We have come to want to lighten the marine clouds to lower temperatures

The clearing of marine clouds as a solution to the warming of our planet returns as a proposal among experts.An experiment shows a possible path for the future.

In a famous episode of the Simpsons, the very evil Mister Burns decides to darken the Sun with a huge drive to force the residents of Springfield to buy electricity from his company.Since then, that scene comes to mind every time we hear about it geoengineering, or rather, of climate engineering.

In fact, geoengineering refers to a mixture of geology and engineering to modify the surrounding environment (an example is the Mose mobile dam system in Venice);in recent years, however, there has been more and more talk of technologies with which to combat the effects of climate change on a planetary scale.In some cases, attempts are even made to intervene on the causes of these changes, as in removal of carbon from the atmosphere, a technology that is still experimental but already very controversial.

What is marine cloud brightening, or lightening the new marinas

Another possible way to mitigate the effects ofpollution and industrial production instead aims at the heart of the problem: global warming.The Earth is increasingly hotter, the average temperatures, including those of the oceans and seas, are constantly increasing, and we need to act.By abandoning fossil fuels such as coal, oil and gas and converting the world to renewable energy?Too easy according to one of the solutions proposed by the marine cloud brightening, Meaning what lighten the marine clouds to be able to bounce the sun's rays back and therefore reduce temperatures on Earth.

To do this, you need to spray a certain amount of salts into the air, such as tells the US newspaper New York Times in an article on first open field experiment, or rather, offshore, made in the United States, in San Francisco Bay.The objective is precisely to bounce enough solar rays to lower temperatures in the affected sea region, which would, according to the most confident, beneficial effects for the climate, if it could be done on a large scale.

Does clearing marine clouds solve the problem?

There is obviously no shortage of contrary voices, who point out how difficult it would be to predict but also measure these effects, as the Greenpeace International scientist explained to the New York newspaper, David Santillo.It's easy to imagine a huge machine capable of solving this problem but the clearing "could change climate patterns not only in the sea, but also on land."According to Santillo, and many other environmentalists, it is “a frightening vision of the future which we should avoid at all costs."

Even former American vice president Al Gore, author of documentary “An Inconvenient Truth” (2006), said that “people have woken up and are trying to figure out if there is some miraculous deus ex machina that can help.”As carbon removal, carried out using very expensive, inefficient and energy-intensive equipment, the sea cloud clearing technique appears to detractors as an attempt to solve the problem without dealing with the aforementioned real causes, with the hope of finding the miracle cure to continue polluting and consuming oil and gas.

Karen Orenstein, of the environmentalist association Friends of the Earth, he even called these cloud experiments “a dangerous distraction”.The proponents of these solutions, however, underline the importance of mitigating the effects of climate change, seeking ways to lower the temperature and limit the damage.All this, obviously, would not imply abandoning the ongoing environmental battles.

The clearing of marine clouds has a relatively recent history. In 1990 the British physicist John Latham published in Nature an article in which he mentioned the idea of ​​spraying small particles into the atmosphere to bounce light from the Sun.The idea was suggested to him by his son, who one day asked him why the clouds were light at the top and dark at the bottom, on the side facing the earth.Latham explained to him that the clouds acted as “mirror for the light coming from the Sun” and from there his proposal was born:send a thousand remotely controlled boats along seas and oceans to spray particles of sea water into the air to shield the planet from the sun's rays.

Finding the right particles, however, is very complex.Those that are too small have no effect, for example, and then they must be sprayed in the right way, with a certain intensity (about one thousand trillion particles per second).The experiment cited by the New York Times aimed precisely at understanding whether these particles were able to maintain the right size once sprayed. It takes months to get the results and it may take a decade to be able to have an impact on a global scale.Assuming it's the right thing to do, of course.