It calls for creating a multidisciplinary research program, in coordination with other countries and managed by theU.S.
Global Change Research Program, that seeks to fill in the many knowledge gaps on this issue.
These perspectives from three members of the study committee underline the complexity of this issue.
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Each of us learned a great deal.
Marine cloud brighteningwould add materials to low clouds over the ocean to make them more reflective.
Cirrus cloud thinningwould seek to reduce the formation ofwispy, thin cloudsthat retain heat radiating upward from Earths surface.
Existing climate model simulations have yielded contradictory results.
A transdisciplinary, coordinated and well-governed research program might prove that more investment is warranted.
Or it could indicate that solar geoengineering should not be considered further.
The key point is that either outcome will be guided by sound science.
To many, even considering it could dilute efforts to cut emissions.
But refusing to engage with solar geoengineering also raises questions.
Can we be sure that we wont need it in the future?
What if greenhouse warming generates horrendous climate impacts?
But it also calls for a measured, nuanced and integrative approach.
At the same time, suitable expertise and institutional arrangements are needed to engage better with this complex topic.
We need to understand how to effectively enhance such participation and strengthen such capacity.
Our panel recommended that the proposed U.S. research program be carried out in coordination with other countries.
The 1991 eruption of Mt.
Afterward, however, temperatures resumed rising.
For example, scientists know very little about the regional effects of different solar geoengineering strategies.
But like climate change itself, solar geoengineering would affect everyone.
The technologies that our committee considered would have global and multigenerational effects.
These conversations need to include climate-vulnerable communities, Indigenous peoples and nations of the global south.
