Is Blocking/Shading The Sun The Most Effective Solar Geoengineering Way To Go?
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America Wants to Block the Sun: Is US Playing with Fire? | Vantage with Palki Sharma The Biden administration wants to study altering sunlight. The U.S. wants to research a phenomenon called solar radiation modification. It may want to undertake solar experimentation in the future. But this concept is extremely controversial. For starters, it could abruptly increase temperatures. So is the U.S. playing with fire? Or can blocking the Sun help reverse the effects of climate change. Palki Sharma tells you, in the video published on July 3, 2023, by Firstpost, as “America Wants to Block the Sun: Is US Playing with Fire?| Vantage with Palki Sharma“, below:
We’re facing the biggest environmental challenge. Climate change is affecting every form of life. While Nations around the world are finding measures to deal with it. The US is aiming to stop sunrays from reaching the Earth. The US is looking forward to quite an innovative way to combat the effects of climate change, in the video published on July 3, 2023, by WION, as “Why is the White House pushing to block sunlight from reaching the Earth?| WION Originals“, below:
Recently, the White House announced it was funding a 5-year research plan on how to artificially modify the Earth’s climate. One idea is to find a way to block out the sun by spraying aerosols into the stratosphere to reflect sunlight, just like a volcano would do if it erupted violently. The United Nations recognized the potential of this, but critics said there could be a problem with experimenting with it. It’s the best of Good Day Tampa Bay, all day! FOX 13 Tampa Bay brings you the important videos like breaking news, Tampa Bay weather, and local stories. But also plenty of fun stuff, like #WeLiveHere tips, the best of our archives, and all those ‘only-in-Florida’ stories, in the video published on Nov 22, 2022, by FOX 13 Tampa Bay, as “White House: Blocking the sun could stop climate change – but how can it be done?” below:
ClimateDepot.com publisher Marc Morano reacts to a White House report signaling the openness to block sunlight in the fight against climate change and Americans opposing the phase-out of gas cars amid Biden’s EV push, in the video published on July 2, 2023, by Fox News, as “White House reportedly open to blocking the sun in fight against climate change“, below:
If the world is getting too hot, why not give it some shade? Solar geoengineering could halt global warming, but there are risks to this controversial technology, in the video published on April 21, 2022, by The Economist, as “Climate change technology: is shading the earth too risky?” below:
To better understand the topic of Solar Geoengineering or Solar Radiation Modification (SRM), please refer to excerpt from wikipedia, in italics, below:
Solar geoengineering, or solar radiation modification (SRM), is a type of climate engineering in which sunlight (solar radiation) would be reflected back to outer space to limit or offset human-caused climate change. There are multiple potential approaches, with stratospheric aerosol injection (SAI) being the most-studied method, followed by marine cloud brightening (MCB).[1] Other methods have been proposed, including a variety of space-based approaches, but they are generally considered less viable, [2] and are not taken seriously by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.[3] All geoengineering methods can have a rapid cooling effect on atmospheric temperature, but if the intervention were to suddenly stop for any reason, the cooling would soon stop as well. It is estimated that the cooling impact from SAI would cease 1–3 years after the last aerosol injection, while the impact from marine cloud brightening would disappear in just 10 days. Contrastingly, once any carbon dioxide is added to the atmosphere and not removed, its warming impact does not decrease for a century, and some of it will persist for hundreds to thousands of years. As such, solar geoengineering is not a substitute for reducing greenhouse gas emissions but would act as a temporary measure to limit warming while emissions of greenhouse gases are reduced and carbon dioxide is removed.[3]
If solar geoengineering were to cease while greenhouse gas levels remained high, it would lead to “large and extremely rapid” warming and similarly abrupt changes to the water cycle. Many thousands of species would likely go extinct as the result.[3] In spite of this risk, solar geoengineering is frequently discussed as a policy option because it is much faster and (in the short run) cheaper than any form of climate change mitigation. While cooling the atmosphere by 1 °C (1.8 °F) through stratospheric aerosol injection would cost at least $18 billion annually (at 2020 USD value),[4] and other approaches also cost tens of billions of dollars or more annually,[5] this would still be “orders of magnitude” cheaper than greenhouse gas mitigation,[6] and the unmitigated effects of climate change would cost far more than that.[2]
