At the dawn of an ice age, scientists try to cool the climate

Despite the moratorium on Geoengineering, the recent progress of the program CLOUD don't seem to bother them in their calculations either... And the hole is indeed there...

When researchers confirm the existence of a hole of more than 2 million square kilometers in the ozone layer above the Arctic, British teams are preparing to begin an experiment to inject sulfates in the stratosphere to eventually cool the planet. However, sulphates are the molecules that would have greatly contributed to damaging the ozone layer.

The British SPICE project initially proposes to launch a balloon that would raise a pipe to spray water one kilometer into the atmosphere. This first phase would one day inject sulphates into the stratosphere to create a sunscreen that would help reduce ongoing global warming.

Around XNUMX international bodies yesterday asked the British government to stop all experimentation in the stratosphere and to put an end to the SPICE project, which involves four universities, three research councils, government departments and the company Marshall Aerospace. The groups have also launched an international petition.

At the same time, we learned that a hole of unprecedented magnitude had been created over the Arctic during the first three months of 2011 at about 20 km from the earth's surface. More than 80% of stratospheric ozone would have disappeared from this area. The first sightings of this hole were made in the early 80s and the two largest were in 1996 and 2005.

For Olivier Collin-Haubensak, a UQAM researcher who has touched on atmospheric science, there is a link between this hole and climate change. The Earth's rotation, he says, creates a vortex that concentrates water vapor from warming regions and acids from industrial emissions at the poles. These sulfates help to increase the intensity of this vortex and accentuate the cooling of the air between the troposphere and the stratosphere. The chlorine molecules carried by this vortex react to extreme cold and act as catalysts that destroy the molecules of the thin ozone layer that protect us from ultraviolet rays. Thus, the more heat there is on the ground, the greater the risk of seeing these sulphates contribute to the enlargement of the holes in the ozone layer.

This is why, he says, the British SPICE project is simply “delusional” since it could contribute to these reactions. It should be the subject of a preliminary impact study by the international community before being authorized.

In 2009, parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) called in 2009 for all countries on the planet to observe a complete moratorium on geoengineering projects. The CBD had unsuccessfully called on Germany to end an attempt to fertilize Antarctic seas with iron filings to increase their CO2 capture capacity to slow global warming. The experiment took place, but it was a failure.