| Subscribe to our newsletter to receive monthly updates on Solar Geoengineering:
RESEARCH PAPERSGoddard, P., Kravitz, B., Scribner, A., Milks, K., & Peterson, C. (2024). Incorporating Climate Engineering into Secondary Education: A New Direction for Indiana’s Science Classrooms. The Hoosier Science Teacher, 47(1), 38-48. Abstract Climate change represents a significant existential challenge in modern times, with widespread anxiety over its impacts. There's a growing desire among students to explore climate solutions and identify actions they can personally undertake to address climate change. Despite mitigation efforts, current greenhouse gas emission reduction measures are insufficient, and the development of negative emission technologies is both slow and costly. Consequently, the past two decades have witnessed an escalating interest in alternative strategies to temporarily and intentionally cool the planet. These strategies include injecting reflective particles into the stratosphere or increasing the reflectivity of low-lying ocean clouds. Collectively known as climate engineering, also called geoengineering, these approaches could serve as a temporary shield against the most severe outcomes of climate change, buying time while efforts to mitigate emissions and enhance carbon sequestration reach the required scale. In line with the Indiana state science standards (HS-ESS3-4), this article presents the Climate Engineering Teaching Module (CETM) and recounts firsthand experiences from its application in high school settings. Launched over three years ago, the CETM has been effectively integrated into fifteen Indiana classrooms. As the future citizens and leaders of Indiana, it is crucial that students are well-informed on climate engineering. Educating them about the scientific, ethical, political, and economic facets of climate engineering is imperative for fostering responsible decision-making. By examining the trade-offs associated with climate engineering and encouraging students to conceptualize ways to implement these technologies beneficially while minimizing risks, the CETM offers an innovative and practical approach to teaching climate change and engineering design. This method not only prepares students for active engagement in future discussions on climate engineering but also equips them with a comprehensive understanding of its complexities.
Luczak, J. (2024). Current State of Geoengineering. In The Palgrave Handbook of Environmental Policy and Law (pp. 1-20). Cham: Springer Nature Switzerland. Abstract There are, broadly speaking, three ways in which scientists and policymakers talk about responding to the anthropogenic climate change. We can mitigate the effects, adapt to it, or we can utilize geoengineering techniques to offset its harmful impacts. As it currently stands, most reasonable scientists, policymakers, and thinkers hold that some combination of adaptation together with an aggressive mitigation strategy is the most appropriate, all things considered, way to respond to the problem. Since we are already committed to some climate change, any response to the problem must include some kind of adaptation strategy. But, for a collection of reasons, aggressive mitigation has to be the focus of our policy response. It is the best, safest, and most fair way to resolve the problem in the long run. Despite this, talk of incorporating forms of geoengineering into our overall response strategy have grown in recent times. In light of this trend, this chapter provides an overview of geoengineering that is relevant for policymakers and lawmakers. This chapter describes the most common and influential geoengineering techniques that have been proposed and gives the reader a sense of where geoengineering techniques sit in the minds of scientists and policymakers. There is currently a dearth of laws and regulations that are directly aimed at ensuring the safe development, testing, and deployment of geoengineering techniques. There is also a lack of governance overseeing the research and development of these techniques. This chapter serves as a partial primer for anyone interested in wading into policy and legal issues surrounding geoengineering.
