Porous Glass Technology for Global Climate Change
Abstract
The current and projected increases in carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gasses are expected to increase the trapping of outgoing longwave radiation by the Earth's atmosphere, forcing the surface to warm to restore radiative balance. Most proposed ways to avoid the potentially large temperature increases (and their costly effects) are aimed at minimizing future carbon dioxide concentrations, keeping them at or near current levels (or even reducing them). An alternative to these plans is to actively regulate the amount of solar radiation hitting the surface. Various proposals have been put forth to do this, but our research focuses on the introduction of porous glass microspheres into the stratosphere, where they will be expected to persist for long periods. Unlike similar plans to release sulfate aerosol into the stratosphere, the use of a manufactured aerosol allows us to prescribe the aerosol size and other properties. We have performed theoretical calculations to determine the mass of glass aerosol needed to make significant reductions in the surface shortwave flux, and we have used a global climate model to simulate the effect of placing these microspheres in the stratosphere. The consequent changes in the Earth's radiative balance and the effects on global climate are used as measures to evaluate the scheme.
- Publication:
-
AGU Spring Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- May 2008
- Bibcode:
- 2008AGUSMGC43A..20W
- Keywords:
-
- 1620 Climate dynamics (0429;
- 3309);
- 1626 Global climate models (3337;
- 4928);
- 1630 Impacts of global change (1225);
- 3319 General circulation (1223);
- 3359 Radiative processes