Bill Gates wants to cover the sun to end the c …

“SCoPEx is a scientific experiment aimed at advancing the understanding of stratospheric aerosols that may be relevant for solar geoengineering,” they explain on the website.

There, they say their main goal is to improve the fidelity of solar geoengineering models, techniques designed to modify the planetary climate from the atomization of particles in the stratosphere, an approach known as “injection. stratospheric “or” stratospheric dispersion of aerosols. “, according to the journal MIT Technology. This type of technology generates a lot of controversy in the scientific world, in particular because of its difficulty in calculating the risks that actions like these could generate when applied on a large scale, including extreme changes in weather patterns not significantly different from warming trends.

“Is it possible to find aerosols capable of reducing or eliminating the loss of ozone, without increasing other physical risks?” Is the question that guides the research of Gates and experts at Harvard.

How the experiments take place

For this, scientists will perform in June of this year a test flight of a hot air balloon designed to drop small amounts of chalky dust. They already have the permits of Swedish space company to carry out the experiment, which will take place near the town of Kiruna, from where the balloon will be launched to a height of 20 km.

In principle, the launch will not release stratospheric aerosols. Rather, it will serve as a test to maneuver the globe and examine communications and operating systems. If successful, this could be a step in a second experimental step that would release a small amount of CaCO3 dust into the atmosphere.

David Keith, professor of applied physics at Harvard University, acknowledged that there are “a lot of real concerns” geoengineering since no one knows what will happen until the calcium is released and its effects investigated. The exact amount of calcium needed to cool the planet is unknown, and scientists at SCoPEx cannot confirm whether this is the best stratospheric aerosol for the job. Unlike sulfates, which can cause ozone loss, calcium carbonate is not particularly reactive. But since it does not naturally exist in the stratosphere, models of its behavior are uncertain.

The SCoPEx balloon would be released during the second stage of the experiment up to 2 kilograms of calcium carbonate in the stratosphere, then he would step back to observe its effects from afar.

Keith’s previous calculations suggested that particles could help replenish the ozone layer by reacting with molecules that deplete the ozone layer. But the Harvard team’s lab experiments, published recently in Communications Earth & Environment, found that the compound is relatively inert to this chemical compound, but it still has a head start on sulphates that deplete gas. ozone layer.