Theme: 2. Mitigation

Topic Area: 2a. Market Mechanisms (Technology & Process) for Carbon Neutrality

Background/Objectives:

Recent changes to the global climate cycle call for development of intervention strategies to slow or reverse climate change effects. One potential method is to reduce the amount of solar energy that reaches the Earth by placing an inflatable shield at the Sun-Earth system’s L1 Lagrange point. To explore such a shield’s effectiveness, a simple model was built to estimate the impact of blocking varying percentages of the Sun’s light over time.

Approach/Activities:

The model utilizes Atmospheric and Environmental Research, Inc.’s¹ RRTM Earth’s Energy Budget online model to calculate the Earth’s energy loss after lowering the solar constant. The resulting energy loss is used to calculate the change in average global temperature over time. The model incorporates the global effects of latent heat of water in the oceans as well as the specific heat of the Earth’s air, ice, and water. The model calculates the time required to reduce the Earth’s average temperature by 1.5°C. The model uses NOAA’s Climate at a Glace: GlobalTime Series² results from 1981-2021 to calculate a best fit line for the current climate change trend to extrapolate future average temperatures by year.

Results/Lessons Learned:

The model shows reducing the amount of sunlight by 15% would slow climate change effects for no more than 60 years. Therefore, this method or any similar method that relies upon the reduction of sunlight alone is not an effective, permanent solution to reverse climate change effects. Other measures of mitigation must be incorporated to reduce carbon emissions to lower the global average temperature. It could, however, buy valuable time to implement other interventions to prevent runaway greenhouse conditions.

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Nathaniel Reynolds