The High-Stakes Debate on Geoengineering
Geoengineering, a Group of Would-Be Planet Hackers’ Wild Plan to Save Earth The High-Stakes Debate Over How to Talk About Geoengineering Marine Cloud Brightening Could Harm the Ozone Layer, New Study Explains
” Here goes the Original statement As deforestation, greenhouse gases release and rising temperature are pushing environmental limits, climate scientists are studying Solar Radiation Management (SRM)variously Marine cloud brightening MCB.
But a major new scientific modeling study from researchers at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the UK Earth System Model (UKESM) has provided an important caveat: widespread MCB use may have unanticipated impacts on another part of our atmosphere: its ozone layer.
MCB consists in spraying fine sea salt particles into low marine clouds to create a brighter and more reflective environment that would, therefore, bounce more sunlight back to space and cool down the planet.
Though less risky compared to Stratospheric Aerosol Injection (SAI), the new study modeled an extreme, ambitious MCB scenario with the goal of reducing average temperatures around the world.
The results were unexpected: the intervention hadn’t simply chilled a particular spot on Earth. The flash of light kicked off a wave of dynamical and chemical effects across the entire atmosphere.
The study found MCB could change wind patterns around the world and within the Brewer-Dobson Circulation, which is the principal circulation corridor for air in the stratosphere.
The simulation importantly also predicted a complicated “winners and losers” pattern for ozone. Although total ozone appeared surprisingly enhanced in the tropics (up to 5%) as a result of weak vertical mixing with ozone-poor air, such enhancement came into opposite with a troubling decrease of the total column ozone (\(\sim 3\%\)) over NH mid-latitudes in winter-spring.
This unanticipated reaction also shows that climate intervention efforts are inherently messy things that resist delineation and present a geopolitical problem over the global atmosphere”.
The results of the research emphasize the need for a responsible innovation framework for such technologies – like the UK-led ‘REFLECT’ project, which is examining if (and how) any future small-scale outdoor experiments could be feasible, what risks they might pose, and what possible measures of international governance may apply.
The milestone is a sobering reminder that Earth’s systems are interconnected and that any effort to “tweak” the climate poses enormous, multilateral scientific oversight.
