Expert shares views on using geoengineering to limit climate change
An American expert on climate change will discuss the pros and cons of using solar geoengineering techniques that can potentially reduce global warming during a public talk at the University of Waterloo later this week
WATERLOO, Ont (Tuesday, Aug. 30, 2011) - An American expert on climate change will discuss the pros and cons of using solar geoengineering techniques that can potentially reduce global warming during a public talk at the University of Waterloo later this week.
Ben Kravitz, a postdoctoral fellow at the Carnegie Institution for Science's department of global ecology in Stanford, Calif., will give the talk, entitled Solar Geoengineering: Cooling the Earth with Black Carbon or Other Aerosols in the Stratosphere. The event, hosted by Waterloo's Interdisciplinary Centre on Climate Change (IC3), will take place Thursday at noon in the Environment 1 building, room 221.
"Dr. Kravitz will provide an overview of solar geoengineering or solar radiation management proposals that have emerged over the past few years to counteract greenhouse gas-induced global warming," said Claude Duguay, director of the IC3. "Ben will explore the full range of proposals that have emerged in recent years and focus specifically on those considered by many to be the most feasible: mimicking large volcanic eruptions by placing or creating aerosols in the stratosphere, which would reflect a fraction of incoming sunlight back to space."
Kravitz conducts research on climate change and changes to Earth's radiation budget. Most of his work involves using climate model simulations to quantify the effect on global temperatures from aerosols emitted from large volcanic eruptions and from potential geoengineering scenarios.
In his talk, Kravitz will discuss results from his own work in leading the Geoengineering Model Intercomparision Project (GeoMIP) and conducting climate model experiments on injecting black carbon aerosols into the stratosphere, or upper atmosphere, to artificially engineer the climate.
Waterloo's IC3 advances research on climate change through an interdisciplinary approach in order to understand the physical basis of climate change, its impacts on biophysical and human systems, and adaptation and mitigation strategies in response to changes. The IC3 is based in the faculty of environment and includes researchers from the faculties of engineering, mathematics and science, as well as from Environment Canada.
