Pessimistic about our short-term chances for reducing fossil fuel emissions to slow global warming, Paul Crutzen (a Nobel Prize winner for his ozone layer work) is proposing a new idea. In the August issue of Climactic Change, he proposes injecting massive amounts of sulfur into the upper atmosphere.
Sulfur particles in the atmosphere would refract a portion of the sun’s radiation back into space rather than allowing it to be trapped by Earth’s atmosphere. Crutzen got his inspiration from the observation that the sulfur emitted by the Mt. Pinatubo volcanic eruption in 1991 ended up cooling the Earth’s temperature by one degree Fahrenheit for the following year (which is a big change in the aggregate).
There are of course concerns about unintended consequences, such as what might happen to plants who would receive a bit less sunlight than normal. However the sulfur only lingers for a couple of years before dissipating, so any unanticipated changes would be cut short.
It sounds kind of risky, but then so is the possibility of runaway global warming. It may be worth a shot as a stop-gap measure until we can successfully reduce carbon emissions–if we can ever get consensus on the urgency of the problem.
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I’m no chemist, but I think I’d be afraid of the sulfur mixing with oxygen and carbon then getting precipitated out as sulfuric acid rain. Wouldn’t that be a “bad thing?”
JOhn.
I have no idea, but sounds like a reasonable question.
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