The United States is building an early warning system to detect geoengineering, a global alarm system that can detect if another country or a rogue actor tries to dim the sun. The system, being developed by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and NASA, uses a network of balloons that release aerosols into the stratosphere to measure tiny airborne particles.
The balloons, launched from sites in the United States, Alaska, Hawaii, New Zealand, Reunion Island, and Antarctica, carry devices that measure aerosol concentration and send data back to the ground. The devices can detect unusual amounts of aerosols in the stratosphere, which could indicate the presence of an aerosol plume to deflect some of the sun’s heat back into space.
NOAA is working to create a global base line of normal aerosol concentrations, which would allow them to determine when aerosol levels at any particular spot are unusually high. The agency is coordinating with researchers and government scientists in other countries to launch balloons and gather data.
The system is still in its infancy, but researchers are working to develop more sophisticated detection models. Sandia National Laboratories, a nuclear weapons laboratory, has developed an algorithm that can take an observed aerosol plume and look backward in time to estimate its size and point of origin. The algorithm can also estimate the consequences of an aerosol injection, such as changes in surface temperatures, precipitation levels, or soil moisture.
The United States is on the leading edge of developing an early warning system for geoengineering, with the goal of detecting and tracking aerosol releases around the world. The system is expected to be ready in a few years, but researchers stress that the detection efforts are still in their early stages and more work needs to be done to develop a reliable system.