It’s literally a scheme to absorb the sun.

Researchers at UC San Diego have floated a wildly controversial plan to combat the looming super El Niño threat — injecting particles into clouds to turn down the sun. The radical sunscreen proposal was detailed in a study in the journal Science Advances.

“SG (solar geoengineering) could theoretically be leveraged to mitigate extreme events by instead targeting compounding seasonal-to-multiyear events such as El Niño,” wrote the researchers, who were led by UC San Diego climate scientist Kate Ricke.

On Thursday, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Climate Prediction Center forecast an 81% chance that the natural climate pattern, defined by preternaturally warm temperatures on the Pacific Ocean’s surface, would be “very strong” by December.

The New York Post says UC San Diego proposed the idea after a 2023 study with two MCB simulations on the 1997 and 2015 El Niño events. The research showed aerosols from an Australian bushfire brightened clouds and weakened El Niño effects. Applying the method in simulations raised cooling and drying impacts by 40%.

Co-author Jessica Wan from University of Chicago said aerosols must be deployed continuously indefinitely.

However, no real-world testing plans exist currently and even the  World Meteorological Association said that there is no evidence that climate change increases the frequency or intensity of El Niño events.

Texas A&M professor Andrew Dessler noted models are flawed and may cause worse unforeseen problems.

I recall a film that was in theaters not too long ago starring Ryan Gossling about the sun dimming with apocalyptic results. It’s unlikely he’ll want to save the world twice.

PHOTO CREDIT: Pixabay