US Scientists Launch World's Biggest Solar Geoengineering Study (theguardian.com)

In what will be the world's biggest solar geoengineering program to date, U.S. scientists part of the $20 million Harvard University project are going to send aerosol injections 20km (~12.4 miles) into the earth's stratosphere "to establish whether the technology can safely simulate the atmospheric cooling effects of a volcanic eruption," The Guardian reports. From the report: Scientists hope to complete two small-scale dispersals of first water and then calcium carbonate particles by 2022. Future tests could involve seeding the sky with aluminum oxide -- or even diamonds. Janos Pasztor, Ban Ki-moon's assistant climate chief at the UN who now leads a geoengineering governance initiative, said that the Harvard scientists would only disperse minimal amounts of compounds in their tests, under strict university controls. Geoengineering advocates stress that any attempt at a solar tech fix is years away and should be viewed as a compliment to -- not a substitute for -- aggressive emissions reductions action. But the Harvard team, in a promotional video for the project, suggest a redirection of one percent of current climate mitigation funds to geoengineering research, and argue that the planet could be covered with a solar shield for as little as $10 billion a year. Some senior UN climate scientists view such developments with alarm, fearing a cash drain from proven mitigation technologies such as wind and solar energy, to ones carrying the potential for unintended disasters. If lab tests are positive, the experiment would then be replicated with a limestone compound which the researchers believe will neither absorb solar or terrestrial radiation, nor deplete the ozone layer.

Comments

Re: Trump has a plan to fix it quicker and more pe

[Berkyjay]

Democrats allowed North Korea to develop nuclear weapons, and they are an imminent threat to use them.

Ummm, say what now? Are you just an idiot or are you intentionally trying to rewrite history? Because it was the Bush administration who completely ignored NK in favor of fucking up the Middle East. NK left the the Non-Proliferation treaty in 2003 and had their first successful test in 2006. Every single fucking existential threat that faces our country today is the direct result of Republican geopolitical policies.

We don't know what we don't know

[jenningsthecat]

The proposed scheme reduces Earth's infrared energy surplus by reducing the amount of visible light reaching us from the sun. Photosynthesis requires certain wavelengths of visible light; so reducing the amount of sunlight reaching plants will reduce photosynthesis, which will in turn reduce the conversion rate of CO2 to O2. So while less energy comes into the system, more CO2 remains in the system, and the latter will tend to offset the former. The net effect on warming might be zero. Worse, we could be upside-down on the transaction, with the net effect actually worsening global warming in the long term. Yes, volcanic eruptions reduce average temperatures; but their effects are fairly short-lived, and don't give us much of a clue about the consequences of reducing the amount of sunlight reaching the Earth's surface over a span of decades or centuries. Also, it strikes me that we might experience significantly-reduced crop yields as an additional result of the reduced photosynthesis - not a good thing when we may also be losing arable land as a result of rising sea levels.

I really hope the folks tinkering with our biosphere are asking the same questions, (and more), and coming up with credible answers. I know they're generally a smart lot of people; but their track record so far WRT climate change models and predictions isn't nearly good enough to justify their apparent excess of hubris. Their attitude of 'yeah, if a few minuscule tests look good, we should roll out a full-scale implementation on the whole planet', is downright fucking scary.