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Plans to “whiten” the clouds over the world’s oceans so that they reflect some of the sun’s powerful rays may fail to delay global warming. Scientists from the University of Leeds and the Finnish Meteorological Institute found that injecting sea spray into the atmosphere to generate brighter clouds may actually hinder natural cloud formation in some areas.

Human manipulation of the climate—known as geoengineering—has been suggested by scientists as a way of slowing down global warming while efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions continue. Cloud whitening (or cloud seeding) is one proposed form of geoengineering that would use off-shore vessels to pump sea spray into the atmosphere. The salt particles in the spray would in theory help to form brighter clouds that reflect more sunlight back into space, thus having a cooling effect on climate.

Full story at Futurity.

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