It never rains, it pours: Acid is back

Although this news story has been deliberately planted to "cause a stir" I could not let it go without at least one quote. The idea is to deliberately inject large quantities of sulphates into the atmosphere to "draw the shades" and prevent global warming.

The ENN story is called:

"Top Scientists Say Man May Need to Dirty Skies to Shield against Warming"

Pinatubo [A volcano] poured so much sulfurous debris into the stratosphere that it is believed it cooled the Earth by 0.5 degrees Celsius (0.9 degrees Fahrenheit) for about a year.

Wigley ran scenarios of stratospheric sulfate injection -- on the scale of Pinatubo's estimated 10 million tons of sulfur -- through supercomputer models of the climate, and reported that Crutzen's idea would, indeed, seem to work. Even half that amount per year would help, he wrote.

A massive dissemination of pollutants would be needed every year or two, as the sulfates precipitate from the atmosphere in acid rain.

So that's all right then. If you live in the UK, where it often appears to rain all year round, such a plan may need a little more spin before the average UK citizen will sign-up. I also expect a lot of Swedish fish will be more than a little worried.