NASA proposes radical plan to fight climate change, injecting millions of tons of ice into the atmosphere to cool the planet

NASA scientists have unveiled an ambitious strategy to combat climate change – by seeding the atmosphere with ice.

The method would involve sending high-altitude aircraft flying 57,000 feet above the surface, more than 20,000 feet higher than commercial aircraft, and spraying ice particles into the upper atmosphere.

Under the proposal, this water would freeze and remove water vapor before turning into greenhouse gas emissions, preventing the heat from escaping into space, ultimately raising Earth’s temperature.

The ice particles would freeze the water, which would then fall back to Earth, removing excess water vapor and drying out the stratosphere, where water turns into heat-trapping gas.

The plan is a collaboration between NASA and the NNational Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

The idea of ​​drying the upper atmosphere is the latest addition to what some scientists call a last-ditch toolbox to tackle climate change by manipulating the world’s atmosphere or oceans.

It is known as geoengineering often dismissed because of possible side effects, and is usually not mentioned as an alternative to reducing carbon pollution, but as a complement to emissions reductions.

Joshua Schwarz, a NOAA physicist and lead author, said, “This is not something we can even implement right now.

‘This is about exploring what is possible in the future and identifying research directions.’

Schwarz noted that the efforts would not counteract the effects of carbon dioxide (CO2) and would only cool the atmosphere by 1/70th, which is equal to the amount of heat given off by CO2.

If temperatures continue to rise, devastating consequences could occur here on Earth, including a dramatic loss of marine life, an ice-free Arctic and more frequent ‘extreme’ weather. But NASA and NOAA’s plan is intended to mitigate the effects

It will only be “a very small shift in the other direction,” he said.

NASA and NOAA’s plan would seed the area just below the stratosphere with ice particles.

In this area the air rises slowly and brings water vapor with it.

According to NASA, water vapor is the most abundant greenhouse gas on Earth; it is responsible for half of the greenhouse effect on Earth.

As temperatures on our planet rise, so does the amount of evaporation from water and land areas.

“The water vapor then absorbs the heat radiated from the Earth and prevents it from escaping into space,” NASA says.

‘This further warms the atmosphere, causing even more water vapor to enter the atmosphere.’

The team believes the target for the ice would be the Western Pacific Cold Point (WCP) – an area in the atmosphere about the size of Australia.

This region was chosen because water vapor typically enters the stratosphere via upward transport across the tropopause (the boundary separating the troposphere from the stratosphere) in the tropics.

“The tropopause over the tropical western Pacific, particularly at the WCP, is known to be the decisive gateway for determining the amount of water vapor transported to the stratosphere,” NOAA shared.

“The WCP is so cold that it will naturally freeze moist air by forming ice crystals and raining them out.”

The team theorizes that releasing two tons of ice particles per week could remove enough water to reduce warming by a small amount.

In their study, the researchers used a computer model to simulate the conditions of the WCP, driven by observations of temperature and movements of the tropical air near the stratosphere.

Models of the strategy showed a 10 percent drop in temperature.

Schwarz acknowledged that the efforts would not reduce heating that much and should not be used as an alternative to reducing pollution.

However, other scientists aren’t entirely sure what side effects might occur, and that’s the problem.

Deliberately tinkering with Earth’s atmosphere to solve climate change is likely to create new problems, says climate scientist Andrew Weaver of the University of Victoria, who was not part of the study.

He said the technical side of this makes sense, but he likened the concept to a children’s story in which a cheese-loving king is overrun with mice, lets cats deal with the mice, then lets dogs chase the cats away, lions take care of the dogs and elephants out to eliminate the lions and then go back to mice to scare off the elephants.

It makes more sense to address the original problem: the cheese or the carbon dioxide, Weaver said.

Scripps Institution of Oceanography atmospheric chemist Lynn Russell, who was not part of the study, said the idea is worth exploring, but that the study “doesn’t provide many answers given all the uncertainties.”