Extreme heat, scientists are ready to use diamonds to cool the earth

JAKARTA – Overheating caused by climate change, he created a group of scientists, meteorologists and Earth experts who were ready to study diamond dust to fight global warming.

The Earth is warming and experts believe that the temperature may have reached a point of no return. Big steps need to be taken to cool the planet significantly and that may not help reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Scientists around the world agree that injecting aerosols into the atmosphere could solve the problem because aerosols can reflect sunlight and excess heat back into space. Sulfur dioxide, which occurs naturally in the atmosphere during volcanic eruptions, has been at the forefront of this race.

However, it has side effects and can cause acid rain around the world, damage the ozone layer, and also cause unpredictable weather changes in the lower atmosphere.

So they have to look for viable alternatives. The experts conducted research at the Institute for Atmospheric and Climate Sciences at ETH Zurich, where they created 3D climate models to determine the effects of different types of aerosols.

They evaluated their interaction with light and heat, how long they stayed in the air, their ability to accumulate, and how they would eventually fall back to Earth.

They found seven candidates that could solve the problem – calcite, diamond, aluminum, silicon carbide, anatase, rutile and sulfur dioxide, which was tested. Diamond dust emerged as a surprising winner.

Diamond dust was found to reflect the most light and heat in the experiment. The dust can also stay in the air for a decent amount of time and is less likely to accumulate to retain heat.

An added advantage is that it does not create acid rain because it is chemically unstable.

However, since these are diamonds, the solution is very expensive. The model suggests that the Earth could be cooled by about 1.6 °C in 45 years if about five million tons of synthetic diamond dust were put into the atmosphere every year. This effort would cost $200 trillion.

This process also has significant technological and logistical challenges. Current manufacturing technologies and infrastructure do not fit these conditions and need to be expanded many times over to create and synthesize diamond dust on a large scale.

Dispersing diamond dust every year means that there are special planes or spacecraft to release the particles at the required altitudes around the globe.

(wbs)