How Diamond Dust Could Hold The Key To Cooling Our Planet
Dropping diamond dust from an airplane and letting it scatter throughout the atmosphere could help cool the planet, according to newfound evidence.
A team of researchers from several institutions calculated which materials would be the most effective at cooling the planet via a stratospheric aerosol injection (SAI) method.
They used three-dimensional climate models to compare materials and found that a few hundred trillion dollars worth of diamond dust could work well.
Previously, research has shown that the warming of the Earth will worsen global weather patterns if temperatures continue on their current upward trend.
At this point, some experts argue that the only solution to this dire issue is to find a way to cool down the planet as quickly as possible. One idea has been to deploy millions of devices that extract carbon from the air.
However, if our planet is now past the point of return, removing carbon won’t help. Instead, it is necessary to inject aerosols into the atmosphere to reflect sunlight and heat back into space in order to cool down the Earth.
At first, sulfur dioxide gas was deemed the best candidate for the job. Since it is naturally spewed into the atmosphere by volcanoes, scientists have had plenty of opportunities to experiment with it.
So, they have a good idea of what would happen if humans started injecting it into the air themselves. Although the gas would likely counter the warming effects of excess greenhouse gases, it could also have undesired side effects.
Some of the consequences include damage to the ozone layer, disruption of weather patterns in the lower atmosphere, and a return of acid rain around the globe.
Glass Hat – stock.adobe.com – illustrative purposes only
The research team built a three-dimensional climate model to show the impacts of adding seven different aerosols to the atmosphere—two types of titanium dioxide, aluminum, calcite, silicon carbide, diamond, and sulfur dioxide.
They ranked the suitability of each one in terms of heat absorption, reflectivity, and reactivity. The software also predicted how the aerosols would settle to the ground and whether they would clump together in the atmosphere.
It demonstrated that diamond dust was the best option. The diamond particles would stay in the air for a reasonable amount of time, would not be likely to clump together, and reflect the most light and heat.
In addition, the particles are chemically inert, meaning that they probably won’t react to toxic substances and result in acid rain.
The model suggested that injecting five million tons of synthetic diamond dust into the atmosphere per year could cool the Earth by approximately 34.88 degrees Fahrenheit in 45 years.
But of course, it would come at a huge cost of around $200 trillion, which is about $600,000 per megaton of diamond dust.
The study was published in Geophysical Research Letters.
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