{"id":24191,"date":"2025-05-08T19:28:15","date_gmt":"2025-05-08T16:28:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/?p=24191"},"modified":"2025-05-08T19:28:15","modified_gmt":"2025-05-08T16:28:15","slug":"britain-launches-controversial-geoengineering-experiments","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/?p=24191","title":{"rendered":"Britain launches controversial geoengineering experiments"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Methods that could potentially change the Earth\u2019s climate and slow climate change are to be tested around the world, from the Arctic to Australia\u2019s Great Barrier Reef, under a British government research programme.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The country\u2019s Advanced Research and Innovation Agency (ARIA) will allocate \u00a356.8m for 21 geoengineering experiments, including launching reflective particles into the stratosphere, boosting Arctic sea ice by pumping water and increasing the reflectivity of clouds by spraying seawater.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All the experiments will be small-scale and carefully evaluated before they begin, said ARIA, which was set up in 2023 by the British government on the model of DARPA, the US Pentagon\u2019s research agency.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Many experts warn of potentially serious side effects from geoengineering interventions, such as changing rainfall patterns in neighboring countries. Others believe that geoengineering could temporarily cool the planet until the cause of climate change, the burning of fossil fuels, is addressed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Caveats<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The issue remains controversial, and several previous experiments have been canceled, such as last year’s Harvard attempt to launch reflective particles into the atmosphere after backlash in Sweden, where the experiment was to be conducted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mark Symes of the University of Glasgow, head of the ARIA project, told the journal Nature (“Controversial geoengineering projects to test Earth-cooling tech funded by UK agency<\/a>“) that the need to reduce carbon emissions is not in doubt.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But he said geoengineering could prevent a number of planetary \u201ctipping points,\u201d such as the collapse of ocean circulation in the Atlantic due to the melting of the Greenland ice sheet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

ARIA is funding, among other things, a solar geoengineering experiment that will use balloons to transport reflective particles of various minerals into the stratosphere, which will later return to Earth to study their behavior.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A second experiment planned in the Arctic will try pumping seawater over a square kilometer of ice sheet with the aim of increasing its thickness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A third experiment, to be carried out in collaboration with Australian researchers, concerns the protection of the Great Barrier Reef from solar radiation. The researchers will use a large fan to spray seawater over the reef. The idea is that the salt in the seawater will cause the water droplets in the clouds to break up into smaller particles. The smaller they are, the whiter and more reflective the clouds become.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A fourth project will examine whether it is possible to reduce the radiation received by the Earth by launching a reflector or a cloud of reflective particles into space. In this case, there will be no tests, only theoretical studies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The 21 projects also include studies on the ecological and social consequences and the international oversight required for geoengineering initiatives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

ARIA hopes that around 2030 the results of the experiments will guide international talks on interventions in the global climate.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Methods that could potentially change the Earth\u2019s climate and slow climate change are to be tested around the world, from the Arctic to Australia\u2019s…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":24192,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2810,1168],"tags":[6904,957,6903,6902],"class_list":["post-24191","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-climate_environment","category-science-technology","tag-aria","tag-climate-change","tag-experiment","tag-geoengineering"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24191","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=24191"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24191\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24193,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24191\/revisions\/24193"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/24192"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=24191"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=24191"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=24191"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}