Cloud geoengineering could push heatwaves from US to Europe
Climate models suggest that a possible scheme to cool the western US by making clouds brighter could work under current conditions, but may have severe unintended consequences in a future scenario
By James Woodford
21 June 2024
Brightening clouds over the Pacific Ocean could help to cool the western US
A cloud-modifying technique could help cool the western US, but it would eventually lose its effectiveness and, by 2050, could end up driving heatwaves around the planet towards Europe, according to a modelling study.
There is growing interest in alleviating the severe impacts of global warming by using various geoengineering techniques. These include marine cloud brightening (MCB), which aims to reflect more sunlight away from Earth’s surface by seeding the lower atmosphere with sea salt particles to form brighter marine stratocumulus clouds.
Something strange is happening in the Pacific and we must find out why
Small-scale MCB experiments have already taken place in Australia on the Great Barrier Reef and in San Francisco Bay, California. Proponents hope this approach could be used to reduce the intensity of extreme heatwaves in particular regions as the climate continues to get hotter.
Katharine Ricke at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD), and her colleagues modelled the impact that a possible MCB programme to cool the western US might have under present climate conditions and projections for 2050.
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2436377-cloud-geoengineering-could-push-heatwaves-from-us-to-europe/
