Can bouncing back sun's rays help remedy global warming?
Q: What is solar geoengineering, and how can it stave off global warming?
A: Solar geoengineering is a term describing any of various techniques for reducing the amount of sunlight that reaches the Earth and its atmosphere.
Researchers are exploring the feasibility of using solar geoengineering to reflect some of the sun's heat back into space before it can reach the Earth and further contribute to the greenhouse effect that is causing our climate to warm. Some ways of doing this include pumping sulfur aerosols into the atmosphere, sending huge space mirrors or reflective balloons into Earth's orbit, enhancing the reflectivity of clouds by spraying water into them, and even just painting everybody's roofs white.
While solar geoengineering can't do anything about the carbon dioxide already in our atmosphere that will be causing more warming for decades to come or longer, it can help reduce the planet's carbon load moving forward. So it generally is viewed as part of the climate solution but not the whole enchilada.
The most practical of the solar geoengineering techniques involves sending a specially modified fleet of jets around the globe spraying sulfates into the atmosphere that would combine with pre-existing water vapor to form aerosols. When dispersed by the wind, these sulfates would cover the globe with a haze that could reflect an estimated 1 percent of solar radiation back out into space.
While employing such techniques might seem like a no-brainer, there are inherent risks. Alan Robock, Ph.D., an atmospheric scientist at Rutgers University, warns that adding sulfur to the skies, for instance, could shift rainfall patterns and hasten the thinning of the ozone layer.
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