At this moment, everyone agrees that climate change is a reality and that we are all in grave danger. The ice caps are melting, the Earth is warming, and despite the fact that international organisations and national governments have set ambitious targets, we are mostly at a loss as to what can be done to quickly reverse the situation.
Scientists now seek to refreeze the north and south poles in an ambitious, some might even say bizarre plan to stop the loss of ice.
A recent study carried out by Wake Smith of Yale University and published in Environmental Research Communications proposes that a high-flying aircraft will spray small aerosol particles into the atmosphere at latitudes of 60 degrees north and south.
According to the study, if these aerosols were distributed at a height of 43,000 feet, they would progressively float poleward and greatly shade the earth below. According to them, the extra shade would enable the melting polar to refreeze, so lessening the issues with melting glacier ice and rising sea levels.
The approach will ‘abate climate change by deflecting back into space a small fraction of the incoming solar radiation,’ the scientists claimed.
It does, however, cost a lot of money. The process, known as stratospheric aerosol injection (SAI), would be extremely expensive, according to a Daily Mail story, costing $11 billion annually.
Although they admitted that the idea is controversial, the researchers asserted that the idea is ‘feasible’ and that $11 billion a year is ‘extraordinarily cheap’ in comparison to other climate solutions like carbon capture.
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