Photo: NASA/GSFC/SDO
Despite what some would have you believe, this rock we’re living on is screwed. We, humans, did that, and even if the full force of our misbehavior will hit possibly hundreds of years from now, it will hit.
I’m talking here about global warming, of course. I know some of you still don’t believe this is a thing but consider this: things might get so nasty that people have begun imagining ways of blocking out the Sun to prevent our planet from getting even warmer. Yes, this is more like treating the symptoms than attacking the cause, but eventually, it may be all we’re left with.
A report published not long ago by the National Academies of Sciences outlined the need for strategies to cool off the planet. More to the point, the people behind the report will begin working on what we need to know and what tech we need to reflect sunlight back to where it came from.
There are three ways of doing this envisioned there: the launch of countless small reflective particles in the stratosphere, the increase of the reflective cloud cover in the lower atmosphere, and the reduction of cirrus clouds in the upper troposphere.
All these methods have an umbrella term, and that is solar radiation modification (SRM). It’s the last resort for humanity in case current efforts to cut down emissions fail, just after the prohibitively expensive and presently ineffective carbon dioxide removal (CDR) processes. It might also be a very bad idea.
Although blocking sunlight through whatever means might solve the heating problem, it may cause a host of other adverse effects, some possibly even deadlier than warming.
A new paper, published by a team of scientists from several American universities in the PNAS journal, lists them as species decline, relocation, changes in the ecosystem, drought, flooding, polar ozone destruction, and the list goes on, and on, and on.
The team does not say we should not block the Sun, but they warn there is insufficient data at the moment to assess what could happen properly. It is also incredibly difficult to come up with this data, as the number of factors involved (from geographic region to population) is huge, and all need to be factored in.
The bottom line of this extremely long study is this, though: no matter what idea we try, it will “not simply turn back the clock to the climate at some previous time.”
A report published not long ago by the National Academies of Sciences outlined the need for strategies to cool off the planet. More to the point, the people behind the report will begin working on what we need to know and what tech we need to reflect sunlight back to where it came from.
There are three ways of doing this envisioned there: the launch of countless small reflective particles in the stratosphere, the increase of the reflective cloud cover in the lower atmosphere, and the reduction of cirrus clouds in the upper troposphere.
All these methods have an umbrella term, and that is solar radiation modification (SRM). It’s the last resort for humanity in case current efforts to cut down emissions fail, just after the prohibitively expensive and presently ineffective carbon dioxide removal (CDR) processes. It might also be a very bad idea.
Although blocking sunlight through whatever means might solve the heating problem, it may cause a host of other adverse effects, some possibly even deadlier than warming.
A new paper, published by a team of scientists from several American universities in the PNAS journal, lists them as species decline, relocation, changes in the ecosystem, drought, flooding, polar ozone destruction, and the list goes on, and on, and on.
The team does not say we should not block the Sun, but they warn there is insufficient data at the moment to assess what could happen properly. It is also incredibly difficult to come up with this data, as the number of factors involved (from geographic region to population) is huge, and all need to be factored in.
The bottom line of this extremely long study is this, though: no matter what idea we try, it will “not simply turn back the clock to the climate at some previous time.”
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