Global warming reduction may someday get a cool new tool: climate engineering.
The SilverLining Safe Climate Research Initiative has awarded a $500,000 grant to a Cornell engineering researcher, who will model the effects of introducing reflective aerosols into the stratosphere, which could deflect enough sunbeams to reduce Earth’s temperature and limit climate change impact.
Doug MacMartin, senior research associate in the Sibley School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, will lead a team from the Cornell Climate Engineering group. The SilverLining grant will be matched by an anonymous donor for a $1 million total grant, administered through the Cornell Atkinson Center for Sustainability, which provided seed funding.
Over the next two years, MacMartin and his team will develop a broad set of climate model simulations to gauge the impact of stratospheric aerosol injection, not only for the Earth’s temperature, but on other variables such as precipitation patterns to Arctic sea ice coverage.
Joining MacMartin will be Ben Kravitz, assistant professor of earth and atmospheric sciences at Indiana University; Yaga Richter, staff scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research; and Stephen Hilgartner, professor of science and technology studies in the College of Arts and Sciences, who will focus on societal issues.
