Climate Engineering: Technical Status, Future Directions, and Potential Responses
The U.S. Government Accountability Office has released a report that examines the current state of climate engineering science and technology, highlights experts’ views of the future of U.S. climate engineering research, and explores the potential public responses to climate engineering.
According to the GAO, proposed climate engineering technologies, or direct, deliberate, large-scale interventions in Earth’s climate, generally aim at either carbon dioxide removal (CDR) or solar radiation management (SRM).
Whereas CDR would reduce the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide (CO2), thus reducing greenhouse warming, SRM would either deflect sunlight before it reaches Earth or otherwise cool Earth by increasing the reflectivity of its surface or atmosphere.
This Summary Last Modified On: 8/26/2011