Briefly, it is a change to the atmosphere or to the planet surface, to enhance the reflectivity to sunlight. So that a small proportion of solar light and heat is reflected back into space, rather than absorbed by our planet.

It is not really the ideal solution to global heating. But it may well be our least bad option right now.

There are suggestions to put large reflectors in space, but at the moment this seems not to be a practical approach.

Within the atmosphere, we can introduce reflective particles, aerosols. This would be most effective if deployed in the stratosphere, and is called “Stratospheric Aerosol Injection”. Nature does this already: large volcanoes push significant tonnages of small particles into the atmosphere. It has been known for centuries that this is very effective to cool the planet.

Another approach which urgently must be deployed is “Marine Cloud Brightening”. The oceans are highly absorbant of solar heat, when there are no clouds, but absorb far less when there are clouds. By spraying a very fine mist of salt water droplets over the oceans, these can seed the formation of clouds.

Other approaches that need significant funding include: painting of roofs of buildings, and other surfaces with special reflective white paint. The spectral response of this paint is such that it reflects heat into space, and thus cools the surface. If painted onto buildings, this significantly cools them. And so there is much less use of air conditioners.

Other approaches will be investigated and hopefully funded too.

If you are interested in potentially funding such worthwhile projects, please make contact with us. And we will inform you when suitable projects request funding, and put you into contact with them.