The ultimate point of SCoPEx project is not to dim anything — scientists do not need to test whether aerosols block sunlight, that fact is already well established — but instead to release a small amount of the calcium carbonate (no more than
3.4 pounds) into the wake of a propeller-driven weather balloon flying 12 miles above the arctic, creating a diffuse cloud that is
roughly 1000 yards long and 100 yards in diameter.
The data gathered during this experiment would, among other things, help inform computer models that look into the potential risks of actual geoengineering. These models, the SCoPEx website
explains, “are the primary tool for estimating the risks and benefits of solar geoengineering.” To refine these models, scientists need to know how the aerosols interact with the atmosphere on a nanoscale.
According to the project’s website:
What is Bill Gates’ Involvement?
In 2007, Gates created a grant-making research fund known as the Fund for Innovative Climate and Energy Research (
FICER). SCoPEx is partly funded
through FICER and partly funded by Harvard’s Solar Geoengineering Research
Program, which itself is funded by a number of foundations and other private donors,
including Gates.
Further, a diffuse cloud of chalky powder gently perturbed by a propeller-driven weather balloon 12 miles above the arctic is in no way capable of altering the global climate system. Headlines or statements to the contrary rely on “slippery slope” arguments about geoengineering in general, not a fear that SCoPEx itself could destroy the world.