{"id":533902,"date":"2026-07-10T00:47:28","date_gmt":"2026-07-10T00:47:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/533902\/"},"modified":"2026-07-10T00:47:28","modified_gmt":"2026-07-10T00:47:28","slug":"another-super-el-nino-is-brewing-scientists-are-looking-at-a-controversial-solution-to-squash-them-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/533902\/","title":{"rendered":"Another Super El Ni\u00f1o is brewing. Scientists are looking at a controversial solution to squash them"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n A Super El Ni\u00f1o is brewing and it could be the most intense in decades<\/a>, threatening a dramatic increase in deadly extreme weather. But what if there was a way humans could dial down the ferocious impacts of the most severe El Ni\u00f1os by temporarily dimming the sun?\n <\/p>\n

\n That\u2019s the question a group of scientists has investigated in a new study published Wednesday in the journal Science Advances.\n <\/p>\n

\n \ud83c\udf0a\ud83c\udf29\ufe0f Get your forecast in the CNN Weather App <\/a>\n <\/p>\n

\n El Ni\u00f1o is a natural climate pattern originating in the tropical Pacific Ocean, which typically boosts global temperatures and fuels extreme weather. It\u2019s being compounded by human-driven climate change, which is ramping up the planet\u2019s background temperature, pushing El Ni\u00f1o years into increasingly extreme territory \u2014 with devastating impacts on human lives and global economies.\n <\/p>\n

\n The study, led by scientists at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, focused on whether a highly controversial technique <\/a>called solar geoengineering could be used as a tool to tamp down the severe heat, fires and other impacts El Ni\u00f1o brings.\n <\/p>\n

\n Specifically, they looked at \u201cmarine cloud brightening,\u201d which involves spraying particles into ocean clouds in order to reflect sunlight away from the Earth and back into space.\n <\/p>\n

\"Children<\/p>\n

\n The researchers couldn\u2019t conduct real-world geoengineering experiments to test the idea for fear of \u201cdisastrous unintended consequences,\u201d so instead they turned to a \u201cnatural experiment,\u201d they wrote in a statement accompanying the report.\n <\/p>\n

\n Australia\u2019s \u201cBlack Summer\u201d bushfires in 2019 and 2020 incinerated tens of millions of acres and contributed to the deaths of hundreds of people. They also produced plumes of smoke filled with sun-reflecting particles, which mixed with clouds over the Pacific Ocean.\n <\/p>\n

\n Previous research<\/a> has found these ultra-reflective clouds bounced more of the sun\u2019s energy back into space and cooled the Pacific, contributing to a subsequent La Ni\u00f1a event<\/a>, El Ni\u00f1o\u2019s counterpart, which tends bring down global temperatures.\n <\/p>\n

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The forecast is just the beginning. We\u2019ll\u202fsend you expert coverage and the stories behind the weather \u2014 so you always know more than just the number. Sign up for the newsletter<\/a><\/p>\n

\n The scientists isolated the cloud brightening impacts of the Australian fires and used climate models to simulate the effect of a similar event happening before two historically strong El Ni\u00f1o events, one that started in 1997 and another in 2015.\n <\/p>\n

\n They found targeted marine cloud brightening could weaken El Ni\u00f1o\u2019s impacts and increase the cooling and drying effects associated with La Ni\u00f1a by 40%. The earlier in the El Ni\u00f1o event the technique is deployed, the more effective it would be, the study concluded.\n <\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

\n Geoengineering is a hotly debated topic. Some experts are of the view that it is too dangerous to even consider, with a near infinite number of unintended consequences. They also fear it would need to be continued indefinitely to prevent possible \u201ctermination shock\u201d \u2014 a catastrophic rise in temperatures if geoengineering is started then halted.\n <\/p>\n

\n But what the scientists are considering here is different, said Kate Ricke, a study author and a climate scientist at Scripps Oceanography and UC San Diego\u2019s School of Global Policy and Strategy. The idea is to deploy geoengineering as a temporary tool to target a specific seasonal or multi-year event all but guaranteed to bring significant damage, she said, \u201cit\u2019s not something that you\u2019re locking yourself into.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n Ricke stressed that the paper is not advocating for geoengineering. \u201cThis is just a proof of concept \u2026 the only thing we\u2019ve shown is that it\u2019s worth further study,\u201d she said.\n <\/p>\n

\n The researchers acknowledges several potential drawbacks. El Ni\u00f1o is a very complex phenomenon; while it causes trillions in global economic losses<\/a>, not every region loses out. Some are adapted to its impacts \u2014 for example, California relies on the heavy rain El Ni\u00f1o typically brings to replenish water reservoirs, even if it can be dangerous.\n <\/p>\n

\n It will also be important to understand how this technique would affect the timing, frequency and magnitude of a subsequent La Ni\u00f1a event, and what the impact would be on specific regions, Ricke said.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cYou have to think very carefully about trade-offs,\u201d she said. Geoengineering \u201cis probably best to think about for now in terms of super El Ni\u00f1os, where most people, most places are losers and really extreme, damaging events are most possible,\u201d she added.\n <\/p>\n

\n James Haywood, a professor of atmospheric science at the University of Exeter, who was not involved in the research, said there remain \u201cmany, many unanswered questions and uncertainties as to the viability of marine cloud brightening\u201d in terms of controling its cooling impact.\n <\/p>\n

\n There\u2019s the technical challenge of generating particles of the right size and quantity to produce the desired amount of cooling, he said. \u201cThen there is the question of what if we overdo it?\u201d he added, referring to the possibility of a mega La Ni\u00f1a \u201cmany, many times stronger than we\u2019ve experienced before.\u201d La Ni\u00f1as can bring extreme weather, too, including increased rainfall and flooding in parts of Asia and Australia, and drier-than-normal conditions in parts of South America and the US.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cWe are a long way away from being able to deploy such technologies and knowing whether they would work as intended,\u201d he said.\n <\/p>\n

\n David Keith, a geophysical sciences professor at the University of Chicago, also pointed to the engineering challenges. \u201cAlmost two decades after research started, marine cloud brightening sprayers have spray rates\u2026 that are at least factor of a hundred too small for practical use,\u201d said Keith, who was also not involved in the study. The technique may be physically possible, he added, but currently \u201cthe technology simply doesn\u2019t exist.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n Beyond the technical problems lie ethical quandries, said Haywood, such as who gets to decide if the world opts for this technique and whether geoengineering would distract from efforts to cut planet-heating pollution.\n <\/p>\n

\n These questions are beyond the scope of this research but Ricke acknowledged there is much more work to be done. \u201cWe need to understand a lot more,\u201d she said, \u201cbut if there is a way to use this\u2026 to mitigate El Ni\u00f1os, why wouldn\u2019t we consider it?\u201d\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Super El Ni\u00f1o is brewing and it could be the most intense in decades, threatening a dramatic…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":532444,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[242,85,46,141],"class_list":["post-533902","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-environment","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/533902","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=533902"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/533902\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/532444"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=533902"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=533902"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=533902"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}