What could possibly go wrong?

U.K. to Fund ‘Small-Scale’ Outdoor Geoengineering Tests

A British science agency will provide 57 million pounds, or about $75 million, for researchers to examine ideas for artificially cooling the planet — including outdoor experiments to determine whether any of those ideas could actually work.

The announcement, by the Advanced Research and Invention Agency, or ARIA, is among the largest single infusions of money to date toward research into “solar geoengineering”: the notion of injecting particles into the air to deflect some of the sun’s radiation back into space with the goal of reducing the Earth’s temperature.

The government initiative is focused on testing several types of solar geoengineering. Those approaches could include injecting aerosols, such as sulfur dioxide, into the stratosphere or shooting sea-salt aerosols into low-lying marine clouds to reflect more sunlight away from the Earth.

Frank Keutsch, a geoengineering researcher at Harvard, said that as far as he knew, it was the first time that a government has called for proposals for outdoor experiments.

So, what happens if they test these, and actually mess up the climate? Because it is primarily driven by water vapor and the big nuclear furnace at the center of the solar system. But, hey, it’s a wonderful way to burn taxpayer money for usually no results.