Temperatures continue to break records. According to measurements of the European Union’s (EU) Copernicus satellite monitoring system, January 2024 was recorded as the ‘hottest January’ ever recorded.
ADVERTISING
To counter global warming, the idea of a ‘floating umbrella between the Sun and the Earth’ is becoming an increasingly common argument in the scientific world.
Scientists advocating this idea say that this ‘giant parasol’ will block a small but significant amount of solar radiation and calculate that if even 2 percent of the radiation is shielded, this will be enough to cool the planet by 1.5 degrees Celsius.
While a new study conducted by the University of Utah investigates dust scattering into deep space, a team from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology is also investigating creating a shield of “space bubbles.”
Last year Istvan Szapudi, an astronomer at the University of Hawaii’s Institute of Astronomy, published a paper suggesting attaching a large solar shield to an asteroid. published.
Finally, scientists led by Yoram Rozen, professor of physics at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology and director of the Asher Space Research Institute, also say they are ready to build a prototype shadow.
Speaking to the New York Times, Dr. To block the necessary amount of solar radiation, the shadow would need to be about a million square miles, roughly the size of Argentina, Rozen said.
However, Rozen points out that a canopy of this size would weigh at least 2.5 million tons, which would be too heavy to be launched into space.
That’s why Rozen and his team are working on many screenings of ‘small shades’. These blinds will not completely block the light, but instead cast a slightly diffused shadow on the Earth.
This idea was first proposed by engineer James Early in 1989. Climate scientists have been brainstorming around this idea ever since.
Cosmologist István Szapudi envisions the sunshade being broken into small pieces, as it would be huge and nearly impossible to launch into space, and attached to an asteroid in space, as it would be heavy.
Still, it would take “an army of engineers” to prove whether this is feasible in real life, Szapudi says.
But some scientists worry that such a thing could affect weather events such as rain and possibly damage the Earth’s ozone layer.
2024-02-11 11:12:04
#umbrella #Sun #Earth #prevent #climate #crisis
