Moderate, Temporary, and Responsive Solar Geoengineering

The combination of inertia and uncertainty makes the coupled climate-economic system dangerously hard to control. Emissions cuts are necessary to manage climate risks, but they are not necessarily sufficient. If the climate's sensitivity is at the high end of current estimates it may be too late to avert dramatic consequences for human societies and natural ecosystems even if emissions are eliminated instantaneously. Prudence demands understanding of methods that might limit environmental risks posed by the accumulation of fossil carbon in the atmosphere. The engineered alteration of the earth’s radiation budget - solar geoengineering - offers a fast means of managing climate risk, but it entails a host of new risks and it cannot fully compensate for the risk posed by the carbon burden. Professor David Keith will review the science and technology and of solar geoengineering and show new results from climate models, lab experiments, and integrated assessment models.

Speaker: David Keith, Harvard