Solar radiation management (SRM) projects (proposed and theoretical) are a type of
climate engineering which seek to reflect sunlight and thus reduce
global warming. Proposed examples include the creation of
stratospheric sulfate aerosols. Their principal advantages as an approach to climate engineering is the speed with which they can be deployed and become fully active, their potential low financial cost, and the reversibility of their direct climatic effects. Solar radiation management projects could, for example, be used as a temporary response while levels of greenhouse gases can be brought under control by greenhouse gas remediation techniques. They would not reduce
greenhouse gas concentrations in the
atmosphere, and thus do not address problems such as
ocean acidification caused by excess
carbon dioxide (CO
2). By comparison, other climate engineering techniques based on
greenhouse gas remediation, such as ocean
iron fertilization, need to
sequester the anthropogenic carbon excess before any reversal of global warming would occur.