They would be among the earliest official geoengineering-related experiments conducted outside of a controlled laboratory or computer model, underscoring the growing sense of urgency among scientists to begin seriously studying the possibility as the threat of climate change mounts.
Sometime next year, Harvard professors David Keith and Frank Keutsch hope to launch a high-altitude balloon, tethered to a gondola equipped with propellers and sensors, from a site in Tucson, Arizona. After initial engineering tests, the “StratoCruiser” would spray a fine mist of materials such as sulfur dioxide, alumina, or calcium carbonate into the stratosphere. The sensors would then measure the reflectivity of the particles, the degree to which they disperse or coalesce, and the way they interact with other compounds in the atmosphere.
The researchers first proposed these balloon experiments in a 2014 paper. But at a geoengineering conference in Washington, D.C., on Friday, Keith said they have begun engineering design work with Arizona test balloon company World View Enterprises. They’ve also started discussions about the appropriate governance structure for such an experiment, and they plan to set up an independent body to review their proposals.
“We would like to have the first flights next year,” he said at the Forum on U.S. Solar Geoengineering Research, held at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
In an earlier interview with MIT Technology Review, Keith stressed that the experiments would not be a binary test of geoengineering itself. But they should provide useful information about the proposed method that he has closely studied, known as solar radiation management.
Read more at Harvard Scientists Moving Ahead on Plans for Atmospheric Geoengineering Experiments
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