Can Reflecting Sunlight Back into Space Prevent Climate Collapse?
Harvard University wants to test Stratospheric Aerosol Injection, but climate activists worldwide fear it might make matters worse
Harvard atmospheric scientist Frank Keutsch is on a mission. In 2014, his research team devised the controversial Stratospheric Controlled Perturbation Experiment — also known as SCoPEx. It’s designed to glean data about the risks of “Stratospheric Aerosol Injection.”
SAI is a hypothetical “band aid” fix for global warming. The idea is to introduce aerosol particles into the atmosphere that will reflect a fractional percentage of the sun’s light back into space.
Keutsch believes that SAI could induce controlled global dimming and thus quickly cool the Earth by 1.5 degrees Celsius. That’s enough to prevent planetary climate collapse — for a little while, anyway.
Large volcanic eruptions naturally cause global dimming and provide evidence that the effects of stratospheric particulate accumulation are temporary — meaning we needn’t worry about permanently altering the Earth’s atmosphere with SAI.
Or at least that’s the hypothesis.
