Cooling the Planet? Image of depleted Ozone Layer Around the South Pole, Antarctica. Source: Wikimedia Commons
Grandiose plans to cool Earth, saving the planet from overheating by utilizing low-tech balloon flights sprinkling particles into the atmosphere to reflect solar radiation back into outer space have been delayed, nobody knows for sure when, or if, it’ll proceed.
The planet-cooling scheme referred to as Stratospheric Controlled Perturbation Experiment aka: SCoPEx headed by Harvard professor Fran Keutsch hopes to save humanity from hothouse Earth with plans to sprinkle aerosols of calcium carbonate and other substances at 12 miles above Earth’s surface to reflect solar radiation to outer space. The initial flight scheduled for June 2021 was set to test the balloon and gondola equipment sans release of aerosols until later in the year.
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The climate keeps getting hotter, and officials around the world are failing to rise to the task of tackling emissions to ensure a future for our kids and grandkids. Amid this backdrop, an international team of experts suggests reflecting sunlight back into space could help keep the warming under control.
Image via Pixabay.
The team focused on exploring the potential benefits and shortcomings of using various technological means of reflecting sunlight away from our planet which should help cool it down. This approach, known as solar radiation modification (SRM), should be much cheaper and more cost-effective than our other current alternatives. Together with reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, an SRM-type program could help mitigate or even counter the warming trend that started in the Industrial Revolution.
Harvard researchers announced Wednesday they will postpone a test flight for a controversial environmental engineering project â the Stratospheric Controlled Perturbation Experiment â after pushback from an Indigenous peoplesâ group in Sweden.
Through the project, known as âSCoPEx,â School of Engineering and Applied Sciences engineering professor Frank N. Keutschâs research group plans to release a small amount of particles into the stratosphere to test whether those particles could reflect sunlight back to space.
According to the Keutsch research groupâs website, the projectâs goal is to better understand solar geoengineering, a controversial strategy that could be used to curb global warming. The project is supported in part by philanthropist Bill Gates through SEASâs Solar Geoengineering Research Program.
National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine (NASEM) said on March 25.
Solar geoengineering involves increasing the amount of radiation that gets reflected back to Earth to cool the planet. It is a form of geoengineering or the deliberate modification of Earth’s natural systems to tackle climate issues.
In a new report, a panel of scientists recommended allotting $40 million a year to ramp up solar geoengineering research. In particular, it suggested looking into spraying reflective aerosols into the atmosphere, thinning high-altitude clouds and brightening low-altitude marine clouds.
“Climate engineering is a really dumb idea, but it might not be as dumb as doing nothing at this point or continuing to do what we’ve been doing,” Lynn Russell, an atmospheric chemist at the