""Geoengineering" is the catch-all term for attempts to alter Earth's climate in order to mitigate the effects of global warming. And, not surprisingly, it's been controversial from the start. Critics have derided it as "playing God" with the environment, and the potential risks are almost too many to tally — even its proponents stress that the consequences of large-scale climate intervention are impossible to foresee. But as the signs of global warming multiply, geoengineering is beginning to seem like a plausible solution — or at least part of a solution — to today's climate woes. "

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"One possibility for cooling the pole is geoengineering, the deliberate modification of the climate to reduce warming. Pumping sulphate aerosols into the Arctic stratosphere from high-flying aircraft could be one way to blot out a bit of the sun. Such an approach would cool Arctic summers but have little effect in winter because there would be no sunlight to reflect. Injecting salt crystals into clouds over the Arctic ocean, to enhance their reflectivity, might also encourage some cooling, though the helpfulness of this type of intervention is highly speculative."

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Lenferna, Alex; Russotto, Rick; Tan, Amanda; Gardiner, Stephen; Ackerman, Thomas (2017): Relevant Climate Response Tests for Stratospheric Aerosol Injection. A Combined Ethical and Scientific Analysis. In Earth's Future. DOI: 10.1002/2016EF000504.

"In this paper, we focus on stratospheric sulfate injection as a geoengineering scheme, and provide a combined scientific and ethical analysis of climate response tests, which are a subset of outdoor tests that would seek to impose detectable and attributable changes to climate variables on global or regional scales. We assess the current state of scientific understanding on the plausibility and scalability of climate response tests. Then we delineate a minimal baseline against which to consider whether certain climate response tests would be relevant for a deployment scenario. Our analysis shows that some climate response tests, such as those attempting to detect changes in regional climate impacts, may not be deployable in time periods relevant to realistic geoengineering scenarios. This might pose significant challenges for justifying SSI deployment overall."

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"Former U.S. vice-president Al Gore is warning against massive geoengineering experiments that attempt to reverse climate change, arguing instead that the focus must remain on cutting emissions that are warming the planet. “I don’t think it’s a good idea,” Mr. Gore told the TED Conference in Vancouver, after he was invited on stage to weigh in on a debate about geoengineering."

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