Geoengineering – spraying sulfur dioxide into the atmosphere to combat global warming – would only temporarily and partially benefit apple production in northern India, according to a Rutgers co-authored study.
Geoengineering – spraying sulfur dioxide into the atmosphere to combat global warming – would only temporarily and partially benefit apple production in northern India, according to a Rutgers co-authored study.
But abruptly ending geoengineering might lead to total crop failure faster than if geoengineering were not done, according to the study – believed to be the first of its kind – in the journal Climatic Change.
“This study reminds us that there is no perfect technical method to address the impacts of global warming, and that we need to mitigate global warming and adapt as best we can,” said co-author Alan Robock, a Distinguished Professor in the Department of Environmental Sciences in the School of Environmental and Biological Sciences at Rutgers University–New Brunswick. “To reduce the impacts of global warming, in this case on the production of deciduous fruits such as apples, we need to leave the fossil fuels in the ground and move to powering society with wind and solar power as quickly as possible.”
In a 2018 study, Robock and other researchers examined the biological impacts of starting and abruptly ending geoengineering efforts to cool Earth’s climate. Society, responding to a climate emergency, may eventually spray sulfur dioxide into the stratosphere (upper atmosphere). Such geoengineering, or climate intervention, would create a massive sulfuric acid cloud to block some solar radiation and cool the Earth. But if the spraying were to suddenly cease, there would be a major impact on animals and plants, which would be forced to try to move to suitable habitat to survive. The airplane spraying technology may be developed within 10 or 20 years, and a geoengineered cloud would last only about a year if the airplanes stopped continuous spraying.
Read more at Rutgers University
Image: A map of India, with apple-growing regions in color. Himachal Pradesh is the second-largest apple-producing state in India. (Credit: Jyoti Singh)
