Sentences with phrase «injecting aerosols in the stratosphere»

If the major emitters of greenhouse gases find it hard to agree on setting caps on emissions now, what makes you think the world can agree to injecting aerosols in the stratosphere as a solution?

Not exact matches

Funded by the U.K. government, SPICE was set up in 2010 by British research institutions to investigate whether aerosols, such as sulfate particles, could be injected into Earth's stratosphere to scatter sunlight back into space, thereby stalling global warming.

In this case, large amounts of sulphate aerosols (small particles) are injected into the stratosphere by large explosive eruptions (the most recent one being Mt. Pinatubo in 1991In this case, large amounts of sulphate aerosols (small particles) are injected into the stratosphere by large explosive eruptions (the most recent one being Mt. Pinatubo in 1991in 1991).

Rough calculations show if you drill about a dozen mine shafts as deep as possible into the thing, and plunk megaton nuclear bombs down there, and then fire them off simultaneously, you'll get a repeat of the Long Valley Caldera explosion of about 800,000 years ago — which coated everything east of it with miles of ash and injected a giant aerosol cloud into the stratosphere — the ash layer alone formed a triangle stretching from the caldera to Louisiana to North Dakota, including all of Arizona and most of Idaho and everything in between — I bet that would have a cooling factor of at least -30 W / m ^ 2 — and you could go and do the Yellowstone Plateau at the same time — geoengineering at its finest.

Since aerosols last much longer in the stratosphere than they do in the rainy troposphere, the amount of aerosol - forming substance that would need to be injected into the stratosphere annually is far less than what would be needed to give a similar cooling effect in the troposphere, though so far as the stratospheric aerosol burden goes, it would still be a bit like making the Earth a permanently volcanic planet (think of a Pinatubo or two a year, forever).

One wonders what we would do if injecting sulphate aerosols in the stratosphere were to cause a planet - wide cooling event far beyond the original intentions

Not it is not similar because one event injected sulfate aerosols into the stratosphere where they stayed for years and affected the globe while the other («human particulates and aerosol pollution») were produced in the troposphere and have a residency time in the atmosphere of about 4 days and had only a regional effect.

In fact, the major effect of significant volcanic eruptions is cooling due to the sulfate aerosols that they release (although in order to have a significant cooling effect, the eruption has to be large enough that it injects the aerosols into the stratosphere where they can stay around longer... and it apparently helps if the eruption is reasonably near to the equatorIn fact, the major effect of significant volcanic eruptions is cooling due to the sulfate aerosols that they release (although in order to have a significant cooling effect, the eruption has to be large enough that it injects the aerosols into the stratosphere where they can stay around longer... and it apparently helps if the eruption is reasonably near to the equatorin order to have a significant cooling effect, the eruption has to be large enough that it injects the aerosols into the stratosphere where they can stay around longer... and it apparently helps if the eruption is reasonably near to the equator).

(That is, if we simply held global mean temperature constant by injecting aerosols into the stratosphere, I have no idea whether that would be enough to halt Antarctic ice loss — probably not, in fact almost certainly not, though it would mean less ice sheet loss than would occur if we didn't do it.»

In other words: Proposed strategies to alter the amount of sunlight hitting the Earth's surface by (for example) deliberately injecting millions of tons of sulfate aerosols into the stratosphere pose enormous risks and uncertainties and don «t address the underlying causes of global warming or other major risks from rising concentrations of carbon dioxide, such as ocean acidification.