Geoengineers inch closer to Sun-dimming balloon test

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https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/12/geoengineers-inch-closer-sun-dimming-balloon-test

Source: By Paul Voosen, Science Magazine 

Excerpt: For years, the controversial idea of solar geoengineering—lofting long-lived reflective particles into the upper atmosphere to block sunlight and diminish global warming—has been theoretical. ...Today, after much technical and regulatory wrangling, Harvard University scientists are proposing a June 2021 test flight of a research balloon designed to drop small amounts of chalky dust and observe its effects. ... the project, called the Stratospheric Controlled Perturbation Experiment (SCoPEx), must first win the approval of an independent advisory board, a decision that could come in February 2021. The need to study the real-world effects of releasing reflective particles is pressing, says David Keith, a Harvard energy and climate scientist and one of SCoPEx’s lead scientists. Solar geoengineering is no substitute for cutting greenhouse gas emissions, he says, but it could ameliorate the worst damage of global warming, such as the extreme heat waves and storms that claim many lives today. ...But research in solar geoengineering has long been taboo, says Faye McNeill, an atmospheric chemist at Columbia University who is unaffiliated with SCoPEx. “We didn’t want it to appear that we were encouraging it.” One fear is that solar geoengineering could be done unilaterally by groups or nations, with unknown effects on plant growth and rainfall patterns. Another worry is that it would encourage a sort of addiction, adding more and more particles to block warming while not addressing the root problem of mounting emissions. But now, with so much warming already locked in, “the urgency of the climate problem has escalated,” McNeill says.... 

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