Key Takeaways
- Around the world, the United States is using balloons and cutting-edge equipment to track aerosols from illegal solar geoengineering operations.
- Due to a lack of international laws, solar engineering may cause geopolitical disputes, agricultural difficulties, and regional weather disruptions.
- NOAA, NASA, and the Energy Department are spearheading international cooperation to create an open, data-driven early warning system.
According to reports, the US government is developing an early warning system to identify possible attempts to manipulate the weather.
According to The New York Times, worries about hostile foreign powers or affluent people using solar geoengineering exacerbate the issue.
These detection systems might be essential in situations that resemble science fiction stories, including spotting attempts to intentionally cause disastrous floods or reduce the sun’s brightness.
The Boulder, Colorado-based system uses balloon launches to track atmospheric particles, which may be a sign of efforts to bounce sunlight away from Earth. These balloons are also used on Reunion Island, Alaska, Hawaii, New Zealand, and Antarctica.They are outfitted with aerosol measuring equipment. NOAA, NASA, and the Energy Department collaborate on the project, and scientists examine the sources of aerosols that have been found.
The effort is “some of the most important stratospheric science” in the world, according to David Fahey, director of NOAA’s Chemical Sciences Laboratory. “How dangerous is that?” said Kelly Wanser, creator of the geoengineering research group SilverLining, underscoring the significance of comprehending such actions. How quickly and forcefully must we react?
Geoengineering is not always done with malicious intent. Sea salt particles were examined recently in San Francisco Bay to produce cooler, brighter clouds. However, this and related experiments, like Harvard’s projected sulfur particle release over Sweden, were put on hold due to ethical and public concerns.
