Scientists plan to spray the sky with light-reflecting particles to dim the sun

Author: Robby Berman / Source: Big Think

• Scientists hope to launch the world’s first solar geoengineering project next year.
• The project involves spraying calcium carbonate into the stratosphere.
• The team hopes to get people thinking more seriously about bioengineering.

If all the pieces can be put together by then, a trio of researchers from Harvard hope to begin the testing phase of their plan to reduce the amount of sunshine the Earth receives as a means of cooling down the planet as it heats up from climate change.

If they manage to spray some calcium carbonate particles into the stratosphere — essentially airborne TUMS®, minus the berry flavor — theirs would be the first solar geoengineering project off the drawing board and into the skies.

To say the plan, detailed in Nature, is controversial is putting it mildly — even the team itself, David Keith, Zhen Dai, and Frank Keutsch — has doubts about the whole idea. Environmentalists are concerned that geoengineering climate fixes are a distraction from better, if difficult, solutions involving more intelligent, sustainable consumption of carbon-producing substances. They’re also concerned that manipulating Earth’s complicated natural balance is rife with unforeseeable consequences, just another example of placing too much faith in engineering, which, after all, got us into this mess in the first place.

The SCoPEx experiments

The name of the Harvard team’s project is SCoPEx , for “Stratospheric Controlled Perturbation Experiment.” Their plan is to launch two steerable balloons over the U.S. Southwest, each of which would spray about 100 grams of calcium carbonate, about the same amount packed into a single antacid tablet, into the stratosphere. The balloon would then reverse course to observe what happens to the dispersed 0.

5 micrometer particles — the researchers think that’s about the right size for both dispersal and reflecting sunlight.

As simple as this sounds, it’s not. First off, the balloons will have to be able to turn around in order to observe what they’ve left behind. Second, they need some form of detection that can, first, locate the calcium carbonate plume and second, measure the size and number of particles. A team from NOOA’s Boulder, CO, office led by David Fahey, is providing the equipment for performing these measurements, though Fahey warns, “It’s going to be a hard experiment, and it may not work.” Third, hopefully, the balloons will be able to recapture some particles…

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