Scientists find new way to deal with the warming planet; This way

Water vapor – water in its gas form – is a natural greenhouse gas that traps heat, just like carbon dioxide is released from burning coal, oil and gas. So, researchers at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and NASA estimate that if they could put snow high in the air, water vapor in the upper atmosphere would dry out slightly and it could offset a small amount of human-caused warming.

This is just the spark of an initial idea, said the lead author of a study in Wednesday’s journal Science Advances.

The idea of ​​drying the upper atmosphere is the newest addition to what some scientists are calling a last-ditch toolbox to combat climate change by manipulating the world’s atmosphere or oceans. Known as geoengineering, it is often dismissed because of potential side effects, and is usually mentioned not as an alternative to reducing carbon pollution, but in addition to cutting emissions.

“It’s not something we can implement yet,” said Joshua Schwarz, a NOAA physicist and lead author of a study in Wednesday’s journal Science Advances. “It’s about exploring what might be possible in the future and identifying research directions.”

One way this could be envisioned is that high-tech aircraft could inject ice particles at an altitude of about 11 miles (17 kilometers), just below the stratosphere, where air slowly rises. Then the ice and cold air rise to where it is coldest and the water vapor turns into ice and falls, dehydrating the stratosphere, Schwarz said. There is no practical injection technology yet, he said.

At its maximum level, injecting 2 tons per week, it could extract enough water vapor to offset a small amount of warming, about 5 percent of the total warming caused by carbon from burning fossil fuels, Schwarz said. “This is not much and should not be used as a substitute for reducing pollution,” he said.

Other scientists said Schwarz isn’t sure what the side effects might be, and that’s the problem.

Victoria University climate scientist Andrew Weaver, who was not part of the study, said deliberately tampering with Earth’s atmosphere to fix climate change was likely to create new problems. He said the engineering side of it makes sense, but he compared the concept to a children’s story where a king who loves cheese gets surrounded by rats, summons cats to deal with the rats, then the cats. Calls dogs to drive away, calls lions to get rid of. With the help of dogs and elephants to eliminate the lions and then goes back to the rats to scare away the elephants.

It makes more sense to deal with the initial problem — cheese or carbon dioxide — instead, Weaver said.

Atmospheric chemist Lynn Russell of Scripps Institution of Oceanography, who was not part of the research, said the idea is worth testing, but “there aren’t a lot of answers given all the uncertainties” in the study.

Groups ranging from the US National Academy of Sciences to the United Nations Environment Program have viewed the ethics, side effects, legal implications, and benefits of geoengineering with varying degrees of skepticism and cautious interest.

At the U.N. Environment Assembly, nations are considering a resolution to study solar radiation modification — essentially putting particles into the air to reflect sunlight and cool the atmosphere — and those countries or companies. But potential rules that would do so.

“If you’re going to do a laboratory experiment indoors, it’s probably OK,” UNEP Executive Director Inger Andersen told The Associated Press. “We really need a global conversation about small- and large-scale experiments.”

“I think of solar radiation modification as somewhat like artificial intelligence,” Anderson said. “Either way it should be considered a climate solution.”

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This story is published from a wire agency feed without any modifications to the text. Only the headline has been changed.

Published: Feb 29, 2024, 08:17 am IST