Events

Speaker: James (Jim) Hurrell, Professor, Department of Atmospheric Science, Colorado State University

Host: Danielle Touma

Title: Potential Risks, Benefits and Impacts of Solar Climate Intervention

Abstract: Climate change, driven by human activities like fossil fuel burning, is causing rapid global warming that is unprecedented in recent millennia. By 2100, global temperatures could rise significantly higher, exacerbating ice melt, sea-level rise, and causing irreversible harm to ecosystems and human societies, particularly impacting vulnerable populations. The potential severe consequences of future climate change and relatively weak climate action to-date is leading to a growing interest among researchers, governments, NGOs and policy analysts in understanding if the deployment of some form of Solar Climate Intervention (SCI) would help to reduce some adverse climate change impacts while humanity works to reduce atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations. SCI refers to a set of proposed large-scale interventions aimed at reflecting sunlight back into space to cool Earth. While it is generally accepted that SCI is the only way to quickly reduce global climate warming, proposed SCI strategies involve significant, uncertain risks that must be understood. In this presentation, I will summarize some recent, interdisciplinary research aimed at holistically assessing the benefits and risks of SCI, relative to the risks posed by climate change.