UK to Launch Solar Dimming Experiments in Effort to Curb Climate Crisis

[MicroB]

20 hours ago, Donga said:

“Every time you fly, sulphur, which is naturally present in jet fuel, is emitted into the lower most stratosphere causing a small cooling effect."

Huh? Thought we weren't meant to fly these days, but maybe sail 😅

 

Early in my career my PhD concerned James Lovelock's CLAW hypothesis. James Lovelock was possibly the greatest British scientist since Sir Isaac Newton. its an hypothesis that has never entirely gone away, but has been modified.

 

James Lovelock's observation of over 50 years ago that the Earth is a living planet is correct. The conditions we enjoy are down to Life on Earth. Take life away, and the planet changes massively. Where life influences our environment is through the mineral cycles; carbon, sulfur, phosphorous, nitrogen and so forth.

 

Without life, everything oxidizes.

 

Lovelock died a few years ago, aged 101. His final thoughts concerned the coming Novacene. He thought humans, as the dominant life form, have only 20-50 years left. He was quite amused by the prospect, because he knew he wouldn't be around to see it. AI would become the dominat life form, which could be genocidal, human skull crushing Terminators, or more likely, an AI rather keen on maintaining humans, like we maintain flowers in a garden. Because we will serve a purpose, in that our (lfe) contribution is providing a environment that coincidently is also pretty good for electronics.

 

 

 

 

 

Later, I would come to know James Martin, an American oceanographer, equally brilliant and visionary, but his life was cut short by a heart attack. Its really down to him that we are even considerng climate engineering as something to try. Building on Lovelock's work, he was interested in what was going on in the Antartic Ocean during then summer. For a short period, the Weddell Sea, in terms of fisheries, becomes the most productive sea on Earth, an utter feeding frenzy for the Antartic Cod. Fishermen know this, and make a lot of money. What was causing it was the summer melt of the ice shelf releasing micronutrients which kicked started the algae, then the phytoplankton, all the way up the food chain to fish and us. But the sea is full of nutrients already. What is it short of? its short of Iron. If Iron can be added, algal blooms can be stimulated, leading to uptake of CO2, release of DMS, and following the CAW hypothesis, a sulfulr-mediated cooling effect.

 

He died before they could try some practical oceanographic experiments. During the main bit of my researhc, which was all about bacterial activity as part of this feedback loop, I spent quite a bit of time bobbing around the North Sea in Hurricane strength winds, trying to work out how organic volatiles, like DMS, partition to atmosphere in a hurricane; interesting stuff being in a 50m boat, in a 20-50m swell, and trying to keep to a geostationary position. They managed to demonstrate Martin's Geritol effect in an Anglo-American expedition off the Galapogas; literally dump iron into the ocean, and measure the subsequent impact on atmospheric CO2. its a real effect. Enough to be used to enginer the environment? That's another matter, but a great deal of understanding was developed to understand how life affects the climate.

 

I subsequently left the field to work in bioological threat agent work. Its an area of study I greatly miss.

[Woke to Sounds]

48 minutes ago, MicroB said:

He thought humans, as the dominant life form, have only 20-50 years left. He was quite amused by the prospect, because he knew he wouldn't be around to see it.

 

Great news for our Overlords, who cannot wait to snuff out most of us useless eaters in favour of A.I. servants.

 

No sick days, no problem employees, no pesky pension funding for non humans is there!

 

Geoengineering has been going on since at least the end of WW2.

 

Just look up in the sky and observe... like some (intellectually honest) scientists do.

[300sd]

The lunatics are everywhere:

https://yournews.com/2025/04/24/3395310/epa-demands-explanation-from-firm-releasing-sulfur-dioxide-into-the/

[fasteddie]

😂

[mrwebb8825]

On 4/23/2025 at 7:03 PM, Social Media said:

 

UK to Launch Solar Dimming Experiments in Effort to Curb Climate Crisis

 

The UK Government is preparing to approve a groundbreaking series of outdoor experiments aimed at dimming sunlight to slow global warming. Backed by £50 million in funding from Aria, the Government’s Advanced Research and Invention Agency, these experiments represent a significant step toward potentially deploying solar geoengineering to combat climate change.

 

Within weeks, Aria is expected to unveil a range of funded projects exploring various sunlight reflection techniques. These may include injecting aerosols into the atmosphere or brightening clouds over the ocean to reflect more sunlight away from Earth. Such strategies fall under the umbrella of Sunlight Reflection Methods (SRM), which aim to prevent runaway climate change by artificially cooling the planet.

 

 

Prof Mark Symes, programme director for Aria, confirmed the agency’s cautious yet determined approach. “We will be announcing who we have given funding to in a few weeks and when we do so we will be making clear when any outdoor experiments might be taking place,” he said. “One of the missing pieces in this debate was physical data from the real world. Models can only tell us so much.”

 

Symes emphasized that safety and environmental responsibility are central to the planned trials. “Everything we do is going to be safe by design. We’re absolutely committed to responsible research, including responsible outdoor research,” he said. “We have strong requirements around the length of time experiments can run for and their reversibility and we won’t be funding the release of any toxic substances to the environment.”

 

While solar geoengineering has long been a contentious topic, it is gaining traction as scientists grow increasingly alarmed that carbon dioxide reductions alone may not be enough to avert catastrophic climate shifts. Critics have voiced concerns that such interventions might produce unintended side effects and serve as a distraction from efforts to cut emissions. Nonetheless, many experts argue that further research is essential given the urgent nature of the climate crisis.

 

One of the most discussed techniques is Stratospheric Aerosol Injection (SAI), in which fine particles are released into the stratosphere to reflect sunlight. Another is Marine Cloud Brightening (MCB), which involves spraying sea salt particles into the air to increase the reflectivity of low-lying clouds. The science behind MCB is grounded in decades of atmospheric observation.

 

Prof Jim Haywood, an atmospheric scientist at the University of Exeter, explained, “If you inject small particles into clouds you can brighten them hence reflecting more sunlight back out to space.” He added, “How do we know this could work? Well there are a couple of very strong pieces of evidence. Ship emissions from the smoke stack into the marine environment lead to bright lines in clouds over the ocean. Then there was a volcanic eruption in Iceland in 2014 which spilled out a lot of sulphur dioxide. What this does is it brightens clouds and cools the planet. What we need to do is some form of field experiments.”

 

Beyond brightening clouds, researchers are also investigating the potential of altering cirrus clouds, which typically trap heat in the atmosphere. By thinning these wispy high-altitude clouds, scientists hope to allow more heat to escape into space.

 

Dr Sebastian Eastham, senior lecturer in Sustainable Aviation at Imperial College London, noted, “Every time you fly, sulphur, which is naturally present in jet fuel, is emitted into the lower most stratosphere causing a small cooling effect. Similarly, aircraft contrails cause accidental cirrus cloud modification but in this case accidentally causing, rather than preventing or thinning, cirrus clouds. This points to the fact that it’s theoretically possible (to cool the planet) with current day technology but there are many practical questions that would need to be answered before they could be done at scale.”

 

Alongside the outdoor experiments, Aria will also support modelling studies, lab-based tests, climate monitoring initiatives, and research into public perception of geoengineering. If successful, scientists hope these efforts could pave the way for scalable solutions within the next decade.

 

Adpated by ASEAN Now from The Telegraph  2025-04-24

 

 

Looking more and more like rearming the public should be reconsidered. 🤠