Would putting a layer of some kind of dust into the upper atmosphere be a way of turning around global warming

Question

If it was possible of course, would it reflect enough light to lower temps slightly without totally screwing things up?

Answer 1

You're thinking of the phenomenon known as global dimming.

Dust introduced into the atmosphere does indeed reduce the affects of global warming.

For example, everytime a powerful volcanic eruption occurs, the volcanic ash spreads across the whole planet and causes a significant drop in temperature around the world.

Another example of air pollution creating a cooling effect is airplane vapor trails.

But deliberately introducing dust pollution into the upper atmosphere results in nasty consequences!

For example, air pollution from Europe and North America altered Africa's climate, preventing rainfall in northern Africa, causing the Ethiopian Famine of the 1980s, killing over a million people!

People don't like the idea that they can cause a million deaths simply by driving their cars, but in this case, that's what happened.

Fortunately, since then, new regulations on air pollution has helped reduce the possibility of such devastating events from happening.

One interesting thing to note is that the worst possible course of action is for people to reduce the amount of pollutants that cause global dimming, while continuing to pump into the atmosphere the pollutants that cause global warming.

Overall, air pollution is bad, but the pollutants that dim the sun are actually minimizing the effects of global warming, keeping temperatures from warming as fast as they could be without the cooling pollutants.

Answer 2

If there was a dust that was able to cool the earth it would have to only filter out the light that is useless for plant growth or everything would die.The strange thing is it would have to be something that can `t be from Earth because any possible dust would be to heavy and be pulled in by gravity.The idea would make a great sifi move for us that drink to much and stay up way to late.

Answer 3

Can you even grasp the consequences of putting dust into the atmosphere?

Answer 4

I have yet to see a scientific solution that doesn't have as much negative effect as it does positive. Who can possibly predict the effects this would have over a decade, a century, a thousand years...you get the picture