We need to test solar geoengineering techniques soon, say researchers

Solar geoengineering has met opposition, however dozens of local weather scientists say in an open letter that extra analysis is required quickly to know the effectiveness of strategies to counter the planet’s warming

By James Dinneen

More analysis is required on photo voltaic geoengineering strategies that might be used to keep away from harmful local weather warming, write greater than 60 researchers in an open letter revealed 27 February.

 “While reducing emissions is crucial, no level of reduction undertaken now can reverse the warming effect of past and present greenhouse gas emissions,” says the letter, which was organised by Sarah Doherty on the University of Washington.

There are many doable strategies of eradicating atmospheric carbon, which the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has discovered is required to maintain warming this century under 2°C.

The letter says interventions by way of what it phrases “solar radiation management” are the quickest approach to counter local weather warming within the brief time period, and extra analysis ought to be carried out to know their effectiveness and potential penalties to totally different areas and to the planet. It says any resolution to implement any strategies would require “cooperative international decision-making” primarily based on science.

“We think it’s important that the public understand what is motivating scientists to do research on this topic,” mentioned Doherty in a press assertion.

The letter describes three totally different approaches to photo voltaic radiation administration, every of which “slightly change the energy entering and leaving the planet” to have a cooling impact.

Stratospheric aerosol injection would contain spraying aerosols that scatter gentle, corresponding to sulfur dioxide or calcium carbonate, into the stratosphere. Another method, known as marine cloud brightening, would add sea salt to low clouds over the ocean to make them extra reflective. Cirrus cloud thinning would add aerosols to high-altitude cirrus clouds to cut back the infrared radiation they replicate again to the floor.

The letter says none of those approaches have been discovered to be protected and efficient sufficient to make use of, and every would include dangers and advantages. It requires pc mannequin simulations, observations, analytical research and small-scale discipline experiments to raised perceive them.

67 researchers had signed the letter as of 27 February, together with the physicist James Hansen, well-known for his Nineteen Eighties testimony to Congress on local weather change. Also among the many signatories have been researchers from a gaggle at Harvard University that had a deliberate photo voltaic geoengineering-related experiment canceled when it met opposition in Sweden.

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