Scientists have proposed using a geoengineering technique known as "marine cloud condensation" to weaken the El Niño phenomenon, which is increasingly feared to reach record levels this year.
El Niño is known as a natural climate phenomenon that occurs in the Pacific Ocean, causing serious and costly global climate disturbances, from floods and droughts to threats to food security.
Studies indicate that a single El Niño event could cost the global economy trillions of dollars. As the effects of climate change intensify, potentially making this phenomenon more frequent and intense, interest is growing in finding ways to mitigate it.
In a computer simulation published in the journal Science Advances, researcher Jessica Wan and her team from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography and the University of Chicago were able to turn a "super El Niño" into a neutral climate state, using a technique that involves injecting microparticles into the atmosphere above the ocean to create brighter clouds that reflect sunlight back into space.
The idea is based on a natural phenomenon that occurred during the 2019-2020 Australian bushfires, where studies proved that the smoke rising from those fires contributed to illuminating the clouds over the Pacific Ocean, which led to the prolongation of the La Niña phenomenon, the opposite of El Niño, between 2020 and 2023.
After validating the model, the team simulated the application of the technique to two strong El Niño events in 1997-1998 and 2015-2016, varying the timing and extent of the intervention.
The results showed that cloud intensification, especially when applied from June to February, was able to dramatically weaken this "super El Niño" and return it to a neutral state.
However, the researchers acknowledge that the findings are still only in the "proof of concept" stage, and that there are significant hurdles before any actual application. Intervention could accelerate the occurrence of subsequent La Niña events, potentially leading to unforeseen climate consequences, such as changes in global climate patterns or long-term impacts on heat and carbon exchange between the ocean and atmosphere.
Despite these challenges, and with a strong El Niño season approaching, the study opens a window of hope for a future in which scientists may be able to avoid the worst effects of this destructive climate phenomenon, but there is still a long way to go before a practical and safe solution is reached.
