Scott K. Johnson
Aug 23, 2017 · 1 min read

You might be thinking of the aerosol injection method I talked about. Aerosols work because they’re the right size to scatter incoming sunlight, which means some of it gets scattered back out to space. The wavelength of the sunlight isn’t altered by that process, because it isn’t absorbed and re-emitted, it’s just redirected.

There are some materials that can emit infrared radiation at just the right wavelength where it can slip through the greenhouse gases in our atmosphere uninterrupted. These “passive cooling” materials could potentially be used for large buildings. Here’s an example I’ve covered.

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    Scott K. Johnson

    Written by

    Geoscience journalist @ArsTechnica, Science Editor @ClimateFdbk, Geology instructor @CoconinoCC