UK Experiments to dim the Sun will be approved within weeks - Just like the food on your plate, the Sun, too, belongs to the state

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/04/22/experiments-to-dim-the-sun-get-green-light/

https://archive.is/YJw5A

Experiments to dim sunlight to fight global warming will be given the green light by the Government within weeks.

Outdoor field trials which could include injecting aerosols into the atmosphere, or brightening clouds to reflect sunshine, are being considered by scientists as a way to prevent runaway climate change.

Aria, the Government’s advanced research and invention funding agency, has set aside £50 million for projects, which will be announced in the coming weeks.

Prof Mark Symes, the programme director for Aria (Advanced Research and Invention Agency), said there would be “small controlled outdoor experiments on particular approaches”.

“We will be announcing who we have given funding to in a few weeks and when we do so we will be making clear when any outdoor experiments might be taking place,” he said.

“One of the missing pieces in this debate was physical data from the real world. Models can only tell us so much.

“Everything we do is going to be safe by design. We’re absolutely committed to responsible research, including responsible outdoor research.

“We have strong requirements around the length of time experiments can run for and their reversibility and we won’t be funding the release of any toxic substances to the environment.”

Geoengineering projects which seek to artificially alter the climate have proven controversial, with critics arguing they could bring damaging knock-on effects, as well as being an unhelpful distraction from lowering emissions.

However, scientists are increasingly concerned that carbon dioxide levels are not falling fast enough and that further action may be needed to prevent catastrophic warming.

One major area of research is Sunlight Reflection Methods (SRM), which includes Stratospheric Aerosol Injection (SAI) whereby tiny particles are released into the stratosphere to reflect sunlight.

Another potential solution is Marine Cloud Brightening (MCB) in which ships would spray sea-salt particles into the sky to enhance the reflectivity of low-lying clouds.

Shipping fumes​

In recent decades, experts noticed that the clouds above shipping routes were far brighter than usual, as pollution caused them to become more reflective, bringing an overall dimming effect.

This cooling from shipping fumes was so marked, that when international regulations were enacted to curb sulphur dioxide emissions in 2020, it caused a spike in global warming, scientists believe.

Prof Jim Haywood, of Atmospheric Science, at the University of Exeter, said: “If you inject small particles into clouds you can brighten them hence reflecting more sunlight back out to space.

“How do we know this could work? Well there are a couple of very strong pieces of evidence.

“Ship emissions from the smoke stack into the marine environment lead to bright lines in clouds over the ocean.

“Then there was a volcanic eruption in Iceland in 2014 which spilled out a lot of sulphur dioxide. What this does is it brightens clouds and cools the planet. What we need to do is some form of field experiments.”

Seeding cirrus clouds​

Other ideas for geoengineering include seeding cirrus clouds to allow more heat to escape into space. Currently, the wispy high-altitude clouds act as a blanket, trapping in heat.

Dr Sebastian Eastham, a senior lecturer in Sustainable Aviation at Imperial College London, said: “Every time you fly, sulphur, which is naturally present in jet fuel, is emitted into the lower most stratosphere causing a small cooling effect.

“Similarly, aircraft contrails cause accidental cirrus cloud modification but in this case accidentally causing, rather than preventing or thinning, cirrus clouds.

“This points to the fact that it’s theoretically possible (to cool the planet) with current day technology but there are many practical questions that would need to be answered before they could be done at scale.”

Experts are hopeful that if experiments prove a success, they could be scaled up and implemented within 10 years.

As well as outdoor experiments, Aria will also be funding new modelling studies, indoor tests, climate monitoring and gauging public attitudes to geoengineering.

 

[AnotherPleb]

Nobody ever reads the article beyond just the headline.

Scientists lost all semblances of trust from me after 2020. EDIT: More importantly, what the fuck happens if this gets out of their control?

 

[Heed Not]

If you liked the knock-on effects from adding lead to gasoline, just wait until you see what happens because of this!

Salting the clouds might be totally fine from a technical perspective but it sounds like a mythological war crime.

 

[Jaimas]

Salting the clouds might be totally fine from a technical perspective but it sounds like a mythological war crime.

.....That sounds like it will be apocalyptic for anything under it.

 

[Snekposter]

.....That sounds like it will be apocalyptic for anything under it.

Just think it of it as the English leadership finally realizing their subjects are too fragile to survive long-term exposure to the sun.

 

[Made In Wales]

With the amount of rain Wales is currently getting, I guess this plan is now active.

 

[Otterly]

Speaking purely hypothetically, if they were removed to the bottom of the North Sea, how long would it take for them to be sequestered in the form of oil?

The cod would eat them first.

With the amount of rain Wales is currently getting, I guess this plan is now active.

Same as here. It never ends. I need some sunlight, I look transparent.

 

[deleuzeon]

The sun having finally set on the British empire, they've decided to prevent it even rising again.

 

[CEO of Gay]

Well hold the fuck on. Pollution is actually resulting in cooling. Shouldn't we be doing more of that to get temperatures down then?

In the 1970s there was a brief concern about about Global Cooling, and that we would soon be entering a new ice age if we didn't do something to get the planet warming again. This, in combination with other factors, was used to to advocate against nuclear power, because nuclear power didn't emit any of the atmospheric CO2 necessary to prevent Earth from turning into an uninhabitable ball of ice.

This Marine Cloud Brightening (MCB)...

In areas where Low Winter Sun is already a problem, won't brightening the sky cause more driving problems for vehicle and train drivers?

If visibility is impacted, fatalities will occur.

We need to memory hole the names of these Scientists and their funders.

It's worse than that.

Bongland already has low Vitamin D levels because of their latitude and climate. There's a reason northwestern Europeans tend to have very light skin: when the sun doesn't exist for 1/3 to 1/2 of the year, you need all the UV you can get so you don't die of Vitamin D deficiency. Compare all the people with brown skin or darker. Those people come regions of the world where the sun never goes away and shines with unmatched power. They already get more than enough UV to synthesize all the vitamin D they need, instead, they need to protect their skin all that cancer-inducing solar radiation.

What happens when you put someone with the dark skin adaptions to high-solar regions and move them to low-solar regions? They suffer from vitamin-D deficiency, and suffer badly. What are some of the things that vitamin D deficiency causes? Fatigue, low endurance, low mood, reduced cognitive function.

Now consider all the browns that are being imported from the third world? Guess what kind of jobs they take up? Shipping, truck driving, train operating, equipment operation, etc. You're taking people and putting them in charge of heavy equipmnt and peoples lives in an environment where they will lose energy and become stupider because of metabolic issues. Nothing will be done about this risk, because to entertain the idea of supplementing Vitamin D in the diet of someone form a high-sun region is more white-suprmacist racist bigotry.

You can probably hear in your imagination right now, the alarm klaxons, terrified screams, and cacophonous crashing as a fully-loaded cargo barge plows into a shipping dock at full speed, because the pajeet crew was too mind-fogged after their winter trip through an arctic route to understand how to control their ship as they approached the dock.