight back into space and in turn, cooling the Earth’s surface.
Bill Gates Controversial Plan to Block Sunlight From Reaching Earth Gets Postponed to 2022
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Bill Gates is funding a controversial Harvard University Solar Geoengineering Research Program which will soon launch an in-depth study researching on how to block sun rays from reaching the Earth s surface and dim the raising temperature to cool off the Earth.
The controversial study was set to take place in Sweden in June 2021 and the Harvard committee said it is postponing the research to 2022 due to ethical reasons. The project is estimated to cost around $18 billion or more, on par with NASA s annual budget.
Researchers are bringing science to bear on the question and consequences of humans using technology to put the brakes on global warming.
Nine of the hottest years in human history have occurred in the past decade. Without a major shift in this climate trajectory, the future of life on Earth is in question, but is geoengineering a cooler Earth the way to go?
“There is a dearth of knowledge about the effects of climate intervention on ecology,” says Phoebe Zarnetske, associate professor in the integrative biology department in Michigan State University’s College of Natural Science and lead author of the new paper in the
Reflecting sunlight back to space might help cool down Earth s ecosystem ANI | Updated: Apr 10, 2021 17:08 IST
Minnesota [US], April 10 (ANI): During a recent study, climate scientists and ecologists from leading research universities internationally, found that further research is needed in order to understand the ecological impacts of solar radiation modification (SRM) technologies that reflect small amounts of sunlight back into space.
Published in the Proceedings of National Academy of Sciences, researchers in the Climate Intervention Biology Working Group including Jessica Hellmann from the University of Minnesota Institute on the Environment explored the effect of solar climate interventions on ecology.