Stratospheric Aerosol Geoengineering

In response to global warming, one suggested geoengineering response involves creating a cloud of particles in the stratosphere to reflect some sunlight and cool Earth. While volcanic eruptions show that stratospheric aerosols cool the planet, the volcano analog also warns against geoengineering because of responses such as ozone depletion, regional hydrologic responses, whitening of the skies, reduction of solar power, and impacts of diffuse radiation. No technology to conduct geoengineering now exists, but using airplanes or tethered balloons to put sulfur gases into the stratosphere may be feasible. Nevertheless, it may be very difficult to create stratospheric sulfate particles with a desirable size distribution. The Geoengineering Model Intercomparison Project, conducting climate model experiments with standard stratospheric aerosol injection scenarios, has found that insolation reduction could keep the global average temperature constant, but global average precipitation would reduce, particularly in summer monsoon regions around the world. Temperature changes would also not be uniform; the tropics would cool, but high latitudes would warm, with continuing, but reduced sea ice and ice sheet melting. Temperature extremes would still increase, but not as much as without geoengineering. If geoengineering were halted all at once, there would be rapid temperature and precipitation increases at 5–10 times the rates from gradual global warming. The prospect of geoengineering working may reduce the current drive toward reducing greenhouse gas emissions, and there are concerns about commercial or military control. Because geoengineering cannot safely address climate change, global efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and to adapt are crucial to address anthropogenic global warming.