Cancellation for field study in climate-change project
A field study for a geoengineering project aiming to mitigate the effects of climate change has been cancelled.
The £1.6m Stratospheric Particle Injection for Climate Engineering (SPICE) project involves pumping sulphur into the atmosphere through a 20km pipe in a bid to refract light and cool the earth.
As part of a field trial for SPICE, engineers were planning to look at the effects of wind on a tethered balloon at a height of 1km while at the same time pumping water at a rate of 100kg/hour.
‘It is with some regret that… the SPICE team has announced we’ve decided to call off the outdoor “1km testbed” experiment that was scheduled for later this year,’ said lead scientist on the SPICE project, Dr Matt Watson from Bristol University.
The plan was to use the data obtained from these tests in computer models aimed at examining how a full-scale tethered balloon would behave in high winds at altitudes of 20km.
Watson explained that the reasons for the cancellation were complex but said they were related to governance, intellectual property and public engagement.
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