Environmental Scientists Examine Threat of Damaging Climatic Changes

It is true that cloud-seeding machines and sun blockers exist solely in the future as a backup or a hypothetical plan. However, the risk of destructive climatic changes has drastically increased hence geoengineering specialistscarefully weighing the options available.

Environmental scientists have been exploring whether there will be any use of global interventions such as reflecting sunlight back into space or producing more clouds.

A team of scientists from Harvard University, the Carnegie Institution for Science and California Institute of Technology have now detailed a plan to quantify as well as model the impact of solar radiation management (SRM).

The study examines the procedures for reflecting the rays of the sun back into space, including making low-altitude marine clouds or improving the volume of aerosols in the stratosphere that could disperse incoming solar heat away from the Earth’s surface. The experts relied upon version 3 of the Hadley Centre Coupled Model (HadCM3L) in order to simulate the impact of SRM on the planet.

The researchers have proved that smaller-scale analysis of solar radiation control can help notify decisions regarding future large-scale placements. Short-term tests will be effective in knowing the impact of geoengineering on quick-acting climate dynamics. Climate scientists have also speculated that volcanic eruptions can be tested, as they would produce similar kinds of atmospheric changes as aerosols and they would be as efficient as a sustained test.

Co-author Ken Caldeira from the Carnegie Institution for Science said that tests can enhance understanding about probable outcomes that may occur due to intentional intervention in the climate system and can also improve knowledge regarding the response of climate to the intervention caused by carbon dioxide emissions.

Geoengineering experts quantitatively weighed solar radiation management as a way of minimizing global climate change.