Science Daily July 20, 2020 In theory, spraying sulfur dioxide into the upper atmosphere at different locations, to form sulfuric acid clouds that block some solar radiation, could be adjusted every year to keep global warming at levels set in the Paris goals. According to a team of researchers in the US (UC Davis, UC Berkeley) no single technology to combat climate change will fully address the growing crisis, and we need to stop burning fossil fuels and aggressively harness wind and solar energy to power society ASAP. The regional impacts of geoengineering, including on precipitation and the Antarctic ozone […]
Category Archives: Geoengineering
Can solar geoengineering mitigate both climate change and income inequality?
Science Daily January 13, 2020 An international team of researchers (University of California, Georgia Institute of Technology, University of California, Cornell University, Switzerland, Canada) applied macroeconomic impact models and combined historical evidence with climate simulations of mean annual temperature and precipitation. They found that the impacts of climate changes on global GDP-per-capita by the end of the century are temperature-driven, highly dispersed, and model dependent. Across all model specifications, however, income inequality between countries is lower with solar geoengineering. They found that precipitation has little to no effect on GDP growth in our results, but there is a relationship for […]
Climate engineering: International meeting reveals tensions
Science Daily October 28, 2019 The “hidden politics” of climate engineering were partially revealed earlier this year at the fourth United Nations Environment Assembly (UNEA-4), when Switzerland proposed a resolution on geoengineering governance. According to a team of researchers in the US (UC Santa Cruz, American University) there are several areas of concern, including: Disagreement among countries about the current state and strength of SRM governance, The domination of research by North American and European scientists, The need to “decouple” governance of SRM and CDR and a significant split between the United States and the European Union over the “precautionary […]
Chaos theory produces map for predicting paths of particles emitted into the atmosphere
Eurekalert July 16, 2019 Floating air particles following disasters and other largescale geological events can have a lasting impact on life on Earth. Using available wind data, researchers in Hungary have developed a model for following air particles as they travel around the globe. They found that lifetimes of particles ranged from about two to 150 days for typical volcanic ash particles, more than 10% of smaller particles survive in the atmosphere as much as one year, and more than 1% survive two years, particles coming from the area around the equator remain in the atmosphere for the longest time, […]
Scientists Are Scared a ‘Rogue’ Country Could Start a Geoengineering War
Science Alert June 14, 2019 A recent report by the United Nations’ PIPCC found that nations around the globe must implement “rapid and far-reaching” changes in energy sources, infrastructure, industry, and transportation to avoid catastrophic consequences of climate change. But some researchers are looking into geoengineering to address the dangerous warming. If a rogue nation were to start a geoengineering project without international oversight or buy-in, some experts worry the unintended consequences could lead to war. Geoengineering can take many forms, some of which exist already…read more.
Future of planet-cooling tech: Study creates roadmap for geoengineering research
Science Daily January 8, 2019 A team of researchers in the US (Cornell University, Caltech, PNNL) established a roadmap for responsible exploration of geoengineering. They focus on the idea of stratospheric aerosol geoengineering mimicking the eruption of a volcano. They highlight two important observations, while field experiments may eventually be needed to reduce some of the uncertainties, they expect that the next phase of research will continue to be primarily model-based, and they anticipate a clear separation in scale and character between small-scale experimental research to resolve specific process uncertainties and global-scale activities…read more. TECHNICAL ARTICLE
Harvard Scientists Will Actually Launch a Geoengineering Experiment Next Year
Science Alert December 4, 2018 The project – called the Stratospheric Controlled Perturbation Experiment (SCoPEx) – is part of Harvard’s Solar Geoengineering Research Program. To cool down the surface of the planet, in the experiment Harvard University researchers will fly a high-altitude balloon up to the stratosphere, at an altitude of about 20 kilometres, and release a small aerosol plume of calcium carbonate that is expected to disperse into a perturbed air mass about 1 kilometre long and 100 metres in diameter. The balloon will then fly back and forth through this cloud repeatedly for about 24 hours, analysing the […]
Geoengineering will happen, China controlling rain across Tibet
Next Big Future October 14, 2018 China and 23 other countries already engage in significant weather modification. China is setting up or has already set up a level of rain control across Tibet and other parts of China. Tens of thousands of fuel-burning chambers will be installed across the Tibetan mountains, with a view to boosting rainfall in the region by up to 10 billion tons of rain annually. In 2013, China was already producing 55 billion tons per year of artificially induced rain. China is expanding this to over 250 billion tons per year…read more.
Can geoengineering ever be low risk?
Physics World June 13, 2018 At the European Union General Assembly in Vienna in April, the World Meteorological Organization proposed that to meet the Paris agreement on global warming, we should look seriously at the artificial manipulation of the climate through geoengineering. Geo-engineering strategies fall into two groups: carbon dioxide removal (CDR) and solar radiation management (SRM). Afforestation and land management, ocean fertilisation and carbon capture and storage are soft approaches to CDR with low-risk. There are currently no low-risk technologies for SRM, and further research is needed to quantify risks. Geo-engineering strategies that act to cool the planet and […]
China’s ‘Sky River’ Will Be The Biggest Artificial Rain Experiment Ever
Science Alert April 28, 2018 According to reports China is building thousands of fuel-burning chambers high up on the Tibetan mountains, that could increase rainfall in the region by up to 10 billion cubic metres a year. The chambers burn solid fuel to produce silver iodide, a cloud-seeding agent with a crystalline structure much like ice. The chambers stand on steep mountain ridges facing the moist monsoon from South Asia. As wind hits the mountain, it produces an upward draft and sweeps the particles into the clouds to induce rain and snow. Total area of about 1.6 million square kilometres […]