Quick climate changes fixes come with huge dangers, warn scientists

Hannah Devlin
Plans to reduce global warming by blasting jets of water into the atmosphere or placing mirrors in space could have devastating consequences, two climate scientists warn today.
They say that while such ideas may be highly effective, they could lead to severe droughts.
Susan Solomon, a climate scientist at the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and Gabi Hegerl, a climate scientist at the University of Edinburgh, caution against the entrepreneurial “we can fix this thing” approach and say that a calm, methodical inquiry is needed.
“We’re not against climate engineering but we need to understand the consequences better than we do now before rushing into such a massive experiment,” Professor Hegerl said.
They say in the journal Science that climate modelling has focused largely on temperatures and that current models do a poor job at predicting rainfall.
Increases in CO2 influence rainfall in two ways. A warmer climate means that more water evaporates from oceans and lakes, which would tend to result in more rain. However, the Earth’s blanket of CO2 traps heat which needs to escape from clouds for condensation to occur, meaning that although more water evaporates it takes longer for it to fall as rain.
Blocking incoming sunlight using mirrors or by seeding clouds, while leaving CO2 to build up could unbalance a delicate equilibrium.
“One of the attractions of climate engineering is the effectiveness and rapidity with which it could reduce warming, but it is also connected with considerable risks,” the authors write.