Campaign seeks to understand reflective particles in the stratosphere, which cooling schemes would enhance.
Any work on solar geoengineering—the notion of artificially making the atmosphere more reflective to cool an overheated planet—is fraught with controversy. Last year, for example, a tech entrepreneur claimed he launched two weather balloons from Baja California into the stratosphere, where they may have released a puff of sulfur dioxide that gave rise to a small patch of reflective sulfate particles. The stunt drew widespread condemnation. But for researchers, it prompted a question: If a rogue actor had conducted a larger release, would they be able to detect it—or know with any certainty what it would do?
Research on solar geoengineering—also called solar radiation management—has long been anathema to some climate scientists and activists. They fear it could distract from emissions cuts, could have unforeseen risks, and would not address some impacts of rising carbon dioxide, including ocean acidification. Federal agencies have largely steered clear of the work, even after a report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) in 2021 recommended a $200 million research program.
One focus of the NOAA program is sulfates, the reflective particles that would be lofted into the stratosphere in many solar geoengineering proposals. Volcanoes and industrial emissions are the main natural sources of sulfur dioxide, one precursor of sulfates; carbonyl sulfide, a gas emitted by microbes in the oceans, is another. The updrafts in severe storms in the tropics are thought to pump the gases into the stratosphere, but massive forest fires are emerging as another important mechanism for lifting them.
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Bonus clip: former CIA director John Brennan admitting in 2016 that the United States is already involved in “Stratospheric Aerosol Injection” with his personal supervision.