Geoengineering could save the ice sheets - but only if we start soon

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https://www.newscientist.com/article/2427681-geoengineering-could-save-the-ice-sheets-but-only-if-we-start-soon/

Geoengineering could save the ice sheets – but only if we start soon

Shading the planet by spraying aerosols into the stratosphere might stave off ice sheet collapse, modelling studies suggest, but we are running out of time

By Michael Le Page
22 April 2024


Shading Earth’s surface from sunlight could postpone or even avoid the collapse of the West Antarctic ice sheet – but only if we start soon and only in conjunction with substantial emissions cuts, according to two computer modelling studies by independent teams.

“There’s a time window that we can do this, and if we dither, there’s just no point in doing it,” says John Moore at the University of Lapland in Finland, who led one of the teams. “And that time window I think is a hell of a lot closer to 25 years than it is to 100 years.”

“The study we did says 2030 at the latest,” says Johannes Sutter at the Alfred Wegener Institute in Bremerhaven, Germany.

However, neither Moore nor Sutter is suggesting we rush ahead with geoengineering, not least because there are still far too many unknowns. Neither do they think there is any chance of achieving the necessary political consensus.

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