A geoengineering technique designed to reduce high temperatures in California could inadvertently intensify heatwaves in Europe, according to a study that models the unintended consequences of regional tinkering with a changing climate.
The paper shows that targeted interventions to lower temperature in one area for one season might bring temporary benefits to some populations, but this has to be set against potentially negative side-effects in other parts of the world and shifting degrees of effectiveness over time.
Earlier this year, scientists at the University of Washington sprayed sea-salt particles across the flight deck of a decommissioned aircraft carrier, the USS Hornet, docked in Alameda in San Francisco Bay.
Using Earth system computer models of the climate in 2010 and 2050, they simulated the impacts of two cloud brightening operations carried out over different regions of the north-eastern Pacific Ocean, one in the subtropics near California and one in the mid-latitudes near Alaska.
The 2010 simulation suggested the operation near Alaska would lower the risk of dangerous heat exposure in the target region by 55% – equivalent to 22 million people-days per summer – while the closer subtropical test would cause smaller, but still significant gains of 16%.
In simulations of the more disrupted climate of 2050, however, the same two operations produced very different results because there were fewer clouds, higher base temperatures and different ocean current patterns, most importantly a slowing of the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (Amoc).
The original article contains 767 words, the summary contains 239 words. Saved 69%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
This is the best summary I could come up with:
A geoengineering technique designed to reduce high temperatures in California could inadvertently intensify heatwaves in Europe, according to a study that models the unintended consequences of regional tinkering with a changing climate.
The paper shows that targeted interventions to lower temperature in one area for one season might bring temporary benefits to some populations, but this has to be set against potentially negative side-effects in other parts of the world and shifting degrees of effectiveness over time.
Earlier this year, scientists at the University of Washington sprayed sea-salt particles across the flight deck of a decommissioned aircraft carrier, the USS Hornet, docked in Alameda in San Francisco Bay.
Using Earth system computer models of the climate in 2010 and 2050, they simulated the impacts of two cloud brightening operations carried out over different regions of the north-eastern Pacific Ocean, one in the subtropics near California and one in the mid-latitudes near Alaska.
The 2010 simulation suggested the operation near Alaska would lower the risk of dangerous heat exposure in the target region by 55% – equivalent to 22 million people-days per summer – while the closer subtropical test would cause smaller, but still significant gains of 16%.
In simulations of the more disrupted climate of 2050, however, the same two operations produced very different results because there were fewer clouds, higher base temperatures and different ocean current patterns, most importantly a slowing of the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (Amoc).
The original article contains 767 words, the summary contains 239 words. Saved 69%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!