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Solar geoengineering must take temperature debt into account

  1. Andreas Oschlies

    1. GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel, Germany.

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Solar geoengineering is a proposed method of climate engineering that aims to reduce global warming using an artificial ‘sunscreen’ of aerosols in Earth’s high atmosphere. As planning of the first field experiments gets under way, any potential risks associated with the technology must be transparently assessed and not downplayed or dismissed. One such risk of solar geoengineering is its ‘temperature debt’ — the planetary heating that would arise if maintenance of the artificial sunscreen was discontinued.

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Nature 554, 423 (2018)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-018-02203-x

Updates & Corrections

  • Correction 01 March 2018: The original title of the online version of this article used the incorrect term ‘solar engineering’ instead of ‘solar geoengineering’.

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