Bill Gates Venture Aims To Spray Dust Into The Atmosphere To Block The Sun. What Could Go Wrong?
Meanwhile in the same region: Evacuations underway in Norway as flooding, landslides wreak havoc, more disruptions feared….
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Microsoft’sMSFT +0.4% billionaire founder Bill Gates is financially backing the development of sun-dimming technology that would potentially reflect sunlight out of Earth’s atmosphere, triggering a global cooling effect. The Stratospheric Controlled Perturbation Experiment (SCoPEx), launched by Harvard University scientists, aims to examine this solution by spraying non-toxic calcium carbonate (CaCO3) dust into the atmosphere — a sun-reflecting aerosol that may offset the effects of global warming.
Widespread research into the efficacy of solar geoengineering has been stalled for years due to controversy. Opponents believe such science comes with unpredictable risks, including extreme shifts in weather patterns not dissimilar to warming trends we are already witnessing. Environmentalists similarly fear that a dramatic shift in mitigation strategy will be treated as a green light to continue emitting greenhouse gases with little to no changes in current consumption and production patterns.
Biden backs plan to block the sun in bid to limit global warming
Chemtrail conspiracy theory?
The chemtrail conspiracy theory is the erroneous belief that long-lasting condensation trails left in the sky by high-flying aircraft are actually “chemtrails”
Biden backs plan to block the sun in bid to limit global warming
SCoPEx will take a small step in its early research this June near the town of Kiruna, Sweden, where the Swedish Space Corporation has agreed to help launch a balloon carrying scientific equipment 12 miles (20 km) high. The launch will not release any stratospheric aerosols. Rather, it will serve as a test to maneuver the balloon and examine communications and operational systems. If successful, this could be a step towards a second experimental stage that would release a small amount of CaCO3 dust into the atmosphere.
David Keith, a professor of applied physics and public policy at Harvard University, recognizes the “very many real concerns” of geoengineering. It is true that no one knows what will happen until the CaCO3 is released and then studied afterward. Keith and fellow SCoPEx scientists published a paper in 2017 suggesting that the dust may actually replenish the ozone layer by reacting with ozone-destroying molecules. “Further research on this and similar methods could lead to reductions in risks and improved efficacy of solar geoengineering methods,” write the authors of the paper.
Drones are zapping clouds with electricity to create rain in United Arab Emirates project
The United Arab Emirates, parched from heatwaves and an arid climate, is testing new technology to zap clouds with electricity to artificially create rain.
Similar forms of cloud seeding have existing for decades. But the process has typically used salt flairs and has come with concerns about the environment, expenses and effectiveness, according to the Desert Research Institute and CNN.
So the UAE is now testing a new method that has drones fly into clouds to give them an electric shock to trigger rain production, the BBC and CNN have previously reported.
The project is getting renewed interest after the UAE’s National Center of Meteorology recently published a series of videos on Instagram of heavy rain in parts of the country. Water gushed past trees, and cars drove on rain-soaked roads. The videos were accompanied by radar images of clouds tagged “#cloudseeding.”
The Independent reports recent rain is part of the drone cloud seeding project.
The UAE has used other cloud seeding methods involving salt flares in the past. The UAE oversaw more than 200 cloud seeding operations in the first half of 2020, successfully creating excess rainfall, the National News reported.
There have been successes in the U.S., as well as China, India, and Thailand. Long-term cloud seeding in the mountains of Nevada have increased snowpack by 10% or more each year, according to research published by the American Meteorological Society. A 10-year cloud seeding experiment in Wyoming resulted in 5-10% increases in snowpack, according to the State of Wyoming.
Who is making it rain ― and why?
UAE government unit denies cloud seeding took place before Dubai floods
The first attempts at cloud seeding were made by US scientists at the General Electric Research Laboratory in the 1940s. Today, the method is used in various countries across the world. China is the most recent example, and Beijing had employed the technique once before to make it rain ahead of the 2008 summer Olympics.
Russia is also known to employ cloud seeding ahead of big holidays so that public celebrations aren’t ruined by rain. In 2016, Russia reportedly paid 86 million rubles (€1.44 million or $1.43 million) for cloud seeding measures to ensure a dry May Day holiday. The day of the celebration, the weather was sunny in Moscow.
Today, the method is mostly used to make it rain in regions experiencing drought. Aside from China, the US has also been using cloud seeding, most recently in western states hit especially hard by drought, such as Idaho and Wyoming.
Looking a little further back, the US employed cloud seeding as a weapon in the Vietnam War to extend the monsoon season, thereby disrupting the Viet Cong’s supply chain and crippling its progress by turning the ground muddy with more rain.
And in April 1986, Soviet air force pilots seeded clouds that were moving from Chernobyl, where a nuclear power plant had just exploded, toward the Russian capital Moscow. The operation was considered a success by the regime ― the radioactive clouds didn’t reach Russian cities. Instead they rained nuclear waste particles over rural Belarusian provinces and the several hundred thousand people who lived there.
Why is cloud seeding controversial?
Those last two examples show that a technology developed for the greater good can always be misused by people in power. But there are other factors that have some experts skeptical about whether cloud seeding is a good idea.
One argument: If you seed clouds over your region to combat drought, those clouds won’t carry rain to the next region, where they might have otherwise provided a much-needed rainy reprieve.
“If you make it rain one place then you reduce rain downstream,” said professor of applied physics at Harvard University David Keith, whose research focuses on the intersection of climate science, technology and policy. He likened the process to “robbing Peter to pay Paul.”
“It inherently makes winners and losers,” he told DW.
Experts also warn that controlling the weather could be too tall an order to go off without a hitch, and worry that it could remove the focus from more traditional measures intended to help deal with climate change.
“Geoengineering, including large-scale cloud seeding, is a dangerous experiment that can be out of our control and lead to unintended consequences,” Vinas said.
“If we want to reduce the impacts of droughts or storms, particularly intense in the context of current global warming, we should invest in adaptation and mitigation measures.”
