Here’s a shocking finding: messing around with our atmosphere could be a bad idea.

Some scientists have suggested that we could throw sulphate particles into the atmosphere, which could block sunlight and offset global warming. Now research by Simone Tilmes, of the National Center for Atmospheric Research, suggests this would mess up the ozone layer.

“Our research indicates that trying to artificially cool off the planet could have perilous side effects,” she says (press release). “While climate change is a major threat, more research is required before society attempts global geoengineering solutions.”

In a new paper published by Science, Tilmes and colleages write:

An injection of sulfur large enough to compensate surface warming due to the doubling of CO2 would cause a drastic increase in the extent of Arctic ozone depletion during the next century for cold winters and would cause a considerable delay, between 30 and 70 years, in the expected recovery of the Antarctic ozone hole.

Throwing stuff up there to cool the planet brings other problems, as noted by Wired:

“Aerosols could cool the Earth, but also change climate circulation,” said Alan Robock, a Rutgers University climate scientist, when I talked to him last October for a story on geoengineering. After warning of droughts and famine, he added, “There won’t be blue skies anymore. The sky will look cloudy all the time.”

Reuters says Tilmes doesn’t rule out cooling the planet via sulphates, but she thinks that “we need people to have atmospheric models to understand the process in more detail”.

Let’s hope it doesn’t reach the point where we have to choose between blue skies and a cool planet…

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