January 23, 2021

Cloud technologies. Bill Gates decided to change the climate

The American billionaire and founder of Microsoft is omnipresent. He turned to resemble the hero of his namesake Bill Murray from the movie "Groundhog Day", who, having got himself into a time loop, learned a lot of skills: learned to play the piano and carve ice sculptures, mastered the French language and medical skills, and on top of that he managed to rescue people at intervals.

Bill Gates has long been dreaming of saving humanity. Now he decided to "omnibulate the sun" - he announced his intention to finance an experiment to create clouds using reflecting particles. The idea assumes that they should cause a cooling effect and reduce the air temperature, which will stop global warming.

However, not all scientists consider this idea a good one.

How to make clouds denser

The idea itself is not a new one. The possibility of increasing the reflective power of the Earth by aerosol spraying at high altitudes was discussed several decades ago. And in 2010, the Gates himself invested funds in the construction of ships that spray seawater into the sky. Using this method, the environmentalists wanted to create artificial clouds or make natural clouds denser, which should reduce the amount of solar energy reaching the surface of the Earth.

10 years ago, this project caused controversial reactions among scientists. Along with positive reviews, the scholars issued warnings that the implementation of such ideas (provided that they are applied around the entire globe) is an extremely irresponsible action. The experts said - "the global climate change is already causing threat to our lands, forests and seas. We don't want to allow running another dangerous experiment with the planet."

It became known a couple of years ago that Bill Gates got interested in another technology: instead of seawater, it is proposed to spray calcium carbonate particles, and not at the surface of the Earth, but in the stratosphere. They named the project SCoPEx, it was developed at Harvard. American scientists want to send a probe with an aerosol bottle to the altitude of 20 kilometres. It would spray a container of calcium carbonate there, then fly through the resulting plume and analyse the changes that will have occurred in the atmosphere.

If the technology proves to be effective, it can then be applied on the scale of the entire planet to counteract global climate change.

Want of an ideal aerosol

We should say in fairness that calcium carbonate is not some evil toxin, it is ordinary chalk. It is contained in many minerals and the eggshell, and is even officially registered as a food colorant. In addition, during the experiment the Harvard scholars would like to spray only a small amount of it - no more than 2 kilograms. Of course, this will not produce any adverse effect to nature.

The purpose of the experiment will precisely be testing the technology - to find out whether calcium carbonate will cause any aggressive effect on the ozone layer, and whether it will react with other gases in the stratosphere. In laboratory conditions, it is impossible to get answers to these questions. SCoPEx project lead researcher David Keith says: - "the only thing that an ideal aerosol should do is to disperse as much sunlight as possible and thus cool the planet."

Notwithstanding the apparent safety of the experiment, the Harvard scientists faced opposition of the society in the United States. Under the public pressure, they had to move the experiment to Sweden, to the territory of the northernmost city of Kiruna, which is located in the Arctic circle. The experiment time was also postponed: initially it was planned for 2019, but now it will be conducted in June 2021. And even then, this is subject to the permission of Swedish authorities. They may also block it.

It is assumed that initially, a balloon with scientific equipment would simply be launched into the stratosphere. It would not spray aerosols, but would only work out manoeuvring and test all systems. And calcium carbonate would be released during the next stage of the experiment. The balloon would fly through the resulting cloud of particles, fixing all the chemical reactions in the atmosphere and recording the resultant dynamics.

Bill Gates' participation involves funding the project. It will cost to several million dollars, which is peanuts for the entrepreneur-philanthropist.

Risks cannot be predicted

Such measures aimed at counteracting global warming are called geoengineering. There are many ideas, and some of them seem nothing less than radical. For instance, a suggestion was made (perhaps it was a kind of trolling) to blow up several thermonuclear bombs somewhere in the deserted regions of the planet. They would raise huge clouds of dust into the atmosphere, to lead to quite fast cooling.

Of course, in the background of such crazy ideas, the project, funded by Bill Gates, looks like a child's prank. However, we repeat this again, it causes criticism of the scientific community. Critics say that it involves unpredictable risks: no one knows what large-scale aerosol would spraying in the atmosphere cause. Will it cause more extreme weather events? What will be the reaction of the world's oceans? Will the cooling cause drop of the yield of agricultural crops?

In addition, Vladimir Semenov, Deputy director of the Institute of Atmospheric Physics of the Russian Academy of Sciences draws his attention to a very important fine point: "Yes, it is possible that aerosols sprayed in the stratosphere, will cause cooling of the Earth by reflecting sunlight. This is a technically feasible job, but the effect will last as long as it can be maintained. It will require arranging tens of thousands of flights annually, but the extent of the affect such amount of reagents to the environment still remains unclear."

In other words, the use of reflective particles will cause certain "dependence” - aerosols would have to be sprayed constantly. Finally, conservationists fear (and not without a reason) that the main polluters of the atmosphere would take the successful implementation of geoengineering projects as a "green light". Instead of reducing greenhouse gas emissions, they would continue to burn hydrocarbons and pollute the environment.

Source: https://aif.ru/society/science/oblachnye_tehnologii_bill_geyts_reshil_izmenit_klimat

Translated inti English by Muhiddin Ganiev