Current Affair 1:

Geoengineering is conventionally split into two broad categories:

The first is carbon geoengineering, often also called carbon dioxide removal (cdr). The other is solar geoengineering, often also called solar radiation management (srm), albedo modification, or sunlight reflection. There are large differences.

Now, lets see both the terms:

Carbon geoengineering seeks to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, which would address the root cause of climate change — the accumulation of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. In the chain from emissions to concentrations to temperatures to impacts, it breaks the link from emissions to concentrations.

Solar geoengineering seeks to reflect a small fraction of sunlight back into space or increase the amount of solar radiation that escapes back into space to cool the planet. In contrast to carbon geoengineering, solar geoengineering does not address the root cause of climate change. It instead aims to break the link from concentrations to temperatures, thereby reducing some climate damages.

Different Technologies:

There are several proposed solar geoengineering technologies. These include marine cloud brightening, cirrus cloud thinning, space-based techniques, and stratospheric aerosol scattering, amongst others.

 

Marine cloud brightening would attempt to brighten marine clouds to reflect more sunlight back into space.

Cirrus cloud thinning would attempt to reduce the thin, high-altitude cirrus clouds to emit more long-wave radiation from the earth to space.

Space-based technologies would attempt to reflect a small fraction of sunlight away from the earth by positioning sun shields in space.

Lastly, stratospheric aerosol scattering would introduce tiny reflective particles, such as sulfate aerosols or perhaps calcium carbonate, into the upper atmosphere, where they could scatter a small fraction of sunlight back into space.

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