Heist movies rarely deal with climate change, and for good reason. No one wants to hear the voice from the backseat of George Clooney driving down the highway in a dump truck full of stolen diamonds: “Hey, let’s crush these shiny puppies into dust and scatter them into the stratosphere to cool the planet.”

A research team led by climatologist Sandro Wattioni of ETH Zurich in Switzerland calculated which materials would be best suited for the stratospheric aerosol injection (SAI) method of global cooling and came up with several hundred trillion dollars. diamond nanoparticles should work.

Before you start searching for the wisecracking safecracker, the silent crook and the cunning femme fatale, no one is suggesting that the IAC is the best way to avoid the impending climate catastrophe. Safer, much cheaper options, such as not burning fossil fuels, are not yet on the table.

Still, exercises like this workout are worth rolling up your sleeves for a variety of reasons. They can actually help us avoid the worst-case scenario or show us how to avoid a costly mistake. Potentially, they could even evolve into research into the atmospheres of exotic exoplanets far from Earth.

For decades, scientists have wondered whether filling the atmosphere with reflective particles could cast enough shadows to offset the warming effects of excess greenhouse gases.

Of all the options, sulfur dioxide (SO₂) has received significant attention because its dominant presence in the long history of volcanic emissions has provided researchers with a wealth of natural experiments.

Although releasing tens of millions of tons of the gas into the atmosphere will lower the average global temperature by a few degrees, we may not like the side effects. Ozone depletion, stratospheric warming, and the return of acid rain are just some of the potential consequences we need to consider.

Now Vattioni and his team argue that the physical properties of sulfur particles may make them a poor choice for reflective material. The researchers incorporated the motions, thermodynamics, and chemistry of seven hypothetical aerosols into climate models, evaluating the suitability of the candidates in terms of heat absorption, reactivity, and reflectivity.

One important factor that is often overlooked, according to the researchers, is the tendency of particles to stick together or settle when suspended in a liquid such as the atmosphere. Particles that collapse too quickly may be ineffective at scattering enough sunlight to adequately cool the planet. Those that stick together too easily can trap heat, heating the stratosphere in ways that alter airflow or its ability to retain moisture.

With a choice of two different types of titanium dioxide—alumina, calcite, diamond, silicon carbide, and sulfur dioxide—you can’t do better than injecting 5 million tons of 150-nanometer glowing particles into the sky to provide adequate cooling.

Not only does each diamond particle stay in the air long enough to do its job, but it also doesn’t stick together and react to produce toxic substances like acid rain. As far as sulfur particles go, the only material that fared worse was a type of titanium dioxide called rutile, which failed to provide any cooling benefits.

The only thing SO has₂is the cost. At around $250 per megaton of sulfur-based aerosol, it’s a much cheaper option than $600,000 per megaton of diamond dust, especially if the total quickly rises to tens or even hundreds of trillions.

Given the problems in applying laboratory measurements and computer models to real conditions, the study’s predictions are far from guaranteed. On the contrary, the results confirm how far we are from applying SAI as a solution to global warming. That leaves one more seat in the George Clooney van for a femme fatale with a penchant for tiny diamonds. This study was published on: Geophysical Research Letters.