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submitted 1 year ago by trashhalo@beehaw.org to c/news@beehaw.org

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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[-] realitista@lemm.ee 65 points 1 year ago

My fear with geoengineering is that is allows us to become complacent about solving the primary problems, and then also creates its own set of unexpected secondary problems.

[-] Taako_Tuesday@lemmy.ca 31 points 1 year ago

At least to your second point, in the video he explains that there are ways to seed clouds for cooling purposes without any major side effects, and the experiment hes talking about is that this shows it can be done on a large scale. Whether it would make us complacent on getting CO2 out of the air, though, it might but at least it would be the start of a solution.

[-] archomrade@midwest.social 16 points 1 year ago

Hank also says that we're at point where we need to cut emissions AND carbon capture AND geoengineer in order to mitigate climate disaster. It can't be a one and done solution anymore, we're beyond that

[-] suburBeebiTcH@beehaw.org 3 points 1 year ago

And considering we are at risk for loosing tons of biodiversity in the oceans from this heating (see mass coral bleaching event in florida) I think we have to start seeding clouds and whatever mitigating factors we can

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this post was submitted on 06 Aug 2023
255 points (100.0% liked)

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