Geoengineering (Wrong 2)

> Any SRM program that purported to be serious about mitigating global warming would have to operate at a level of a few million tons of SO2 per year, or a few percent of what is already coming from volcanoes, fossil fuels, and wildfires.

This really doesn't get mentioned enough. I didn't realize the scale of what would have the desired effect was so small in comparison to what's happening without human intervention. I hadn't exactly done a deep dive, but any media I saw about it made it look like it was many times more SO2 than would be emitted otherwise.

This a logical and well laid out article. Solar Radiation Management (SRM) is the only practical solution that we know of to effectively manage rising temperatures in the short to medium term as we finalize the move away from carbon energy sources. Given the risks from rising CO2 levels, SRM needs to be taken more seriously.

I remember an article on this in the New Scientist a long time ago. It opened with telling us that our grandchildren will be able to identify old photos by the blueness of the sky. SO2 in the sky will reduce the intensity of its colour.

More substantially, the distribution of cooling by latitude from SO2 is different from the distribution of warming from CO2. You can put enough SO2 up there to get the same average cooling as the average warming from the CO2 but either the poles will be warmer and the equator cooler, or vice versa (I forget which way it goes). SO2 is not actually “anti-CO2” at all.

So weather patterns will be quite different in a CO2 + SO2 world, and decisions about the “right” amount of SO2 to pump out will be highly contested