Another ‘Super El Niño’ is brewing. Scientists are looking at a controversial solution to squash them
Researchers said targeted marine cloud brightening could reduce El Niño damage by 40% in model tests, but they called the finding a proof of concept.
- On Wednesday, a new study published in Science Advances found that targeted marine cloud brightening could weaken El Niño impacts and increase cooling effects associated with La Niña by 40%.
- Researchers utilized the 2019 and 2020 Australian Black Summer bushfires as a natural experiment to simulate cloud brightening effects, avoiding risks of real-world geoengineering tests .
- Kate Ricke, a climate scientist at Scripps Oceanography and San Diego's School of Global Policy and Strategy, stressed the paper is a proof of concept, adding, "it's not something that you're locking yourself into."
- David Keith noted current marine cloud brightening sprayers lack practical scale, stating the technique may be physically possible, but "the technology simply doesn't exist."
- Experts including James Haywood warn geoengineering risks "disastrous unintended consequences" or "termination shock," a catastrophic temperature rise if the process halts, raising ethical questions about deployment.
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By Laura Paddison, CNN A new super El Niño is brewing and could become the most intense in decades, with the potential to cause a sharp increase in extreme and deadly weather events. But what would happen if there was a way to temporarily reduce its effects by attenuating the amount of sunlight that comes in The post A new “super El Niño” is brewing. Scientists study a controversial solution to reduce its effects appeared first on KVIA.
Environmental News Network - Could Geoengineering Work to Tamp Down Super El Niños?
With an anticipated “super” El Niño looming, a new study led by UC San Diego’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography considers whether society could use a weather-altering technique as a tool to mitigate the floods, extreme heat and other events that El Niño would bring.
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