Brown, H. Y., Wagman, B., Bull, D., Peterson, K., Hillman, B., Liu, X., ... & Lin, L. (2024). Validating a microphysical prognostic stratospheric aerosol implementation in E3SMv2 using observations after the Mount Pinatubo eruption. Geoscientific Model Development, 17(13), 5087-5121. Abstract This paper describes the addition of a stratospheric prognostic aerosol (SPA) capability – developed with the goal of accurately simulating sulfate aerosol formation and evolution in the stratosphere – in the Department of Energy (DOE) Energy Exascale Earth System Model, version 2 (E3SMv2). The implementation includes changes to the four-mode Modal Aerosol Module microphysics in the stratosphere to allow for larger particle growth and more accurate stratospheric aerosol lifetime following the Pinatubo eruption. E3SMv2-SPA reasonably reproduces stratospheric aerosol lifetime, burden, aerosol optical depth, and top-of-atmosphere flux when compared to remote sensing observations. E3SMv2-SPA also has close agreement with the interactive chemistry–climate model CESM2-WACCM (Community Earth System Model version 2–Whole Atmosphere Community Climate Model) – which has a more complete chemical treatment – and the observationally constrained, prescribed volcanic aerosol treatment in E3SMv2. Global stratospheric aerosol size distributions identify the nucleation and growth of sulfate aerosol from volcanically injected SO2 from both major and minor volcanic eruptions from 1991 to 1993. The modeled aerosol effective radius is consistently lower than satellite and in situ measurements (max differences of ∼ 30 %). Comparisons with in situ size distribution samples indicate that this simulated underestimation in both E3SMv2-SPA and CESM2-WACCM is due to overly small accumulation and coarse-mode aerosols 6–18 months post-eruption, with E3SMv2-SPA simulating ∼ 50 % of the coarse-mode geometric mean diameters of observations 11 months post-eruption. Effective radii from the models and observations are used to calculate offline scattering and absorption efficiencies to explore the implications of smaller simulated aerosol size for the Pinatubo climate impacts. Scattering efficiencies at wavelengths of peak solar irradiance (∼ 0.5 µm) are 10 %–80 % higher for daily samples in models relative to observations through 1993, suggesting higher diffuse radiation at the surface and a larger cooling effect in the models due to the smaller simulated aerosol; absorption efficiencies at the peak wavelengths of outgoing terrestrial radiation (∼ 10 µm) are 15 %–40 % lower for daily samples in models relative to observations, suggesting an underestimation in stratospheric heating in the models due to the smaller simulated aerosol. These potential biases are based on aerosol size alone and do not take into account differences in the aerosol number. The overall agreement of E3SMv2-SPA with observations and its similar performance to the well-validated CESM2-WACCM makes E3SMv2-SPA a viable alternative to simulating climate impacts from stratospheric sulfate aerosols.
WEB POSTS
THESISWallgren, A. (2024). Balancing Sky-High Promises and Unknown Risks: Translations of Unwanted Futures in Risk Assessments of Solar Radiation Modification. Abstract Institutional interest in solar geoengineering, or solar radiation modification (SRM), is rising as the projections of climate change grow more severe and global mitigation efforts continue to face challenges. Historically, solar geoengineering has been met with considerable controversy and skepticism. Among concerned scientists and in the environment movement SRM has widely been seen as a taboo area for research and governance. However, in recent years, there has been a noticeable shift in stance among influential institutions and organizations. We now witness increased institutional engagement and research on solar geoengineering and its potential applications in what is often referred to as a risk versus risk framing. In this approach the risks and benefits of SRM are considered in relation to viable climate change scenarios without SRM. However, integrating various social, ethical, and political concerns into risk versus risk assessments for SRM is a complex process. It raises questions about how a risk versus risk framing affects the emerging governance landscape of SRM research, as well as political implications. In this thesis, I examine expert advice and technology assessment documents on SRM, focusing on the US Congressionally Mandated Research Plan and Initial Research Governance Framework Related to Solar Radiation Modification (OSTP, 2023). In analyzing the risk versus risk framing of SRM, I draw primarily upon insights from Critical Security Studies and the analytical framework presented in the book Translations of Security (Berling et al., 2022). My findings suggest that crucial sociopolitical concerns about SRM have only to limited degree been incorporated into the OSTP report, and that this has resulted in a comparatively weak integration of global justice concerns into the initial US national research governance framework related to SRM.
Hofbauer, B. (2024). Governing Prometheus: Ethical Reflections On Risk & Uncertainty In Solar Climate Engineering Research.
REPORT
JOB OPPORTUNITY"The Degrees Initiative is a UK-based NGO that builds the capacity of developing countries to evaluate solar radiation modification (SRM), a controversial proposal for reducing some impacts of climate change by reflecting sunlight away from the Earth. Degrees is neutral on whether SRM should ever be used, but we believe that developing countries should be empowered to conduct their own research and to play a central role in SRM discussions. The initiative has been working in different forms for over a decade and our work receives worldwide coverage and widespread acclaim."
PODCAST"Why do we need to better understand the role of aerosols on our ecosystems? And what can it help us learn? To provide the answer is Kelly Wanser, a climate innovation expert and founder and executive director of SilverLining. Kelly joins Climate Curious to explain the cooling effects of particles on clouds. Recorded live at TED 2024."
YOUTUBE VIDEOSEpisode 615 Thinning Icy Clouds | To Save The World “David Mitchell is a climate change scientist who is exploring the possibility of reducing global warming by seeding cirrus clouds at the poles during the winter months, thereby allowing some of the infrared radiation under to atmospheric blanket to escape into outer space. Paul Beckwith is a climatologist who holds regular video lessons about developments in global warming.”
DEADLINESSRM Sessions at AGU2024:
| |
