Scientists' plan to halt rare El Niño heatwave may trigger something unstoppable - The Mirror US

Scientists have revealed a controversial plan to stop a Super El Niño, but once it happens, it could trigger something unstoppable. An El Niño is expected to impact global weather through 2027, with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announcing that the Pacific Ocean is ready for one. They said there was a 63% chance that temperatures would exceed 35°F, putting the world in a "super" El Niño situation . This could set off natural climate events with devastating consequences, including torrential downpours, droughts, and more. To tackle the looming threat of temperatures soaring until next year, scientists have been considering a new strategy. It comes after the 10 US cities that will be impacted the most by climate change were revealed - with shock results. A study led by scientists at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography has put forth a potential solution to the issue — a controversial technique called geoengineering that could stop the heat, but trigger a La Niña. James Haywood, a professor of atmospheric sciences at the University of Exeter, told CNN there are "many, many unanswered questions and uncertainties as to the viability of marine cloud brightening" and its ability to cool down the temperatures. Haywood explained that there are questions about the size and number of particles needed. Click here to follow the Mirror US on Google News to stay up to date with all the latest news, sports and entertainment stories. "Then there is the question of what if we overdo it?" he asked, speculating there could be a risk of sparking a mega La Niña "many, many times stronger than we’ve experienced before." "We are a long way away from being able to deploy such technologies and knowing whether they would work as intended," he said. An El Niño, which sees temperatures rise, would have the opposite effect, producing rapid cooling that could trigger droughts, rains, and flooding. The scientists focused on a phenomenon known as "marine cloud brightening," in which clouds are sprayed with particles to reflect sunlight back into space rather than toward Earth. However, fears of "disastrous unintended consequences" prevented them from concluding that the benefits outweighed the costs, and instead they turned to a "natural experiment." To do this, they isolated the cloud-brightening impacts of the Australian fires and used climate models to simulate a similar event before the 1997 and 2015 El Niño events. While this did confirm that it would weaken the El Niño's impacts and lead to cooler temperatures, it could be a disaster if it were followed by "termination shock." This is when there is a rapid rise in temperatures that begins as soon as the cooling stops. This could lead scientists to constantly deploy cloud-brightening techniques to counter the resulting shock; however, this is just a theory.