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Articles sur Solar geoengineering

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Solar engineering is designed to reflect some of the Sun’s ray back into space. John Crouch/Moment via Getty Imgaes

Climate engineering carries serious national security risks − countries facing extreme heat may try it anyway, and the world needs to be prepared

The big question: Would climate engineering like sending reflective particles into the stratosphere or brightening clouds help reduce the national security risks of climate change or make them worse?
Some areas wouldn’t see immediate effects, and there could be serious consequences. Buda Mendes/Getty Images

Solar geoengineering might work, but local temperatures could keep rising for years

Injecting reflective particles into the atmosphere won’t immediately cool the entire planet. A new study shows how parts of the US, China and Europe might still see temperatures rising a decade later.
If successful, solar geoengineering would would reduce the amount of sunlight that reaches the Earth’s surface and warms the planet. (Shutterstock)

Solar geoengineering could limit global warming, but Canada should study risks and benefits first

Solar geoengineering could theoretically cool the Earth to slow global warming, and it has been controversial. Still, countries should research its risks and benefits.
Cape Town residents queueing to refill water containers at the Newlands Brewery Spring Water Point in January 2018. GettyImages

Dimming the sun could reduce future drought risk in Cape Town – but there’s a catch

Artificially dimming the sun, by injecting reflective particles into the upper atmosphere, could reduce the risk of Day Zero level droughts in Cape Town by more than 90% in the future.
The Paris Agreement could provide a forum for international cooperation on risky, planet-scale engineering to cool the Earth. Tatiana Grozetskaya/Shutterstcok.com

US exit from Paris climate accord makes discussing how and whether to engineer the planet even harder

It’s increasingly likely that at some point, the world’s nations will need to broach the fraught discussion of geoengineering. The UN climate accord was a natural forum to do it.
Will the world resort to ‘solar radiation management’ to slow the Earth’s heating? Mark Robinson/flickr

To meet the Paris climate goals, do we need to engineer the climate?

Yes, we blunt the effects of climate change by getting off fossil fuels. But countries’ most ambitious targets imply use of climate engineering schemes – and that discussion should be done in public.
Volcanoes produce large amounts of a gas that interacts with air to produce sulfate aerosols, which act as tiny mirrors in the atmosphere to reflect sunlight – and heat. NASA

Can solar geoengineering be part of responsible climate policy?

Blocking the sun by injecting tiny particles in the atmosphere – called solar geoengineering – can lower the Earth’s temperature but has some real costs. Economists run the numbers.

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