Workshop on Ecosystem Impacts of Geoengineering in San Diego, CA; Jan. 31 - Feb. 2, 2011

University Of California-San Diego Scripps Inst Of Oceanography, La Jolla CA

Investigators

Abstract

This grant provides funds to support a workshop on the potential impacts of geoengineering on aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems. Geoengineering refers to techniques proposed to counteract the global warming produced by anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases. For example, a commonly discussed "solar radiation management" technique involves the injection of reflective aerosols into the stratosphere to cool the earth. Many proposed geoengineering schemes may have important and unexplored consequences to the ecosystems that populate our planet. These consequences result from intentional and unintentional changes to regional climates in ways that affect sensitive species. However, the geoengineering-research and ecosystem-research communities have only minor overlaps, and it would benefit each community, as well as society at large, to strengthen research interactions by involving ecosystem experts in predicting the potential hazards of geoengineering schemes. This workshop brings the two communities together to address four objectives: (1) to build connections between the ecosystem research and geoengineering-research communities, (2) to evaluate scientific uncertainties that affect the potential impacts of geoengineering on ecosystems, (3) to expose ecosystem researchers to current geoengineering research, and (4) to generate feedback for geoengineering researchers on potential ecosystem hazards of geoengineering. The first day of the workshop will be devoted to public lectures, and the remaining two days will be used to write a synthesis report on the topic of ecosystem impacts of geoengineering. The synthesis report will be presented to the International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme (IGBP), which is providing partial support for the workshop. The scientific intellectual merit and broader impacts of the workshop are closely connected. Scientifically, geoengineering poses a challenge to our understanding of the climate system and the global ecosystem. On a practical level,geoengineering has been proposed as a response to the threat posed by global warming, and a better understanding of the consequences of geoengineering would be a valuable input to decision makers considering the implementation of geoengineering schemes.