Scientists suggest 'dimming the sun' to solve global warming

A somewhat bizarre idea to stop global warming has been put forward.

'How?' we hear you ask? Well, by dimming the sun, of course.

That's right, and while that does sound like it could be the plot of a low-budget action film starring Jean-Claude Van Damme, there is some science behind the idea.

Bear in mind that what scientists are proposing is as-of-yet non-existent, but they say we should somehow spray 'sun-dimming' chemicals into the Earth's atmosphere.

The research was conducted at Harvard and Yale universities, who published a paper in the journal Environmental Research Letters, claim this idea could cut the problem of climate change in half.

They are calling the idea 'stratospheric aerosol injection tactics'. According to the paper, this would involve spraying sulphate particles into the Earth's lower stratosphere.

It's a novel idea if it would work, but the technology and science behind it is severely under developed - even the proposed aircraft to carry the chemicals and successfully spray them doesn't exist.

An extract of the research reads:

After surveying an exhaustive list of potential deployment techniques, we settle upon an aircraft-based delivery system.

We further conclude that no other existing aircraft have the combination of altitude and payload capabilities required for the mission, leading us instead to the design of a new plane.

So not only would they have to create an entirely new aircraft to carry the payload, they have to figure out the best way to safely deliver and deposit it.

To go about even beginning this long process, the cost for the first 15 years, as they've detailed, would come to about $3.5 billion.

Worryingly, if people who believed in chemtrails were to see this, they'd probably go into overdrive about the implications of 'spraying' into the atmosphere, and we'd risk more inane and absolutely ridiculous conspiracy theories.

Experts have looked over the proposals and even they are sceptical.

David Archer of the Department of Geophysical Science at the University of Chicago said:

The problem with engineering climate in this way is that it's only a temporary Band-Aid covering a problem that will persist essentially forever, actually hundreds of thousands of years for fossil fuel CO2 to finally go away naturally.

Let's make the sun dimmer again?

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