Brown Theoretical Physics Center

Ahead of the today’s public lecture “Can Physics Stop Climate Change?” at the Flug Forum, Aspen Center for Physics, the Aspen Daily News has published Brad Marston’s article, “On Physics: Removing atmospheric CO2 to stop climate change: Can it be done?”

Professor Marston writes, “We need to explore many creative ideas if we are to slow and ultimately repair the damage we’ve done to Earth’s climate. More than one approach is going to be needed. However, we also need to carefully assess each of the solutions proposed to make sure we have the full picture of the costs, benefits and side effects. We’re all in this together, and the deeply meaningful work to repair the climate is inspiring a new generation of scientists.”

Professor Brad Marston and DEEPS Manning Assistant Professor Daniel Ibarra were recently featured in the New Scientist’s article “Carbon removal schemes on farms could change Earth’s reflectivity.”

Professor Marston notes, “Adding charcoal to farmland, fertilizing the seas with iron and spreading rock dust are some of the approaches to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere that are being explored to slow climate change. All of these require a significant fraction of Earth’s surface area to reach the enormous scales necessary to have an effect. We argue that an unexplored side effect, namely changes to the amount of sunlight that is absorbed by the altered surface, must be investigated as such radiative forcing may overwhelm the reduction in forcing from carbon dioxide removal.”

Read Professor Marston and Professor Ibarra’s paper “Removing Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide Using Large Land Or Ocean Areas Will Change Earth Albedo And Force Climate” here on Arxiv.org.