The Earth is approximately 150 million kilometers away from the sun, many of whose secrets we still do not know, but the certain fact is that it is the source of life on our planet. The attention is currently directed to it in an attempt to control the Earth’s temperature, which has continued to rise since the era of the industrial revolution.
The method that has continued for many years in research centers is to work on blocking the sun rays, in an attempt to combat the rise in temperature.
Recently, the United States decided to take this idea into account in the face of global warming. This sparked widespread controversy between supporters and opponents.
One of the most prominent methods proposed to activate the idea is to simulate the effects of volcanoes in reflecting sunlight into space, and then decreasing temperatures.
By coincidence, the world's temperature dropped by approximately half a degree Celsius between 1991 and 1993, after the stratosphere received approximately 20 million tons of sulfur dioxide coming from the Pinatubo volcano that erupted in the Philippines. Hence, adding similar substances into the atmosphere may help us achieve the goal of reducing temperature.
The first person to link the eruption of volcanoes with a decline in temperatures was “Benjamin Franklin”, one of the founders of USA in 1783, who pointed out that the fog present in the skies of the European continent would lead to a sharp decline in the effect of the sun’s heat on the Earth, according to The Atlantic website.
The idea of reflecting sunlight seems at odds with the current trend of using it to generate clean energy. Does implementing the idea mean sacrificing the long strides we have made in the field of solar energy?
Earth reflectivity
In 2022, the global solar energy market reached approximately $235 billion, and is expected to rise again to approximately $375 billion by 2029, according to Fortune Business Insights.
For the first time, the International Energy Agency (IEA) estimated that solar energy investments in 2023 will exceed oil investments, reaching $286 billion this year. This is at a time when the Middle East region, according to experts, awaits a promising future in the field, amid expectations that the size of the market in the region will reach trillions of dollars.
According to the “Global Energy Monitor” website, the number of solar farms already operating in the Arab world exceeds 130, amid other large numbers of projects under implementation.
In turn, the “Solar Reviews” website reported a scientific study conducted in 2017, in which researchers estimated that solar geo-engineering by adding quantities of aerosols to the atmosphere may lead to a decline in the production capacity of solar panels by up to 10%, but on the other hand there are those who believe that the effect would be much smaller.
“Wick Smith”, a lecturer at the school of environment at Yale University, said that the degree of decline in sunlight captured by solar panels will be limited to a rate ranging between 1 and 2%.
During his interview with “Green in Arabic”, “Smith” rejected the term “blocking the sun”, stressing that the more accurate expression is increasing the degree of reflectivity of the Earth. "In its natural state, our planet reflects 30% of the rays that reach it, due to clouds, ice, sand, and other reflective surfaces. Therefore, the idea of solar geo-engineering is based on increasing the degree of reflection by up to 2%, which is the percentage that will affect the work of solar panels."
“Dr. Robert Berhambert”, a professor at Oxford University who specializes in climate physics, agrees with the previous opinion regarding the impact on solar energy. He says that the rate of decline will be limited to a limited percentage, or it may increase according to the expansion of the application of the issue of reversing the rays.
“Berhumbert” pointed out, in his interview with “Green in Arabic”, that the issue of solar energy does not represent the main problem in implementing the idea, but rather the greatest danger is that it may turn into an excuse for more reliance on fossil fuels.
He explained that the additional emissions that this trend will cause will push the planet to further expand the technology of blocking the sun. If we put carbon dioxide on top of the materials that are added, the former gas remains in the atmosphere for thousands of years. Other materials need to be renewed annually, and perhaps at a faster pace.
If the world continues to implement the idea for thousands of years, and then we are forced to stop it, the world will witness “catastrophic rapid warming” of a kind that it has never seen before, and certainly that humans have never experienced, according to his opinion.
Adverse results
In an interview with the American network Vox, physics professor “Robert Berhambert” warned of a worse scenario, which is that adding new elements to the atmosphere will lead to changing rainfall patterns globally which may threaten to exacerbate extreme weather waves in some areas.
While “Berhambert” expected rainfall rates to decline due to solar geo-engineering, he pointed out that it is currently difficult to evaluate these changes, because assessing climate impact takes many years.
But he referred to an agreement among scientists that if, for example, materials were added in the northern part of the world in an irregular manner, this would lead to severe drought in the African Shore region.
“Berhumbert” believes that ensuring the maintenance of temperature decline through solar geo-engineering requires unprecedented international cooperation, the establishment of international institutions and the conclusion of agreements, which places an additional burden on humanity for thousands of years to come.
In 2014, Professor “Steve Renner” at the University of Oxford, after personally leading a project on solar geo-engineering, warned of the danger of the matter to international relations, saying: “For example, if India had released sulfur dioxide into the stratosphere, before the recent floods in Pakistan, no one would have succeeded in convincing Islamabad that India’s decision was what caused those floods,” according to “The Guardian” newspaper.
Estimates of the lecturer at Yale University's school of environment, “Wick Smith”, were more optimistic. While he agrees with the idea of changing rainfall patterns as a result of solar geo-engineering, he rejects the idea that this change will cause more extreme weather waves. On the contrary, he expects these waves to decline, and work to restore patterns that have been disturbed by climate change.
But he also acknowledged that this conclusion is still preliminary, and that the majority of the effects of the idea are still unknown, stressing that solar geo-engineering is not an alternative to carbon removal processes, or reaching net zero emissions, but it is a means of mitigating the effects of climate change on future generations.
Carbon footprint
The American Yale University conducted an estimated study on the capabilities needed to cool the Earth through this method, revealing the need for 125 aircraft to perform periodic flights at a high altitude from the Earth to add these materials into the atmosphere at 60 degrees north latitude.
But the crisis lies in the fact that the number of trips you need annually amounts to 175,000 trips, according to an estimate by researchers. This means the emission of millions of tons of carbon dioxide.
Despite concerns about the volume of emissions resulting from the prospective technology, the American lecturer believes that the carbon footprint of the technology is limited, and estimated aviation emissions at 1%.
There is another method for reflecting sunlight, which is the marine cloud bleaching technique. That is, increasing the drag capabilities in those areas in contrast to the rays through several methods. The most prominent of which is spraying quantities of seawater into low cloud layers, an idea that ships are being used to implement.
“Berhumbert” believes that whitening marine clouds would require a large fleet of ships, which would cause more carbon emissions if they were powered by diesel. And, if we resort to clean energy, we will be shocked by the world’s needs for this type of energy.
