WIRED: Do we notice this? With the naked eye, do we see anything?
KR: Yes, on an absolute scale. It changes the ratio of direct and diffuse radiation. So the idea is that the average sky will become a little whiter, and the sunset, for example, will become a little more alive. It’s certainly much smaller than the difference between getting from the desert in California to the city. In my opinion, the white sky is also not the biggest problem.
WIRED: What about toxicology concerns? Would this be benign to living beings on Earth?
KR: It’s not benign – it’s like the stuff that comes out of power plants. Its large concentration in an area makes people and plants sick. However, in terms of scale, the amount you need in the stratosphere is a lot smaller than what we emit from power plants, and it’s spread across the planet.
People have done some research on this as well, and it seems like the biggest risk from particles will be to sensitive ecosystems at high latitudes — so polar ecosystems don’t. much urban pollution right now, but will get more out of this. Especially because the particles move towards the poles, in general, before they precipitate out of the stratosphere.
WIRED: Say a country unilaterally says, ‘We’ll do this.’ They want to cool down their country by spewing the stratosphere, and it doesn’t matter if it wraps around the planet or not.
KR: Legally, it’s complicated, because basically, countries own their airspace all the way to space. It’s a bit vague. So people can spray everything on their country, and it will go everywhere. And after that [the particles] stay in the atmosphere for about a year and a half on average. They spread out and the radiation effects take effect immediately. That’s why after a major volcanic eruption you’ll see an immediate drop in global temperatures, lasting about a year to two years, and then dropping again. So you don’t have to spray every day. If you stop doing it for two years, the effects will go away.
A wired guide to climate change
The world is getting warmer and the weather is getting worse. Here’s everything you need to know about what humans can do to prevent the planet from being destroyed.
I’m having a hard time seeing what we’re like Not actually going to do it at this point, because it’s so cheap. The effects of climate change are so disruptive that I don’t see in the world how such a low-cost solution could not be implemented by someone. Nothing else in the world can cool the planet so quickly. Even if we start decarbonizing rapidly and take CO2 out of the atmosphere, it is still a cycle time of a decade for the consequences. While blocking sunlight, the climate response begins immediately.
WIRED: I’ve seen some models that if you suddenly stop solar geoengineering, you’ll have problems with temperature. amazing climbing species.
KR: If the show goes on hiatus and we’re blocking a lot of warming with stratospheric geoengineering, you’ll get this really rapid warming if someone stops doing it. I mean, it would be catastrophic if we stopped treating our drinking water, wouldn’t it? There are things that humans do that we need to keep doing, otherwise it would be a disaster.
