On geoengineering with sulphate aerosols in the tropical upper troposphere and lower stratosphere

Abstract

This paper is in response to the Editorial Essay by Crutzen and the Editorial Comment by Cicerone in the August 2006 issue of Climatic Change. We reprise the evidence from atmospheric nuclear weapon testing in the 1950s and 1960s which is salient to the mooted maintenance of an artificial sulphate aerosol layer in the lower stratosphere, including a hitherto and now posthumous unpublished analysis of the 185W Hardtack data. We also review recent investigations by ourselves, which have considerable bearing on some relevant questions concerning meteorological dynamics, aerosol chemistry and physics and the photodissociation of stratospheric sulphuric acid. © 2008 Springer Science+Business Media B.V.