Needed: Research Guidelines for Solar Radiation Management

Emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) and other greenhouse gases (GHGs) continue to rise. The effects of climate change are becoming ever more apparent. Yet prospects for reducing global emissions of CO2 by an order of magnitude, as would be needed to reduce threats of climate change, seem more remote t...

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Published inIssues in science and technology Vol. 29; no. 3; pp. 37 - 44
Main Authors MORGAN, M. GRANGER, NORDHAUS, ROBERT R., GOTTLIEB, PAUL
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Washington The University of Texas at Dallas 01.04.2013
Issues in Science and Technology
Subjects
Acidification
Agricultural production
Air pollution
Atmosphere
Carbon dioxide
Carbon dioxide emissions
Climate
Climate change
Climate models
Coal-fired power plants
Coral reefs
Ecosystems
Emissions
Environmental protection
Fuels
Geoengineering
Global warming
Government regulation
Industrial plant emissions
Management
Precipitation
Radiation
Regulation
Solar radiation
Strategy
Stratosphere
Sunlight
Temperature
Threats
United States Code
United States environmental policy
United States government
United States > US
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Summary:Emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) and other greenhouse gases (GHGs) continue to rise. The effects of climate change are becoming ever more apparent. Yet prospects for reducing global emissions of CO2 by an order of magnitude, as would be needed to reduce threats of climate change, seem more remote than ever. The term solar radiation management (SRM)is used to refer to a number of strategies that might be used to increase the fraction of sunlight reflected back into space by just a couple of percentage points in order to offset the temperature increase caused by rising atmospheric concentrations of CO2 and other GHGs. Of these strategies, the one that appears to be most affordable and most capable of being quickly implemented involves injecting small reflective particles into the stratosphere. SRM could be designed to bring average temperatures around the world back to something close to their present levels. But because particles injected into the stratosphere distribute themselves around the planet, it is doubtful whether strategies can be found to cool just some vulnerable region, such as the Arctic.
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ISSN:0748-5492
1938-1557