Artificial cooling of the atmosphere—A discussion on the environmental effects

This article presents a literature review to discuss some new technological options for climate change mitigation called as Geoengineering and the environmental impacts related to aerosol emissions. Some proposals to produce a cooler effect in the Earth surface at short term are defending the injection of a large quantity of aerosol particles in the stratosphere like a “virtual Pinatubo”. In 15 June 1991 a volcanic eruption of the Pinatubo Mount in Philippines resulted in around −0.5 °C variation in Earth surface temperature in 1992 and only in 1995 the temperature returned back to the former one. Several important environmental issues arise from this kind of mitigation proposal. Some of the topics which may be considered relevant in such analysis are: the level of acceptable risk of this kind of technological option for the human and the environment as a whole; the foreseen linear and non-linear impacts resultant from the artificial cooling effect in the Earth surface; the feasibility and cost-effectiveness of this kind of proposals. The environmental problems associated to aerosols injections into the stratosphere are the main topic discussed in the present article.