{"id":1015,"date":"2026-07-12T16:08:05","date_gmt":"2026-07-12T16:08:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movingandmortgagehub.com\/?p=1015"},"modified":"2026-07-12T16:08:05","modified_gmt":"2026-07-12T16:08:05","slug":"scientists-ponder-a-new-climate-defense-tactic-throwing-shade-at-el-nino","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movingandmortgagehub.com\/?p=1015","title":{"rendered":"Scientists Ponder a New Climate Defense Tactic: Throwing Shade at El Ni\u00f1o"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"The<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

This story was originally published by\u00a0<\/em>Wired\u00a0and\u00a0is reproduced here as part of the\u00a0<\/em>Climate Desk\u00a0collaboration.<\/em><\/p>

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This year\u2019s El\u00a0Ni\u00f1o<\/span><\/strong> is shaping up to be among the\u00a0strongest on record, and it\u2019s set to create chaotic weather around the world.<\/p>\n

A new study suggests that there could be a way to mitigate some of the impacts of future El Ni\u00f1os and global warming: dimming the sun.<\/p>\n

El Ni\u00f1o develops naturally in the tropical Pacific every few years, caused by weakened trade winds that push heat from the ocean toward the coast of South America. This tilts the odds toward higher-than-average global temperatures, as well as droughts in some regions, intense rains and floods in others, and more cyclones in the Pacific. Piled on top of warming driven by burning fossil fuels, a strong El Ni\u00f1o can mean hundreds of billions in economic losses.<\/p>\n

The new study argues that deflecting solar energy could cool the ocean and help moderate El Ni\u00f1o events before they become too strong, staving off the worst impacts.<\/p>\n

\u201cEl Ni\u00f1o is one of these things where something happens in the tropical Pacific, and then it rearranges the way the entire global atmosphere is holding energy that year,\u201d says Katherine Ricke, a coauthor of the study published Wednesday in the journal Science Advances and a climate scientist at UC San Diego and the Scripps Institution of Oceanography. \u201cIt\u2019s an ultimate pressure point in the climate system.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ricke and her coauthors looked at using marine cloud brightening, or MCB, as a way to dim the sun in the Pacific. The technique entails spraying seawater into marine clouds to enhance the clouds\u2019 reflectivity. While some pilot projects and randomized controlled trials have tested the technique\u2019s efficacy, they\u2019ve only been on very small scales.<\/p>\n

MCB is one of a few different\u00a0solar geoengineering methods\u00a0intended to reflect sunlight back into space. Other methods, like using planes to inject\u00a0aerosols into the stratosphere, can only work globally. But MCB has the potential to be a regional cooling solution.<\/p>\n

To get around the lack of MCB experiments, researchers looked at a recent natural phenomenon that mimicked it: the catastrophic 2019-2020 Australian bushfire season. More than 10,000 bushfires raged across the country, producing almost\u00a01 million metric tons of smoke. That represents one of the largest inputs of smoke into the stratosphere that humans have observed with satellite technology.<\/p>

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While the effects of this massive amount of smoke were complex, previous research shows it helped trigger a rare triple-dip\u00a0La Ni\u00f1a\u2014the opposite phase of El Ni\u00f1o\u2014thanks in part to reflective particles in the smoke.<\/p>\n

This event, Ricke says, enabled her and her coauthors to finally address a question they\u2019d had for years about whether regional interventions can help relieve the pressure events like El Ni\u00f1o put on the global climate system. The researchers created a model based on the MCB effects of the Australian bushfires, and ran it against two different historic El Ni\u00f1o events to observe its effects. The modeling showed that lowering the amount of sunlight reaching the Pacific\u2019s surface would have significantly reduced the magnitude of those El Ni\u00f1o events and their global impact.<\/p>\n

Geoengineering techniques have traditionally been viewed as a method to cool the entire planet, acting as a counterbalance to humans\u2019 use of fossil fuels\u2014albeit an extremely controversial one. The new study makes the case that some forms of geoengineering would be better used to target regional events, like El Ni\u00f1o. Doing so has the potential to avoid\u2014or at least lower the risk\u2014of the compounding effects of El Ni\u00f1o piled on top of rising temperatures due to human activity.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe idea of having to sustain geoengineering indefinitely gives a lot of people pause\u2014we all understand that cooperation at that magnitude would be hugely complicated in the world we live in,\u201d Ricke says. \u201cThis is a totally different way to think about geoengineering.\u201d<\/p>\n

Geoengineering techniques like using planes to inject aerosols into the stratosphere\u2014or even more fantastical ideas like space mirrors\u2014have been met with skepticism from scientists, policymakers, and the public. This is mainly due to their unpredictability\u2014altering the weather can come with a lot of unintended consequences\u2014and their potential to create political instability. It\u2019s likely even a regionalized approach like the one proposed in the new study would run into the same issues, but it appears to be scientifically feasible\u2014or at least worth further study.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe thesis seems quite reasonable,\u201d Andrew Dessler, a professor of atmospheric science at Texas A&M University, says of the Scripps study. But Dessler warns that actually executing something like this would be \u201ca political nightmare,\u201d resulting in conflict or war if something goes wrong in what would be a worst-case scenario.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese models are imperfect, and there\u2019s the possibility that you\u2019ll create an unpredicted problem that is worse than the problem you\u2019re trying to solve,\u201d Dessler says. \u201cI think this is a really interesting paper, and I learned a few things reading it, but I certainly would not say that this is a great idea and we should implement it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ricke agrees: \u201cThere\u2019s a lot of things we need to figure out from models before trying it in the real world,\u201d she says. Still, she says, this research could prove crucial for the future if humanity fails to address fossil fuel pollution. \u201cThe reason people do research on solar geoengineering is because we might end up in a world where we need it.\u201d<\/p>

Read more DOJ Subpoenas New York Times Journalists Following Air Force One Security Report<\/a><\/p>\n<\/article>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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