Marine Cloud Brightening

Figure. A roadmap for physical science research into marine cloud brightening, from Diamond et al. (2022). Six high-priority research areas, or “checkpoints,” are identified. Each checkpoint is associated with an “exit ramp” for discontinuing the research program if certain criteria for the feasibility of marine cloud brightening are not met.

Marine cloud brightening (MCB) is a proposal to seed marine clouds with salt particles so they reflect more sunlight, producing a cooling effect. Although there is a consensus that decarbonizing the economy is the most important step to limit the damage of climate change, solar climate interventions like MCB have been proposed as a way to temporarily offset some of the effects of global warming and buy the world more time to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Our group is interested in addressing major open questions regarding the technical and social feasibility of MCB.