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Indeed. The amount of photosynthesis going on is proportional to inbound sunlight. So you might be able to reduce the temperature of the planet in this way but
by javajosh 4y ago
Indeed. The amount of photosynthesis going on is proportional to inbound sunlight. So you might be able to reduce the temperature of the planet in this way but you will also reduce the amount of photosynthesis happening.
- UncleOxidant 4y agoAnd with less photosynthesis happening, less CO2 is being absorbed from the atmosphere.
- Melatonic 4y agoDepends where you reduce it though. Theres not a ton of photosynthesis happening in the middle of the REALLY brutal deserts and reducing some sunlight would also reduce the heat and maybe increase plant life and photosynthesis. Thats assuming you can control it that granularly though.
- guelo 4y agoA shield at Langrangian L1 can't be very selective, it would basically shade the whole planet.
- manmal 4y agoIf the bubbles can be coated, then the filtered spectrum can be influenced. Eg if 20-300Thz is filtered out, then we only lose heat that’s probably not really useful to plants.
- javajosh 4y agoYes, this would be ideal (although I've rarely seen light measured like that - isn't wavelength almost always used?) If you could have a bandpass filter allowing in ~400-700nm light that would be kind of awesome - definitely a have-your-cake-and-eat-it-too moment. (of course with our luck there will be some process we need that we don't know about that requires the rest of the spectrum too)
- s1artibartfast 4y agoIs it? This assumes the the vast majority of plant growth is limited by sunlight, not nutrients, water, or anything else.