Scientists Consider Sprinkling Diamond Dust Onto the Sky to Postpone Climate Change- But There’s a Catch

How amazing would it be if a sprinkle of fairy dust solved the global climate crisis? Well, scientists have come closer to that idea as they theorize the potential of a type of sparkly dust to cool the planet and delay an irreversible tipping point with climate change. But there are two things to consider– neither is it a mythical substance nor will only a sprinkle of it do the work. New research indicated that shooting 5.5 million tons of diamond dust into the stratosphere annually could potentially cool the planet by 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit (1 degree Celsius), per the paper published in the journal IOP Science. 

Study co-author Sandro Vattioni suggested that this geoengineering approach could “buy us some time” with global warming and climate change. However, it remains a “controversial topic” because of the unprecedented consequences this project could spur on into Earth’s atmosphere. The theoretical temperature attained after the cooling project was calculated based on the diamond’s reflective properties and is expected to limit global warming that kickstarted following the Industrial Revolution in the second half of the 19th century. The global temperature has now increased by 2.45 degrees Fahrenheit (1.36 degrees Celsius), per NASA. 

The primary motive is to reduce the amount of energy from the sun reaching the Earth’s surface and battle climate change by fostering a colder temperature on the planet. Though ambitious, the Stratospheric aerosol injection (SAI) could potentially unleash unknown consequences that further risk environmental damage. Hence, a fair share of researchers are skeptical about using this method to tackle global warming. “There are many scientists who want to forbid doing research — even research — on the topic,” says Vattioni, a researcher in experimental atmospheric physics at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich (ETH Zurich), per Live Science. 

Mining for the appropriate mineral, researchers discovered through a modeling study that diamond particles would not cause stratospheric warming or any other environmental disruptions because the gem’s dust is super reflective and does not clump together like other particles, thus, returning most of the heat to the space. Aluminum and calcite particles were also compared with the cooling efficiency of diamonds in a study published in the journal Environmental Research: Climate. The gem was considered the ideal material for stratospheric injection but with questions on its feasibility. "We just looked at diamonds and we didn't think about costs or how these particles could be mined," Vattioni revealed. 

However, the bill for the ambitious SAI project with diamond particles from 2035 to 2100 was estimated to be a whopping $175 trillion, according to a 2020 study. Whereas, calcite, aluminum, and sulfur dioxide would range around $18 billion per year. "In this respect, calcite particles might be a better option," the researcher speculated. More so, calcite is abundant in the environment as it is a major component of limestone. Interestingly, the SAI was hardly a novel idea as scientists took inspiration from volcanoes to devise to cooling effect. Volcanoes eject huge clouds of sulfur dioxide following an eruption that gets converted into sulfuric acid in the stratosphere where condensation occurs. The fine sulfate aerosols then reflect sunlight into space and impart a cooling effect in the area.