Doug MacMartin, Cornell University, will present as part of the Solar Geoengineering Research Program Lunchtime Seminar Series.

Abstract: To reduce the impacts of future climate change, it is essential to cut emissions of CO2 and other greenhouse gases. Given where we are today, it is unrealistic to assume that these actions alone will avoid significant climate change damages. But we also know how to deliberately cool the planet: adding aerosols such as sulfate to the stratosphere would reflect sunlight and cool the planet. Climate modeling suggests that this would likely reduce many of the impacts from climate change, with a few caveats.

MacMartin will talk about why we should be researching this, what we know about the effects, what we don’t know, and how to get to a point where we can better inform future decisions surrounding deployment. Among other things, this requires taking the idea of deployment more seriously, thinking about how one might deploy, including the role of choices such as what latitudes the aerosols are added, and the role of learning during deployment.