Research Paper Warns That There’s a Massive Experiment at Work to Geoengineer the Earth’s Climate
Sign up to see the future, today Can’t-miss innovations from the bleeding edge of science and tech The idea of manually tampering with our atmosphere to combat climate change, such as by seeding clouds with reflective particles to dim the Sun, remains extremely controversial. These acts of geoengineering could deliver us from climate doom, the thinking goes, or backfire spectacularly in ways we never anticipated — which is why scientists are proceeding with caution. But to an extent, something like this is already happening on a global scale. In a new study published in the journal Earth’s Future, researchers warn that the air pollution caused by satellites burning up in the Earth’s atmosphere is already decreasing the amount of sunlight reaching the Earth’s surface. And if the space industry continues growing at its current pace, the impact could eventually become significant enough to alter the entire climate. Project lead and coauthor Eloise Marais, a professor of atmospheric chemistry and air quality at University College London, laid out the stakes in a striking comparison: “The space …
