Climate Modeling - Beyond Smoke and Mirrors - page 42

Geoengineering, deliberately doing something to
lower surface temperatures, is an idea that is gaining
adherents. It was described in Section . of this chapter

in the rst edition of this topic: I did not like the idea

then, and I don

it like it now for the same reasons. There
has not been a serious effort to look for the unintended
consequences of any geoengineering project. For
example, one of the more popular geoengineering ideas
these days is to put sulfate aerosols into the upper
atmosphere to re

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ect sunlight back into space. This
effect already occurs naturally to some degree and is
the reason that volcanic eruptions, which put large
amounts of sulfate aerosols into the atmosphere, have a
cooling effect on the planet. But there has been no
analysis of what non-uniformity in the global distribu-
tion of the sulfate aerosols does to the weather and
ocean currents, and no analysis of the effects of only
reducing the sunlight coming in without reducing
greenhouse-gas emissions and the continued acidi ca-

tion of the oceans. I had harsh words for geoengineering
in the first edition. I would perhaps be slightly more

polite today, but the sentiment is the same. I have said
that it would be unwise because large-scale technical
intervention in the climate system can have large-scale
unintended consequences (I really said they are out of
their minds); it is not smart to count on introducing
new effects you don t fully understand to cancel

another effect that you do not fully understand. Doing
two dumb things rarely gives a smart result. Though
I did say the reader did not have to read the
technical notes, I suggest that you do read this one.
It is Technical Note

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. .