Gravitationally bound geoengineering dust shade at the inner Lagrange point

Bewick, Russell and Sanchez Cuartielles, Joan-Pau and McInnes, Colin (2012) Gravitationally bound geoengineering dust shade at the inner Lagrange point. Advances in Space Research, 50 (10). pp. 1405-1410. ISSN 0273-1177

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Abstract

This paper presents a novel method of space-based geoengineering which uses the mass of a captured near Earth asteroid to gravitationally anchor a cloud of unprocessed dust in the vicinity of the L1 position to reduce the level of solar insolation at Earth. It has subsequently been shown that a cloud contained within the zero-velocity curve of the largest near Earth asteroid, Ganymed, can lead to an insolation reduction of 6.58% on Earth, which is significantly larger than the 1.7% required to offset a 2C increase in mean global temperature. The masses of the next largest near Earth asteroids are found to be too small to achieve the required level of insolation reduction, however, they are significant enough to be used as part of a portfolio of geoengineering schemes.

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