A climate engineering technique for a warming planet
Stratospheric sulfur injection as a temporary solution to greenhouse gasses increase

Area 02 – Scienze fisiche

The Paris Agreement signed in 2015 hopes to keep the global warming produced by the increase in greenhouse gasses (GHGs) at less than 1.5 °C by the end of the century but this would require all the nations to bring emissions to zero by 2050. Considering the atmospheric lifetime of GHGs, however, their effect would still be perceived decades after they are produced. Because of this, in the scientific community the idea of possible temporary solutions to cool the planet while GHGs are reduced has begun to take hold, under the term “Climate Engineering”. The book focuses on one of these possible solutions, “Sulfate geoengineering”. This method would consist in injecting SO2 in the stratosphere, in order to create an optically active cloud of sulfuric liquid aerosols that would reflect part of the incoming solar radiation. The only way to safely study eventual side effects, in order to conclude if this method is in any way feasible, is by using simulations produced by climate models.

SINTESI