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How Accidental Geoengineering May Be Affecting Climate Change. [Re: rise in sea temperature] (threadreaderapp.com)

submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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Scientists have discovered that the recent spike in global temperatures may be caused by a reduction in sulfur dioxide pollution from shipping vessels. Ships have long emitted sulfur dioxide, which cools the planet by seeding clouds and reflecting sunlight. However, new regulations that limit sulfur in ship fuels took effect in 2020, leading to a loss of this cooling effect equivalent to a large volcanic eruption each year. Models show this reduction in sulfur dioxide pollution can explain the extra warming seen in the North Atlantic. While pollution is bad, the new regulations provide a natural experiment that gives insight into how intentional geoengineering could potentially combat climate change in the future.

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[–] [email protected] 25 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (3 children)

Hank Green has a video about this and maybe we can safely replicate the sulfur dioxide's effects by shooting sea water into the air.

https://youtu.be/dk8pwE3IByg

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago

OPs link is Hank’s “blog post” about that video, he links to it in the article.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I wonder if there is a solution that involves a less dangerous gas instead of sea water. Spraying large volumes of water into the stratosphere is not really possible yet, so if it just rose as a gas it would be more doable.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

A while back there was a round of news suggesting calcium carbonate particulate stratospheric injection would be a good substitute for sulfur dioxide.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

For a second I thought you were calling sea water a dangerous gas.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I'm not sure that spreading salt is a good idea when you consider that salt kills life when you spread it on land.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I think the idea is to do it over oceans.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

But then we'll get salt in the oceans and kill all the fish.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

We sprayed it outside the environment.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

We'll noclip out of the map and spray it out of bounds

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

How certain could we be of where these clouds would fall once they were created?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

A good question, I’m not an expert on this unfortunately. A quick google search did not reveal any answers.