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The blog of the Wilson Center's Environmental Change and Security Program
  • Michael D. Lemonick, Climate Central

    Geoengineering Faces Dilemma: Experiment or Not?

    September 18, 2012 By Wilson Center Staff

    The original version of this article, by Michael D. Lemonick, appeared on Climate Central.

     In May, a team of British scientists abruptly canceled an experiment they had been planning for nearly two years. The Stratospheric Particle Experiment for Climate Engineering, or SPICE, was intended to test ways of injecting tiny particles of sulfur dioxide into the upper atmosphere, with the eventual goal of filtering out sunlight to cool the Earth in the face of global warming. The main reason given for the cancellation was a potential patent dispute over some of the technology involved.But a second reason, according to the project’s lead investigator, Matthew Watson, of the University of Bristol, was the fact that there’s no international agreement on whether, and under what circumstances, such experiments should happen. That being the case, he told Nature, it would be “somewhat premature” to go forward.

    In fact, the entire field of geoengineering – a set of technologies that is aimed to try and combat rising temperatures by artificially cooling the planet, among other things – is highly controversial. That applies especially strongly to so-called solar radiation management, or SRM, the sun-shielding technique most scientists, including the SPICE team, have been talking about. (It’s also known as the Pinatubo Option: When Mt. Pinatubo erupted in 1991, it spewed particles of natural sulfur dioxide that lowered global temperatures slightly for months.)

    One argument against geoengineering is that it does nothing to address the greenhouse-gas emissions that cause warming in the first place, and that the existence of such a backup plan would suck the energy out of efforts to control those emissions. Another is the law of unintended consequences, which dictates that the best-intentioned ideas can sometimes backfire.

    Continue reading on Climate Central.

    Sources: The Guardian, Nature.

    Photo Credit: Climate Central.

    Topics: climate change, climate engineering, consumption, environment
    • eric

      Even if this experiment were to actually happen, it seems like a solution to a short term problem. The eruption of Mt. Pinatubo only cooled the Earth’s temperature for several months. If this experiment were to have similar results to that eruption, what happens when earth’s temperature continues on its normal path. Do they release more sulfer dioxide into the air? What are the long term effects of releasing large amounts of this gas into the air? If the Earth’s temperature is changing as a result of carbon dioxide emissions, this experiment doesn’t address it. If the Earth’s temperature is increasing as result of a natural cycle, what are the consquences of messing with it?

      • https://www.newsecuritybeat.org/ Schuyler Null

        Hi Eric,
        Those concerns you mention are very valid and very much in play. We had an event at the Wilson Center in 2010 where James Fleming talked about various attempts at geoengineering in the past. One of the most notable ones was in 1947 when GE and the U.S. military experimented with controlling Hurricane King by seeding it with dry ice. They expected the storm to continue its course off the coast of Florida into the Atlantic, but instead it veered west and hit Savannah, Georgia, causing considerable damage. You can imagine the potential consequences if something like that happened on an international border somewhere else.

        The event video is worth watching: http://www.wilsoncenter.org/event/book-launch-fixing-the-sky-the-checkered-history-weather-and-climate-control

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