REMINDER HPAC meeting Thursday, October 19 4:30 PM EDT. Cornell Prof Doug MacMartin on SRM
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Title: Model Simulations of Climate Interventions Aiming to Offset Future Warming: Insights and Uncertainties
Speaker: Professor. Douglas MacMartin, Cornell University
Talk Overview:
Decadal-average global warming is approaching 1.2 C and it is likely that the 1.5 C goal from the Paris Agreement will be passed in the next decade or so. Global warming is now being experienced through the increasing likelihood of severe weather, more intense storms, destabilization of major glacial streams, increasing rate of rise of sea level, and more, all driven by the ongoing emissions of greenhouse gas emissions.
With the present and projected pace of emissions mitigation, global warming is projected to at least double before net-zero emissions are reached up to a few decades after mid-century, with corresponding increased impacts and risks.
With all nations committed to the goal of keeping global warming to no more than 1.5 C and climate intervention becoming the only option for preventing further warming, modeling studies have started looking at climate intervention scenarios that would offset further warming, stabilizing the climate at 1.5C, or restoring back to 1.0C or lower.
Doug will report on the status of climate stabilization studies using stratospheric aerosol injection (SAI), providing an overview of what would be involved, including options such as more polar-focused deployments, what the resulting stabilized climate would be like and how long it might take to reach a desired cooling, what the key uncertainties are and how they might compare to the types of consequences that might trigger calls for intervention, and what research is needed to provide the firmer information needed for early rather than late-stage emergency intervention to be considered as a potential policy scenario.
Biography (from https://www.mae.cornell.edu/faculty-directory/douglas-macmartin)
Douglas MacMartin is an Associate Professor in the Sibley School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at Cornell University.
His research focuses on Sunlight Reflection Methods (SRM, also known as climate engineering, solar geoengineering, or climate intervention), with the aim of helping to develop the knowledge base necessary to support informed future societal decisions in this challenging and controversial field.
He has published extensively on the subject, and in addition to public and academic presentations has provided briefings to the UN Environment Program and testimony to the US Congress, and he was a member of the US National Academies panel that made recommendations on both research and governance in March 2021.
Doug received his Ph.D. in Aeronautics and Astronautics from MIT in 1992; previous positions include United Technologies Research Center (1994-2000) and the California Institute of Technology (2000-2015). His research is funded by NSF and by the Cornell Atkinson Center for a Sustainable Future.
Author of A Climate Vocabulary of the Future
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