The climate variety clock is ticking quicker than ever and with political leader stall , analyses and re - analysis of new and old solutions are constantly being brought forrad . One that has never hold up out of style is the likely use of sulfur particle in the gamey atmosphere to moderate the effects of global warming . A Modern study , print inEnvironmental Research Letters , focuses on three main questions . Is it potential ? Is it low-priced ? And can you do it in secret ?
Before we get to the resolution , it is important to have sex that the thought , bonk as stratospheric aerosol injection ( SAI ) , come from a rude result . In 1815 , Mount Tambora in Indonesia erupted free 100 three-dimensional km ( 24 cubic air mile ) of material . It was the biggest eruption in 1,300 geezerhood and the aerosol in the air lead to a scant globose cooling . 1816 was known as the year without summer .
But rude does n’t mean good . The volcanic wintertime led to widespread famine and death ( but alsoFrankensteinso , you know , there ’s some positive ) . research worker have created models showing that such an intervention would bedeadly for many speciesworldwide . And sulfur only stays in the atmospheric state for a inadequate while liken to the hundreds of year that CO2 can hang on .
The new study does n’t focalise on if we should do it . It bet at our capabilities for doing it . The researcher investigate an SAI plan to found a fleet of stratospheric planes to bear the sulfur over a time scale of 15 age .
" Solar geoengineering is often described as ' fast , cheap , and fallible ’ , ” co - writer Dr Gernot Wagner , from Harvard University , said in astatement . " While we do n’t make any judgment about the desirability of SAI , we do show that a hypothetical deployment course of study starting 15 geezerhood from now , while both extremely unsealed and ambitious , would be technically possible strictly from an engineering perspective . It would also be remarkably inexpensive , at an norm of around $ 2 to 2.5 billion per twelvemonth over the first 15 class . "
This enterprise would ask modified aeroplane that can get to the stratosphere . They would demand to have the same content as jetliner but with double the wingspan and poke . The squad expect 4,000 trips to happen in the first year with a fleet of eight planes . This would then expand to over 60,000 flights from a fleet of almost 100 .
Neither the cost nor tech is peculiarly untouchable . So the investigator inquire if this might be germinate and deployed in secret . Given the number of escape required to make it crop , no organization or “ rogue nation ” would be able to do it without observance . But it would be a dandy action pic . Small body politic tries to avert global tragedy with science plan of dubious success , starring Janelle Monae . I’d look out that .
