face with the immense threat of global warming , and the refusal of humanity leading to act sufficiently , many masses have wondered if it is possible to keep the major planet inhabitable through deliberate temperature reduction . Many versions of this mind , known asgeoengineering , have been proposed , but a study of the most wide discussed idea has obtain a awful side - essence .
vent inject a stack of sulfur dioxide high into the atmosphere , where it mull over sun . Really large outbreak produce a noticeable inclination in global temperatures for a year or two thereafter . Human activity already issue cooling particles into the atmosphere , but the gist is swamped by atomic number 6 dioxide and methane emission . However , we could deliberately levy our yield of suitable particles , in an approach get laid as stratospheric aerosol bomb injectant ( SAI ) , to bring ordinary temperature closer to balance .
sealed risks with SAI have alreadybeen discover , but a newspaper publisher inNature Communicationsoutlines an extra one – more severe droughts in one of the most vulnerable parts of the major planet . Dr Anthony Jonesof the University of Exeter warns that the aftermath could be devastating .
" Our result support that regional solar geoengineering is a extremely risky strategy which could simultaneously do good one region to the detriment of another , " Jones said in astatement . " It is vital that policymakers take solar geoengineering badly and act swiftly to instal effective regulating . "
Jones pose the issue of SAI from the most industrialized voice of the planet . He retrieve some positive burden , include a reduction in tropic cyclones , but at the price of less rainfall over Africa ’s Sahel .
The Sahel , now south of the Sahara , house the poorest hoi polloi on the planet . therefore , residents have few reserve to return back on , and the frequent droughts develop spate starvation , include one in the easterly Sahelright now . If such droughts become more vivid or more frequent , it will be a human catastrophe almost unmated in chronicle . SAI in the southern hemisphere would have the polar effect , but would be harder to achieve given the much lower population and industrialization there .
Co - authorProfessor Jim Haywoodnoted the grandness of look at local impacts , rather than just consider what a project will do to the spheric average temperature .
A particular headache is the danger of individual Nation act as in their own in force interests , while annihilative others . This could potentially become the footing for war , or an stirring to terrorists .
The fact that the United States is not only the res publica best placed to follow up a program like this , but would be particularly probable to benefit as the intensity of hurricane declination , is a worry . But surely no American President would spare the country a few natural disasters at the expense of hundred of millions of the world ’s pathetic , would they ?
