Futuristic schemes for slowing climate change such as dimming sunlight are fraught with risks but will get a serious hearing from the U.N. panel of climate scientists, a leader of the panel said on Wednesday.
Thomas Stocker, co-chair of the panel's working group examining climate science, said some so-called geo-engineering solutions could disrupt world rainfall and might backfire by causing abrupt temperature rises if they go wrong.
He told that his group will hold meetings of experts in 2011 to focus on geo-engineering and ocean acidification, blamed on rising concentrations of carbon dioxide, to help prepare the next U.N. review of climate science, due for completion in 2014.
Stocker said proposals for imitating the effect of volcanoes by frequently pumping sun-dimming sulphur gases into the upper atmosphere would have knock-on effects on world rainfall.
Proposals for geo-engineering include mirrors in space as planetary sunshades, sun-blocking gases injected into the upper atmosphere, fertilization of the oceans to grow carbon-absorbing algae or methods to produce more clouds.
