Stopping geoengineering, by accident

What this episode covers

Host Shayle Khan interviews Dr. Dan Visioni, a climate scientist at Cornell University, about the unintended climate consequences of the International Maritime Organization's 2020 regulations on shipping emissions. They discuss how reducing sulfur dioxide emissions, intended to improve air quality, inadvertently reduced marine cloud brightening, leading to a measurable increase in radiative forcing and ocean warming, particularly in the North Atlantic. Visioni explains that this 'accidental experiment' provides critical data on aerosol-cloud interactions and helps define the scale of permissible geoengineering experiments that could inform future climate intervention strategies without causing severe regional disruptions.