“ Here’s the thing about the stratosphere, the region between six and 31 miles up in the sky: If you really wanted to, you could turn it pink. Or green. Or what have you. If you sprayed some colorant up there, stratospheric winds would blow the material until it wrapped around the globe. After a year or two, it would fade, and the sky would go back to being blue. Neat little prank.”
Think Climate Change Is Messy? Wait Until This Science Fiction Technology Still In The Conceptual Phase Never Happens.
Tell that to the crazy billionaire who triggered a massive algae bloom by dumping tons of iron sulfate into the ocean. The problem is that there are people who don't wait for proof of concept before doing something planet-altering.
I read an article the other day about whale populations that was talking about iron dumping being a possible solution, whales fertilise their own habitats by shidding out iron from iron rich areas, this leads to phytoplankton blooms which leads to krill blooms which the whales then eat and then shid out again elsewhere. Basically whales were already doing this before we killed most of them and they do a much better spreading job than we can just dumping it haphazardly, I think we will see a push to encourage whale population growth for this reason.
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In "The Ministry for the Future", India reacts to a megadeath wet-bulb event by dumping sulfates into the upper atmosphere. It's generally considered a bad idea, and in effect an act of war to do unilaterally, but they still do it, no one retaliates, and the consequences are mostly positive, if not terribly significant.
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This is my research area of specialty (I'm also strongly opposed to doing it), and I'd be shocked if it wasn't at least attempted in the next ten years.