Source: Scientific American
An experiment starting next month in the U.K. will pump water one kilometer into the air to test a new climate-cooling method that eventually could deliver sunlight-reflective sulfate particles into the stratosphere.
Next month, researchers in the U.K. will start to pump water nearly a kilometer up into the atmosphere, by way of a suspended hose.
The experiment is the first major test of a piping system that could one day spew sulfate particles into the stratosphere at an altitude of 20 kilometers, supported by a stadium-size hydrogen balloon. The goal is geoengineering, or the “deliberate, large-scale manipulation of the planetary environment” in the words of the Royal Society of London, which provides scientific advice to policymakers. In this case, researchers are attempting to re-create the effects of volcanic eruptions to artificially cool Earth.
Read More: U.K. Researchers to Test “Artificial Volcano” for Geoengineering the Climate
Cartoon by Bob Moran
