It looks like you're using an Ad Blocker.
Please white-list or disable AboveTopSecret.com in your ad-blocking tool.
Thank you.
Some features of ATS will be disabled while you continue to use an ad-blocker.
The US should establish a multimillion-dollar research programme on solar geoengineering, according to the country’s national science academy.
In a report it recommends funding of $100m (£73m) to $200m over five years to better understand the feasibility of interventions to dim the sun, the risk of harmful unintended consequences and how such technology could be governed in an ethical way.
The report considers three types of solar geoengineering to allow more heat to escape the Earth’s atmosphere: injecting tiny reflective particles into the stratosphere to block sunlight; using the particles to make low-lying clouds over the oceans more reflective; and thinning high-altitude cirrus clouds. Major volcanic eruptions are already known to cool the climate by pumping particles high into the atmosphere.
According to Reuters, a Harvard University project plans to test out a controversial theory that global warming can be stopped by spraying particles into the atmosphere that would reflect the sun's rays.
The project represents one of the most controversial aspects of what's known as "geoengineering" -- the idea that, to tackle issues like climate change, massive aspects of our ecosystem can be played with or changed. In this case, it would involve reflecting some of the sun's rays to stop them from reaching Earth.
The Stratospheric Controlled Perturbation Experiment (SCoPEx) is a planned experiment in a form of geoengineering known as Solar Radiation Management (SRM). SRM techniques aim to block or reflect sunlight before it reaches the earth’s atmosphere, which would hypothetically slow down global temperature rise. SCoPEx aims to develop a form of SRM known as Stratospheric Aerosol Injection.
The SCoPEx project would spray water, finely-ground chalk and sulfur particles into the upper atmosphere from a high-altitude balloon and measure how effectively the resulting clouds block sunlight, while also tracking any effects on the air in the upper atmosphere.
Possible impacts:
The environmental effects of SCoPEx are mostly unknown. The project’s web site claims that the amounts released by the project will be “very small compared to other routine releases of material into the stratosphere by aircraft, rockets, or routine balloon flights.”
However, the political effects of the project are easier to predict.
Outdoor experiments should only be allowed if they provide critical knowledge that cannot be obtained by other means, said the report, and the research programme "should not be designed to advance future deployment of these interventions."