Scientists just test-fired a cloud device over American soil with the ultimate aim of blocking sunlight

The USS Hornet may be a decommissioned aircraft carrier, yet it has nevertheless become the launch-site for a controversial new war in the skies.

The Marine Cloud Brightening Program's Coastal Atmospheric Aerosol Research and Engagement project, led by researchers from the University of Washington, took to the deck of the Hornet Tuesday to launch streams of particles into the sky above the San Francisco Bay. Their ultimate objective is apparently to block and reflect sunlight in hopes of limiting "global warming."

CAARE researchers behind the geoengineering scheme opted not to announce their experiment, reportedly citing concerns that there might be significant backlash.

After all, the American public — or at the very least, the residents of Alameda — might first want to hear from the hundreds of scientists who have called for a non-use agreement for solar radiation management and stated in an open letter that the "risks of solar geoengineering are poorly understood and can never be fully known. Impacts will vary across regions, and there are uncertainties about the effects on weather patterns, agriculture, and the provision of basic needs of food and water."

The experiment

Clouds bounce some of the sun's rays back into space. This supposedly helps cool temperatures locally.

The University of Washington's Department of Atmospheric Sciences conceded that fossil fuel emissions and other human activities have long generated aerosols in the atmosphere that mix in with low-altitude clouds, causing them to brighten and reflect more sunlight, having a cooling effect on the earth's climate.

"I think most people are aware that there's a greenhouse gas effect that warms climate," UW MCB program director Sarah Doherty told the Weather Channel. "But what most people aren't aware of is that the particles that we've also been producing and adding to the atmosphere offset some of that climate warming. So, the overall effect is one of climate warming, but it would be a lot more without that particulate pollution."

With climate alarmists concerned over supposed global temperature increases and the corresponding war on fossil fuels sure to rob the clouds of a contributing brightener, some scientists are keen to pump out aerosols of their own.

Robert Wood, the lead UW scientist running the cloud project, noted on his university blog that the team at the CAARE facility developed a "Cloud-Aerosol Research Instrument (CARI)." This device, which has multiple nozzles and resembles a snow maker, can apparently fire trillions of salt particles into the air.

The UW indicated that once emitted, such particles would only remain airborne in the atmosphere for a few days.

Wood told the San Francisco Chronicle simulations project that if 15% of Earth's marine clouds were artificially brightened, the globe might cool by approximately one degree.

According to the New York Times, CAARE researchers used their CARI device last week aboard the USS Hornet, firing particles and testing to make sure their cloud-brightening machine would function as desired outside a lab.

The Chronicle indicated that the next step of research will entail actually attempting to meddle with the clouds off the coast of California.

The concerns

"Every year that we have new records of climate change, and record temperatures, heat waves, it's driving the field to look at more alternatives," Wood told the Times. "Even ones that may have once been relatively extreme."

Contrary to Woods' intimation, many still regard marine cloud brightening to be an extreme and potentially fruitless initiative.

In addition to noting that MCB and other forms of solar radiation modification may ultimately accomplish little in the way of lowering global temperatures, the Congressional Research Service noted in a May 2023 report that some "modeling studies of [marine cloud brightening] have suggested it could alter precipitation patterns at global and regional levels."

A 2017 study published in Nature Communications indicated that aerosols released just in the northern hemisphere could possibly even lead to an increase in droughts, hurricanes, and storms elsewhere.

Late last month, a group of 31 top atmospheric scientists noted in a paper published in Science Advances that there is presently a "lack of a clear understanding of the relationship between aerosol and meteorological conditions and liquid water and cloud fraction adjustments and their timescales."

"Regional changes in temperature and rainfall could influence heat stress, water availability, crop productivity and the ability of communities to thrive," added the scientists who emphasized the need to evaluate the viability and risks of MCB.

The widespread concerns over the feasibility and fallout of such experiments has prompted the Biden administration to distance itself from the CAARE experiment, even though President Joe Biden signed Congress' Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2022, providing funding for a "scientific assessment of solar and other rapid climate interventions in the context of near-term climate risks and hazards," including aerosol injection.

The White House told the Times in a statement, "The U.S. government is not involved in the Solar Radiation Modification (SRM) experiment taking place in Alameda, CA, or anywhere else."

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