Aug 10 – Geoengineering science is advancing, but the question remains – should we use it?
The UN climate report released Monday presents a major …
Aug 10 – Geoengineering science is advancing, but the question remains – should we use it? The UN climate report released Monday presents a major leap forward in predicting how geoengineering to limit global warming might affect the planet, although scientists said the greatest hurdle remains deciding whether to use the controversial methods. Geoengineering involves large-scale interventions that shift the climate, generally with an aim of cooling the earth. The United Nations panel addressed two types of geoengineering in the report – solar radiation management and greenhouse gas removal. But the report makes no recommendations on whether to use either method. The panel could give guidance on how decisions on geoengineering should be made in another report due in 2022. Solar radiation management techniques generally control how much sunlight is reflected back out into space, preventing it from heating the earth. read more Climate models previously focused on how solar radiation management would change the planet’s overall average temperature. But the models run on supercomputers have rapidly become much more sophisticated in predicting variations from the earth’s poles to equator and between hemispheres, said Govindasamy Bala, a lead author of the report from the Indian Institute of Science. They can also better project how geoengineering could alter the amount of rain and snowfall, he said. This would allow for more advance uses of multiple forms of solar radiation management at the same time to control for both temperature and precipitation.
