This will be useful for the next proposal you write:
https://www.ametsoc.org/ams/assets/File/aboutams/statements_pdf/AMS_Statement_Climate_Intervention_Final.pdf
Climate Intervention
A Policy Statement of the American Meteorological Society
Adopted by the AMS Council on 2 February 2022
It is now well established that global average surface temperatures are
increasing, and the associated changes in climate are causing ecological
and societal disruptions. Further, there is overwhelming evidence that
climate change in recent decades is caused by human activities.
Greenhouse gas emissions, particularly of carbon dioxide from burning
fossil fuels, have already contributed and will continue to contribute
to widespread climate changes, with major negative consequences for most
humans and ecosystems. This has motivated discussion of mechanisms to
reduce warming of the Earth system through intentional interventions,
with the goal of reducing the negative impacts of climate change.
Aggressive action must be taken to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and
adapt to the changes that are already occurring. At the same time,
additional strategies should be investigated. This policy statement
focuses on large-scale efforts to intentionally modify the climate
system to counteract the consequences of increasing greenhouse gas
concentrations. Such efforts are now commonly referred to as climate
intervention (also called geoengineering): the deliberate manipulation
of physical, chemical, or biological aspects of the Earth system with
the intention of tempering the harmful effects of anthropogenic
greenhouse gas emissions.
Proposals to intervene in the climate system generally fall into two
broad categories: 1) actively removing CO2 (and possibly other
greenhouse gases) from the atmosphere, known as carbon dioxide removal;
2) exerting a cooling influence on Earth by reflecting sunlight (known
as solar radiation management) or altering thermal emissions to space by
thinning cirrus clouds. These proposals differ widely in their potential
to reduce impacts, create new risks, and redistribute risks among
nations. Techniques that remove CO2 directly from the air would confer
global benefits by directly addressing the source of the climate
problem. However, it may not be feasible to rapidly remove CO2 at a
scale that will significantly limit warming. The effects of CO2 removal
approaches are not fully understood and could create adverse local and
global impacts. Reflecting sunlight would reduce Earth’s average surface
temperature but would not offset all aspects of climate change and would
produce a different set of risks than those resulting from unmitigated
warming.
The American Meteorological Society recommends an accelerated and robust
climate intervention research program, and associated governance
framework, to inform public policies. This should not include the
development of deployment platforms but needs to include study of the
feasibility of different deployment scenarios and strategies and how
they would affect climate risk. The governance framework should account
for the range of expertise needed beyond science and technology, and
ensure that the U.S. research program is coordinated with international
efforts. The research program should include inputs from civil society
and other key stakeholders, including climate-vulnerable communities and
underrepresented groups, and from indigenous populations, to assess how
climate intervention could affect climate risks, including their
distribution across different ecosystems and sectors of society.
The research program should address 1) the scientific and technological
potential for intentional interventions in the climate system to reduce
climate warming, 2) quantification of the intended and unintended
environmental responses of such interventions, and 3) continuous and
enhanced observation of the Earth system. Because intentional climate
intervention is inherently controversial, it is particularly important
for research in this area to be transparent, open, unbiased, and
accessible. Moreover, research results should be couched in terms that
acknowledge the presence of irreducible uncertainties in projecting the
outcomes of both anthropogenic climate change and of any interventions
intended to counter it. The desired outcome is for society to have the
best possible information in hand to assess different options for
reducing the risks of climate change and to decide if actions should
include intentional climate intervention.
Comprehensive Earth system model simulations will play a critical role
in quantifying the regional to global impacts of different climate
intervention approaches. By their nature, models are imperfect, and, as
with any other climate projections, a projection of climate intervention
outcomes will be subject to considerable uncertainty. To reduce
uncertainties in the Earth system models, improved understanding and
representation of key processes is needed. This could be achieved
through a program of laboratory and field experiments and
process-oriented simulations. Sustained monitoring of the Earth system
and targeted field campaigns will be critical, not only to improve our
understanding of key processes but for establishing an observational
baseline of the system behavior prior to any intervention. Monitoring
and field studies would also be needed for quantifying impacts should an
intervention be implemented. These studies will yield additional
benefits in our understanding of atmospheric processes and the climate
system, with implications beyond what is needed for decisions related to
climate intervention, such as improved weather predictions and climate
projections.
The climate crisis must be addressed by ending net emissions of
greenhouse gases, and at the same time, adapting to changes already
happening. While it is currently premature to either advocate for or
rule out climate interventions, these decisions, when they are made,
must be based on the best scientific and technical information. With
this goal in mind, AMS calls for a robust program of research with a
strong governance framework to assess climate interventions. Such a
program should be designed to provide the knowledge base to support
decisions that may need to be made within the next decade regarding the
inclusion of climate intervention among our responses to global warming.
[This statement is considered in force until February 2027 unless
superseded by a new statement issued by the AMS Council before this date.]
--
Alan Robock
Alan Robock, Distinguished Professor
Department of Environmental Sciences Phone: +1-848-932-5751
Rutgers University E-mail:
[email protected]
14 College Farm Road http://people.envsci.rutgers.edu/robock
New Brunswick, NJ 08901-8551 ☮ https://twitter.com/AlanRobock
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