Faulty reasoning signals

• Negativity Bias - 17.4%
• Pessimism Bias - 14.5%
• Post Hoc (False Cause) - 12.6%

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Jessica Wan/Univ. of Chicago

All of the injections made the simulated El Niños weaker than the actual events . But how much weaker depended on the timing, the team found. For the 2015–2016 event, for example, injecting particles from June through the following February led to the strongest cooling. But starting those injections in December — essentially at the 11th hour — led to the least cooling. That’s probably because by that time, the El Niño dynamics are well under way and any cooling is more localized, the team suggests.

Using MCB to directly target large El Niños “is really interesting and very new,” says Daniele Visioni, a climate scientist at Cornell University not involved in the study. And “the fact that it looks like this could work is a really good indication that it is something worth thinking about.”

Earth officially entered its most recent El Niño phase in June. Computer simulations of current conditions in the Pacific suggest that it has the potential to be a “super El Niño.” MCB isn’t anywhere close to being on the menu to mitigate this year’s El Niño, Wan says — there are big hurdles, including engineering constraints and sociological barriers, such as who should determine whether these interventions are worth any possible negative climate consequences.

Many researchers remain leery about tinkering with the climate. “There are many, many unanswered questions and uncertainties as to the viability of MCB,” says James Haywood, a climate scientist at the University of Exeter in England not involved in the new study. Previous research by Haywood and his colleagues simulating the effects of MCB found that cooling the eastern Pacific might produce a “mega La Niña” many times stronger than previously seen, he says.

La Niña is generally thought of as the gentler sibling — on the whole, it brings cooler temperatures and milder weather events. “But the impacts of both El Niño and La Niña are heterogeneous” around the planet, and not everyone suffers or benefits from either, Wan says.

Visioni notes that “this is in no way the final answer…. But it’s important to have these kinds of studies that keep the door open. Considering that large El Niños produce a lot of damages, I think asking the question is worth it.”

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