The problem of global warming of the earth seems to be getting worse. This problem was once again paid attention to by people in 2018 when extreme disasters such as global heat waves, hurricanes, heavy rains, and typhoons were raging, and everyone realized that - the world The warming crisis seems to be approaching fiercely.

How to quickly solve the global warming crisis? Some scholars have pointed out the global cooling events caused by gases emitted during large-scale volcanic eruptions in the past. For example, the 1991 eruption of Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines injected about 20 million tons of sulfur dioxide into the atmosphere, reducing sunlight by about 2.5%, and Lowered the global average temperature by about half a degree Celsius. Some scholars have pointed out that humans can use this principle to inject sulfate aerosols into the upper atmosphere to artificially cool the earth and alleviate greenhouse warming caused by increased carbon dioxide levels. "It's like putting an umbrella over your head when you're hot," some academics claim. "If you put the global sunshield in place, it will slow down warming."

But is this approach really reliable? The team, led by Solomon Hsiang, director of the Global Policy Laboratory at the University of California, Berkeley, matched corn, soybean, rice and wheat production in 105 countries from 1979 to 2009 with global satellite observations of these aerosols. linked to study their impact on agriculture. Combining these results with global climate models, the team calculated that the loss of sunlight from a sulfate-based geoengineering scheme would negate its intended benefit of protecting crops from damage from extreme heat due to reduced sunlight exposure.

“Give the earth an ‘umbrella’ to keep it cool, which helps crops grow better. But plants also need sunlight to grow, so blocking sunlight will affect plant growth. For agriculture, The unintended effects of geoengineering are comparable to the benefits," said lead author Jonathan Proctor, a doctoral researcher in the Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics at the University of California, Berkeley. "It's kind of like a side effect of a treatment, it's just as bad as the disease. . ”

In the context of future climate warming, everyone will be nervous about a series of abnormal changes caused by global warming, which makes this type of geoengineering technology likely to be applied, but Humanity should also understand the consequences of such projects, after all it is similar to paying off a credit card, humans cannot pay it off with another credit card.

Some earlier research suggested that aerosols could increase crop yields by scattering sunlight and allowing more of the sun's energy to reach inner leaves, normally shaded by upper canopy leaves, but new research suggests that See, the benefit of this scattering effect appears to be weaker than previously expected. Proctor said they used actual experimental and observational evidence to understand the total impact sulfate-based geoengineering might have on crop yields. He also said that before starting the research, he had been positive about controlling sunlight to mitigate global warming, but he was very surprised to find that scattered light reduces yields.

Although the conclusion of the study seems relatively pessimistic, the researchers believe that humans should not cancel research on geoengineering because of choking. For agriculture, it may have some negative effects, but it may have great benefits for other systems on Earth, such as extreme weather, human health, and natural ecosystem functions. But they did not address other types of geoengineering, such as the capture and storage of carbon dioxide, or discuss other issues around geoengineering, such as whether it would have an impact on the Earth's protective ozone layer or affect local climate.