Authors:

  • Wake Smith

Excerpt

May 22, 2024, Paper: "Models of stratospheric aerosol injection deployment scenarios have often assumed that a global sunscreen could be applied to the Earth on relatively short notice, perhaps in response to a climate emergency. This emergency response framing confuses the timescales associated with the commencement of such a program. Once deployed, stratospheric aerosols could cool the earth quite quickly, but such a deployment would require aircraft and other infrastructure that does not currently exist. Given the span required to develop and certify a novel aircraft program and thereafter build a fleet numbering in the hundreds, scenario builders should assume a roughly two-decade interval between a funded launch decision and the attainment of a target level of cooling."