Combatting Global Warming With Artificial Volcanos?

An anonymous reader writes, "Some scientists are suggesting that a short-term solution to global warming could be to inject sulfate-based aerosols into the stratosphere as a 'sunlight-reflecting, cooling foil.' Tom Wigley of the National Center for Atmospheric Research says that adding just 5 million metric tons of sulfur dioxide annually to the stratosphere 'would have a significant influence.'" From the article: "Constant aerosol production also could mean we wouldn't have blue skies anymore, and it could reduce incoming solar radiation enough to hobble such imperatives as replacing fossil fuel with solar energy technologies."

Comments

Sounds to me like..

[le0p]

a preemptive strike against the machines!

please don't mess more

[yagu]

Anyone who needs evidence science is an inexact science need only remember Carl Sagan and his wrong prediction on the Kuwait oil fires (emphasis mine):

Sagan famously predicted on ABC's Nightline in 1991 that smoky oil fires in Kuwait (set by Saddam Hussein's army) would cause a worldwide ecological disaster of black clouds resulting in global cooling. Retired atmospheric physicist and climate change skeptic Fred Singer dismissed Sagan's prediction as nonsense, predicting that the smoke would dissipate in a matter of days. In his book The Demon-Haunted World, Sagan gave a list of errors he had made (including his predictions about the effects of the Kuwaiti oil fires) as an example of how science is tentative.

And that prediction explicitly about the effects of something on our atmosphere, ostensibly by one of our most noted intellects. The notion that we have any notion of what the effects of this effort would ulitmately be is indeterminant, and could introduce far more disastrous and devastating unforeseen results.

Similar to a proposed "solution" to nuclear war

[R2.0]

Way back when, one of the suggested "fixes" for nuclear weapons was to loft a few tons of gravel into LEO. ICBM's would be destroyed upon hitting the gravel lair, and the threat of nuclear annihilation would be gone forever. Except:

1) Wouldn't do anything for bombers or other delivery methods.
2) Would forever close off space exploration, thereby stranding us here and cutting us off from sending out probes, etc.

The worst thing is, some considered the second a small price to pay to guarantee their safety.