Solar geoengineering is at once an important and immensely difficult topic—both to research and to discuss its broader implications.
Dear Friends and Colleagues,
I am delighted to welcome you to the first edition of Harvard’s Solar Geoengineering Research Program’s (SGRP) Newsletter, a quarterly update from our team. We aim to further critical research on both the science and governance of solar geoengineering, and hope to encourage and inform broader discussions on the topic around the world. I appreciate this chance to introduce our work to a wider audience.
You are receiving this newsletter because of your interest in climate change and/or solar geoengineering. You can find out more about our goals, team, publications, events, projects, faculty grants, residency program, visiting scholar program, fellowship program, and other ways to get involved on our website.
I would like to highlight that we are currently accepting applications for our 2019 post- and pre-doctoral Fellowships. We are looking for stellar candidates in any discipline to spend 1 or 2 years at Harvard beginning Fall 2019. No formal experience working on solar geoengineering required! Applications are due January 18th.
Solar geoengineering is at once an important and immensely difficult topic—both to research and to discuss its broader implications. The basic idea has been around for a long time. In fact, the very first formal report to a U.S. President on the effects of climate change, to Lyndon B. Johnson in 1965, suggested that the problem could be addressed through solar geoengineering: by brightening ocean surfaces on a grand scale. But it was not until August 2006 when Nobel Laureate Paul Crutzen, in an essay focused on the moral tradeoffs involved, helped lift a long-standing taboo on research. By now there are around 800 peer-reviewed papers on the topic. There are open research questions aplenty. We have started to attempt to make sense of this research via a newly created Solar Geoengineering Research blog—the latest guest post summarizes solar geoengineering funding over the past decade.
While the IPCC, in its most recent special report, concludes that there is “high agreement that [solar geoengineering via stratospheric aerosols] could limit warming to below 1.5°C,” it points to plenty of uncertainties and difficult questions that need further exploration. The U.S. National Academies have also looked at these hard questions. After a comprehensive report on solar geoengineering published in early 2015, the Academies have launched the process for additional reports, focused on research and governance. On the whole, these initiatives touch on the wider implications for climate policy and politics, a focus of our research as well: questions around how solar geoengineering is perceived by the wider public, how it interacts with mitigation efforts, and how it should be governed. Jointly with the Harvard Project on Climate Agreements, we recently convened a research workshop on the latter topic.
Our program supports a range of work focused on the science and governance of solar geoengineering. Another one of our funded projects is the Stratospheric Controlled Perturbation Experiment (SCoPEx), a proposed small-scale experiment involving a balloon flight to help advance understanding of stratospheric aerosols that could be relevant to solar geoengineering. A key aspect there, too, is governance. We are currently in the process of working with Harvard’s Vice Provost for Research and the Dean of the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, who have, in turn, engaged an independent search committee to help assemble an external advisory board, which will provide advice on the research and governance of SCoPEx. For more details, please see a detailed description and FAQ.
Lastly, please feel free to tell us what you would find useful to learn from this quarterly newsletter. You can opt out at any time by unsubscribing here, or through the link at the bottom of the email.
I invite you to join us in advancing the important dialogue around solar geoengineering.
—Gernot Wagner, Executive Director, Harvard’s Solar Geoengineering Research Program
Opportunities
Fall 2019 Solar Geoengineering Research Post- & Pre-Doctoral Fellowships
SGRP funds pre- and post-doctoral fellows working under the guidance of a Harvard faculty sponsor. Applications for September 2019 are due January 18th.
Residents and Visiting Scholars
SGRP invites researchers to apply to its Residency and Visiting Scholarsprograms. Both programs will accept a small number of researchers focused on solar geoengineering to spend several weeks at Harvard, working directly with researchers at SGRP and other members of the Harvard community.
News
Workshop: Governance of the Deployment of Solar Geoengineering
In September 2018, jointly with the Harvard Project on Climate Agreements, SGRP convened a research workshop on solar geoengineering governance. Workshop participants are now writing briefs soon to be released as an edited volume.
Publications
Latest academic publications
Irvine, Peter J., David W. Keith, and John Moore. “Brief communication: Understanding solar geoengineering’s potential to limit sea level rise requires attention from cryosphere experts.” The Cryosphere 12 (2018): 2501-2513.
Horton, Joshua B., Jesse L. Reynolds, Holly Jean Buck, Daniel Callies, Stefan Schäfer, David W. Keith, and Steve Rayner. “Solar Geoengineering and Democracy.” Global Environmental Politics(2018): 5-24.
Parker, Andy, and Peter Irvine. “The Risk of Termination Shock From Solar Geoengineering.” Earth’s Future 6 (2018): 456-467.
Non-technical publications
Wagner, Gernot, and Martin Weitzman. “A Big-Sky Plan to Cool the Planet.” The Wall Street Journal.
Keith, David, and Ted Parson. “Solar geoengineering: Science fiction – or saviour?” The Globe and Mail.
Keith, David. “Toward a Responsible Solar Geoengineering Research Program.” Issues in Science and Technology.
The Solar Geoengineering Research Blog
The Solar Geoengineering Research (SGR) Blog was launched this fall. While hosted on SGRP’s website, the SGR Blog is independently managed by an editorial board consisting of Holly Buck, Peter Irvine, Ben Kravitz, Andy Parker, and Gernot Wagner, each representing his or her own personal views. See the welcome post for a description of the blog’s mission.
Latest blog posts
Funding for Solar Geoengineering from 2008-2018
By Ella Necheles, Lizzie Burns, and David Keith
Reflections on the IPCC special report on pathways to and impacts of 1.5°C
By Matthias Honegger
Less rain but still wetter and greener?
By Pete Irvine
Designer Climates?
By Ben Kravitz
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