Geoengineering consists of a suite of widely debated proposals to mitigate global warming by actively managing Earth's radiation budget or greenhouse gas concentrations. Nobel laureate Paul Crutzen has proposed injecting sulfate aerosols into the stratosphere, which would reflect more incoming solar radiation away from the Earth, decreasing surface temperatures. Imagine we adopted this strategy for 100 years and then stopped. How would climate react at the end of the experiment?

Question

Quizplus · Accepted Answer

Injecting sulfate aerosols into the stratosphere would temporarily cool the Earth by reflecting solar radiation away. However, once the intervention stopped, the aerosols would eventually settle out of the atmosphere, and the climate would quickly return to its warming trajectory, assuming greenhouse gas concentrations continued to increase as before.

Geoengineering Consists of a Suite of Widely Debated Proposals to Mitigate