Although the sunshade approach won't bring back the same climate as reducing CO2 emissions, "it is highly successful compared to doing nothing," Lunt adds. Lunt's team's work was not the first to try to understand the effects of sunshades using a climate model. Work by Ken Caldeira of the Carnegie Institution in Stanford, Calif., also modeled a "sunshade world," but with a less complex model that did not include complete accounting for ocean circulation and sea ice. "The study confirms our earlier findings with a better model," Caldeira said. Although Lunt's model suggests sunshades are better than nothing, he would rather see efforts focused elsewhere. "My personal opinion is that we should be focusing our time and money on actually reducing emissions," he said, "rather than some manmade monstrosity in space." "The biggest problem I have with geoengineering discussions now is that the prospect of it working will reduce efforts to mitigate the problem by reducing fossil fuel emissions," agreed climatologist Alan Robock of Rutgers University in New Brunswick, N.J. "The solution to the climate problem is mitigation, not geoengineering," he added. "These things are not perfect and there's the potential for unintended consequences." Related Links: |
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