this post was submitted on 29 May 2024
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Showerthoughts
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This is called Geoengineering, and we don't need volcanoes for that. Current approaches mostly consider injecting sulfates or other reflective aerosols directly into the atmosphere to influence how much solar radiation reaches the Earth. The principle is the same as behind volcanoes. This method is in fact already being employed and has been used in the past, albeit only for regional climate engineering.
Why don't we do this to stop climate change? As you yourself kinda noticed, the consequences could be very unpredictable and dangerous because the effects are difficult to model. However, maybe after everything else has failed Geoengineering could be a viable option.
If we could selectively reflect only IR, but not visible light, then I might be more convinced.
basically snowpiercer
But the aerosols would also amplify the green house effect right?
There are actually anti-greenhouse gasses like SO₂ (of acid rain fame(!))
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stratospheric_aerosol_injection
This brings up an important point. Greenhouse effect is not the only factor in global temperature changes. There’s also solar input rate which varies enormously with cloud cover.