Global warming and gold dust?

Question

A recent proposal has been debunked by the University of Bristol in the United Kingdom concerning the use of mirrors to reflect the amount of sunlight that enters our atomosphere.

http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2008/07/07/sunshade-warming.html

I read websites that stated that the Planet X "beings" use gold dust to stabilize their atomosphere. They did this because their atomosphere was being bombarded by the sun.

I'm not debating if Planet X is real or not. My question is will that actually work? Is that a theory that can be explored to solve our global warming issue? The University of Bristol seems to suggest if we reduce the amount of heat entering the atomostphere will slow down the global warming.

So basically, WOULD or COULD the gold dust theory work?

Answer 1

Why would anyone even WANT to stop global warming?

Answer 2

Any particles small enough to stay in suspension in the atmosphere for any length of time would be too small to serve as reflectors, so any sort of dust would have the same effect. Gold, being very dense, wouldn't stay up very long and so would be among the least suitable materials. So no, the gold dust story is no more believable than the rest of the Planet X   fairy tales.

The ideas that I have seen for blocking sunlight involve orbiting small plates of polished metal above the atmosphere. Aluminum would be a far more practical material than gold, and its reflectivity is almost as high. It seems like there would be a lot of undesirable side effects, though, such as interfering with satellite communications and creating a major hazard for all forms of space traffic.

Answer 3

One scientist studied the effect of the reflection of light from (believe it or not) the vapor trails of commercial airplanes. He used the no fly period of time after 9/11 to generate some data. I believe it was a Nova episode.

He concluded that vapor trails do make a large difference in solar heating. His biggest concusion is that global warming is much worse than we thought.

If we could start reflecting light, it would make a big difference. I'm not sure that I'd be willing to spread my gold dust into the atmosphere.

Answer 4

It sure beats the volcanic ash theory "injecting material into the atmosphere similarly to what occurs during some large volcanic eruptions"

Answer 5

Yeah but, it would have to be outside of our atmosphere.  In space.

Answer 6

I would think that there are better and cheaper reflectors of sunlight than gold.  Aluminum, for example.