As of 2022, hundreds of studies have used climate models to simulate the impacts of SRM on the various aspects of the Earth’s climate. In general, they show that it can combat many of the adverse effects of climate change, such as the increase in extreme weather, the decrease in soil moisture, slowdown of Atlantic meridional overturning circulation, Arctic sea ice decline and the melting of mountain glaciers. However, they concur that is impossible for SRM to fully reverse climate change and return the world to its preindustrial state, because the scale of any intervention required to completely offset the recent warming would substantially alter the weather patterns and the water cycle compared to the past, while ocean acidification would proceed until CO2 concentrations stop increasing. For the same reason, simply using SRM to maintain present-day temperature would still alter the climate to some extent.[3] Climate models often struggle to correctly estimate regional impacts of global dimming caused by historical sulfate air pollution,[7][8][9] and so there is only low confidence in the current projections of how solar geoengineering would affect regional climate and ecosystems.[3]
Governing solar geoengineering is challenging for multiple reasons, including that few countries would likely be capable of doing it alone.[10] For now, there is no formal international framework designed to regulate SRM, with aspects of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity or the Vienna Convention for the Protection of the Ozone Layer coming the closest out of the existing agreements. Thus, many questions regarding the acceptable deployment of SRM, or even its research and development, are currently unanswered. Efforts to create a dedicated international agreement are also hampered by the position taken by some ethics scholars and activists that enabling research into SRM, or even public discussion of it, represents a slippery slope which opens the door to its eventual use.[3]
Solar geoengineering (SG, or SRM) increases Earth’s ability to deflect sunlight, e.g., by increasing the albedo of the atmosphere or the surface. While reducing the average temperature, it would not address ocean acidification.[11] Climate models project that SRN interventions would take effect rapidly, but would also quickly fade out if not sustained. This means that their direct effects are effectively reversible, but also risks a rapid rebound after a prolonged interruption, sometimes known as termination shock. The US National Academy of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine stated in a 2021 report: “The available research indicates that SG could reduce surface temperatures and potentially ameliorate some risks posed by climate change (e.g., to avoid crossing critical climate “tipping points”; to reduce harmful impacts of weather extremes).”[12]
Solar geoengineering methods include:[2]The Royal Society (2009). Geoengineering the Climate: Science, Governance and Uncertainty (PDF) (Report). London: The Royal Society. p. 1. ISBN 978-0-85403-773-5. RS1636. Archived (PDF) from the original on 12 March 2014. Retrieved 1 December 2011.</ref>
- Stratospheric aerosol injection, or SAI, in which small particles of e.g., sulfur dioxide would be injected into the upper atmosphere.
- Marine cloud brightening (MCB), which would spray fine sea water to whiten clouds and thus increase cloud reflectivity.
- Cirrus cloud thinning (CCT), which is strictly not solar geoengineering but shares many of the physical and especially governance characteristics as the other methods.[13]
Regardless of the method used, there is a wide range of potential deployment scenarios for solar geoengineering, which differ both in the scale of warming they must offset, and their target endpoint. Historically, the majority of studies consider relatively extreme scenarios where global emissions are very high and are offset with similarly high levels of SRM. More recently, research began exploring alternatives like using SRM as an aid to avoid failing the Paris Agreement goals of 1.5 °C (2.7 °F) and 2 °C (3.6 °F). It has also been suggested that SRM is deployed to halve the current warming, as this may be less disruptive to societies and ecosystems than attempting to reach the preindustrial levels.[14] However, this approach may also increase flood and wildfire risk in Europe.[3] There have also been proposals to focus the use of SRM at the poles, in order to combat polar amplification of warming and the associated Arctic sea ice decline, permafrost thaw and ice sheet melt leading to increased sea level rise.[15] However, actual deployment of even the cheapest proposals is projected to cost tens of billions of US dollars annually, so the decision to deploy these interventions would not be taken lightly.[11][15]
Gathered, written, and posted by Windermere Sun-Susan Sun Nunamaker More about the community at www.WindermereSun.com
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