2015 AAAS Annual Meeting (12-16 February 2015)

February 12 - 16, 2015

Climate Intervention and Geoengineering: Albedo Modification

The 2014 report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change notes that since the last assessment, collectively, nations have made no progress in reducing total greenhouse gas emissions. Furthermore, the rate of investment in climate change adaptation is estimated to be orders of magnitude below what is needed to address the growing risk of climate change, particularly in the densely populated coastal zone. The topic of this session is albedo modification, which is a form of climate intervention that temporarily offsets the warming effects of carbon dioxide by altering Earth’s radiation balance and is a companion to the session "Going Negative: Removing Carbon Dioxide from the Atmosphere." This session will explore the scientific and technical underpinnings of albedo modification, including its risks, governance, and sociopolitical considerations.